A Delicate Matter

I am back in Florida, having spent the last 90 days in Washington State drying cherries with helicopters. It’s nice to be back in my own house, sleeping in my own bed, eating my own food and getting back on my usual (ahem) routines. More about that later…

It was a relatively uneventful season…except for one crash that happened on a training flight before I got there. The ship was a write-off but the pilots were okay. The new-hire, an older guy is faking a back injury so he won’t have to fly anymore, I guess. Had I done a better job of researching him, I probably wouldn’t have hired him. But we were really hard-up for pilots this year, and so I took a chance. Next year will probably be worse as there is a real shortage of qualified helicopter pilots out there.

Other than that, we had a pretty good year, flying-wise. No records were set but the boss seemed happy.

The deal the company makes with pilots is this: Housing and food is provided in addition to a daily pay rate. We don’t specify how much food we’ll provide, but I assure prospective employees that nobody ever goes hungry at our outfit. The boss loves to eat, and he really likes it when we all eat together as a group.  So he takes us out a lot.

At the beginning of the season the boss and I go down to Costco in Wenatchee and load up on food for the crew houses that the pilots can prepare themselves. In addition, we all go out to Taco Tuesday, and of course Steak Night at The Club Sports Bar in Okanogan, which we love. Friday or Saturday nights will see us having pizza at The Bakery in Pateros. I usually cook a big meal once or twice a week, and we’ll do a cookout/barbecue as well. Then there are the random breakfasts and lunches at Smallwoods (which we also love). As I said, no one goes hungry.

Every morning I would meet the boss at 0700 for coffee and to discuss what we wanted to accomplish that day. Invariably, he would proffer a piece of pie (apple, naturally – they don’t make pies from the cherries they grow around Brewster). Coffee and pie for breakfast?! Not what anyone would call a good and healthy meal. But it would be impolite and disrespectful to refuse. So I did not. I did, however, decline the two big scoops of vanilla ice cream which the boss usually added to his own pie. 

In the beginning, the boss would get eight slices out of a normal store-bought pie. That morphed into four slices. It got ridiculous. (But if you’ve ever eaten pie from Cyrus O’Leary in Spokane, you’d understand our indulgence. They are AWESOME!)

One upshot of all this overeating was that I ballooned up to 210 pounds. I look and feel awful. It’s going to take some serious dieting and exercise to get back down to 180 pounds…if I even can at my age.

Another effect of our crazy diets in Washington is more…well…awkward to talk about. It’s a delicate matter. I spoke with the other pilots about this and they all concurred. To be blunt: Our poop schedules got all screwed-up. We were all pooping like crazy! Much more often than usual.

I am fortunate that here in Florida, I eat pretty healthy and don’t eat a whole lot. My diet is such that I burn off most of the food I eat during the day…if you know what I mean. I try to keep my total caloric intake down below 1,800, and preferably below 1,500 if I can. This means that there is not a lot of, um, byproduct. Once in the morning, and I’m good for the next 24-hours.

But up in Washington…I didn’t count, but we all must’ve been taking in 3,000 or 4,000 calories a day, maybe more. Just breakfast at Smallwoods alone could account for most of that! Portion control? Hah! Plus, none of us were exercising all that much. Consequently, we all had to adjust to having our days interrupted by inconvenient visits to the bathroom more often than usual.  (I know, I know...first-world problems, eh?)

But as I said, now I am back at home and eating more sensibly. Yes, I can already tell the difference. It’s a giant relief - in more ways than one.

I didn’t really want to go up to Washington this summer, and I don’t want to go back next summer but I think I’m going to have to. (It’s a long story.) Next summer will make a total of ten years that I’ve been going up to Brewster. So we shall see. This year was a lot of fun – we had a really great crew.  It makes it hard to quit. But ten years of doing anything is enough, no?