Loader Boy

When the cherry-drying season ended in Brewster, Washington, I agreed to stay on as ground crew to help with a big cropdusting job the boss picked up. A customer wanted us to spray 10,000 acres of apple and cherry trees with a nutrient called boron.

With all of the summer pilots gone, there were only three of us left to help Dave, the owner of the joint. First was Dave’s son Danny (who is 49), who’s been working with him all his life. Then we had another helicopter pilot, jack-of-all-trades, great guy named Chris who’s in his 30’s and who happens to live in the area. Chris is a God-send. He’s been a “loader-boy” before and knows the business well.  Finally there was me.

When a cropduster lands, it must be reloaded with product and refueled. Since the plane always flies low, it picks up a bunch of bugs and the windscreen must be cleaned each time. There is a “flagger” on the wing that must also be reloaded. The flagger is a device that shoots off toilet paper-like streamers that land and mark the row the plane just dusted, letting the pilot know where to come back into the field.

ABOVE: Here's our Grumman AgCat spray plane. Yes, it looks and sounds like something from WWII. It's a biplane with a big, honking 600 horsepower radial engine on the front. It can carry an amazing load and do an incredible amount of work in a day.

Between flights, all of these things must be done. It’s not exactly a NASCAR-style pit-stop, but as we get into Fall and the days get shorter we try to keep our ground-time to a minimum. Once the plane is gone out again for another run, there is a big metal hopper that must be reloaded with boron from 2,000-pound sacks. The tank has a chute that sticks out the bottom through which we transfer the boron to the plane.

Here we see our "extend-a-fork" loading a 2,000 pound bag of boron into the ground hopper which is itself held up by another forklift.

Finally, this front shot shows the chute. With the forklift, we raise the whole shebang high enough to position the chute above the plane's hopper. Then we pull that bucket off the bottom of the chute and let the boron drop.

Although there is a lot going on during the ground stops, it can be handled by just one person and the pilot. But the job goes MUCH easier and faster if there are at least two ground guys. Having three is an absolute luxury. And during the course of the job we did have three many times. But also sometimes it was just the boss and me.

I won’t lie: There is a lot going on with a spray job such as this. It can be hard work. There’s a lot of climbing on ladders, and climbing up on the airplane, lifting and carrying this or that. It’s fatiguing for an old guy like me who’s spent his life avoiding exactly this type of work. There is a reason that the job is called “loader-boy” and not “loader-old-guy” for it is really better done by young, strapping, energetic guys with strong backs. Not me, in other words for I am none of those things and my back has the strength of a string of warm Twizzler (or Red Vine if you prefer).

But hey, you do what has to be done and you don’t complain, right? When it was Danny, Chris and me, I was quite happy to let them handle the climbing and heavy-lifting if they chose (and they did). Not that I shirked those responsibilities mind you, but being the oldest of the group does get some slack cut, as it should. I act like one, but I’m not a kid anymore.

By the time the first snow fell we had sprayed about 9,000 acres with boron (which looks very much like white kitty litter). It all went very smoothly (surprisingly smoothly!), which is always good. We didn’t break anything and no blood was spilled. All in all, the boss was quite pleased.

While we were spraying, Fall progressed beautifully. The days never got really cold and/or windy. I thought to myself, “This isn’t so bad!” But then the bottom fell out of the thermometer. And the wind picked up. It got COLD, man. Then the snow came. And once it did, the white boron blended in with the white snow in the orchards making it impossible for the pilot to determine where he’d already sprayed. The flag markers are also white, so they’re no help. So with a little over 1,000 acres to go, we were done.

The spraying was over until Spring when the snow melts, and so it was time for me to go “home.” But I had waited just a teensy bit too long. There was a lot of snow on the ground, AND we were under another winter storm warning. My ride home was a company car with no snow tires. There is no way out of Brewster, Washington that does not involve going over some very high, very snowy passes. I was not looking forward to the start of the trip.

Home

It seems strange; this year I will have spent more time up here in Washington State than in my own home in Florida. Next year looks to be about the same. I've taken on a lot more work than just piloting. It's kind of turned from a cool little summer gig into a full-time job.

I "plan" on leaving Washington in early December, God willing, hopefully before it snows too much at any rate. But there's a lot of work yet to do, so I'll be back up in April of 2017 to prepare for the upcoming cherry-drying season. So that's, like, maybe four months at home in Florida.

But what is "home?" In my case, home is wherever I'm at, I guess. I have no real roots. My boss here keeps tossing out suggestions that I just move to Brewster permanently, and in some ways that makes a lot of sense. But I resist. For one thing I like Florida, especially Pensacola which I consider my home town. I have friends there, not to mention a house (and attic, and two-car garage) full of my crap. I mean, how does one person accumulate SO MUCH CRAP in his lifetime?? Ugh.

But there's more.

This climate up here just does not suit me. I know it sounds crazy - most people would think that this low-humidity, desert-like environment would be would be agreeable. But it's not for me. Maybe it's the dust or something. Maybe it's just too dry - daytime humidity in July is usually in the low teens. My throat is always raw and I have a persistent cough that I can't shake.

One year I rode my motorcycle home. I left Washington fairly early, in August while the weather was still hot. Coming south through Mississippi, just south of Jackson I went through some sort of weather front. All of a sudden the air changed from just "warm" to warm and muggy. I was instantly bathed in that gulf coast high humidity. It felt good. I smiled and immediately thought to myself, "I'm home!" even though there was still 250 miles between me and the house on Southpointe Lane.

Me, I like the humidity of the south, or at least I've grown accustomed to it. It's comfortable. And it doesn't take long at home for my cough to go away and I feel better. So I think the chances of me moving to Washington State permanently are pretty slim.

Don't tell my boss.

The 2016 Cherry Season Wrap-Up

So another Washington State cherry-drying season is in the bag! All our ships are off contract and safely back. Now it’s a matter of getting them all inspected and worked on and then put away for the winter. There are some small items to repair, but no major maintenance to do aside from one engine change on what would have been a spare ship this year. Oh well.

Next year we’ll have, God willing, eleven Sikorsky S-55s, a Bell UH-1B and a Bell 206 available. (We don’t like using the small 206 though because we don’t like messing around with the smaller growers.)

It was a busy, rainy year! I won’t tell you how much our fleet flew, but I will say that by the end of the season our boss was walking around like one of those cartoon characters with big dollar signs where his eyes ought to be. He was happy. Our customers? Not so much. They had to write some pretty big checks. Then again they got off really easy in 2014 and 2015 which were very dry years in which hardly anybody flew.

I did the hiring and firing this year - and yes, there was some of each. It’s tough being an HR person. The job is so stressful. In the first place you agonize over whether you’re hiring the right person for the job. Then, if it turns out that you were wrong, you agonize about letting them go. At least I do.

This year we had one guy who looked really good on paper. But people sometimes “massage” their resumes, and they can fool you into hiring them when you otherwise might not. This particular guy was a really good guy and not a bad pilot… but he just couldn’t get with our program. I gave him more than double the amount of training we usually allot, and he still was struggling. He knew it too. When I pulled up at his quarters to give him the bad news he was already packed. Still, I felt badly.

Another (fairly young, single) pilot met a local girl with whom he struck up a…umm...err…relationship. Thinking that it would not rain overnight, this pilot stayed at her place. Of course it did rain, requiring us to fly at sunrise, which by the way was five a.m. The pilot didn't show up for the launch, and we couldn't get a hold of him. They had to call the Boss out to cover his ship. The pilot finally showed up around nine a.m. He was miffed when I let him go, but he had no one to blame but himself.

I am finally pretty comfortable in the Sikorsky S-55. Even though I have quite a lot of flight time and it’s my sixth season on this particular job, I haven't been super-comfortable in it. Because I usually don’t fly all that much. Whenever I’m with another pilot I try to let them fly as much as possible. Hell, I don’t need to build flight time, but the ones I often fly with usually do.

Still, I felt really good this year. When that aforementioned pilot missed the launch that morning, they called me to come down and fly with the Boss. I was happy that I acquitted myself well…at least…I hope so. I act like I know what I’m doing, which is 50% of making people think you do. Maybe more.

In addition to operating helicopters, my boss is also a cropduster. He mostly utilizes airplanes to do this, but we do have a helicopter set up for spraying. Late in the season we got a contract to drop Boron on 10,000 acres of orchards. For that we'll use a plane...a big plane. Since I'm not an "ag-pilot" (and have no desire to be) this means ol' Bob is going to be a Loader Boy - one of the guys who humps the 50-pound bags of Boron into the hopper of the spray plane. Oh, and I refuel it too and wash the windows. Oh what fun it shall be! Until I throw my back out.

So in the end it was a safe, fun, productive cherry season. And now, if we can get done with this big spray job soon, I might just be back to Florida by Christmas. Fingers crossed!

First Times If Not Fast Times

The first time I went to The SweetRiver Bakery was the very first day I arrived in Brewster back in 2011. It had been an arduous journey on my motorcycle. The last 1,000 miles were rainy and cold, a challenge to even the most stalwart, dedicated motorcyclist, which I’m not. I was tired and wet and, frankly, just happy to be somewhere.

Shortly after parking the bike at our company headquarters which were then at the Brewster Airport, before I even had a chance to unpack, Mikey showed up and hijacked me. “Come on!” he said, ushering me out to his truck. We hightailed it down to the Bakery, which he had been telling me about for the past couple of years that he’d been coming to Brewster.

As soon as we walked in, they greeted Mikey the way the people at Cheers did to Norm on that old t.v. show (i.e. like a celebrity). Before he even said anything they were already making him a large “Carne” (meat lovers) pizza. He introduced me to the employees and I felt warmly accepted simply for being Mikey’s friend. We sat outside…had the place to ourselves since the weather was so dismal. We ate pizza and drank wine until our stomachs were full and we were both good and drunk. It was awesome.

Welcome to Brewster!

And even though it was an otherwise-unremarkable day, it was still a magical experience in that I was with an old friend in a new place, meeting new people, embarking on a new job flying a new (to me) helicopter in an area of the country that was strikingly beautiful in spite of the dreary, low-overcast weather conditions.

I sat there with Mikey, thinking about how strange my life is…how I do all these weird-ass things and how I’m in grave danger of fulfilling my parent’s biggest fear and never growing up. (I get pensive when I drink wine.) It might not have been the most exciting moment of my life, but it definitely was one of the most sublime. It ranks right up there.

Since that fateful day I’ve been to the Bakery countless times. Alex, Donna, Barb and the rest of their crew have become like an extended family.

Last week one of my closest friends, Matt, my partner-in-grime, who I’ve known forever and who’s been on so many adventures with me both in the air and on the ground, came up to Brewster. Of course he wanted to see the sights. Of course we went to The Bakery. And thankfully it was jam-packed.

It might not have been the same kind of experience for Matt as it was for me at first, but hey, at least he got to see what I’ve been writing about for the last six years. The beauty of this area is it’s nothingness. It really is the middle of nowhere. And so places like The Bakery stand out, maybe more than they would in a city like Seattle. Or Atlanta. Or even Pensacola.

But that doesn’t make it any less special.

The Bakery Experience

I write a lot about the fun we have at great places like The SweetRiver Bakery, Smallwood Farms and The Club Sports Bar. And I try not to embellish any of the things that happen. But sometimes visitors will come up to Brewster and they specifically want to see this bakery that I keep blathering on and on about. They want the “bakery experience.”

So we’ll go there…

And sure enough, it’ll be an “off” night. There won’t be a band, there won’t be much of a crowd, and Alex isn’t up there being his usual goofball self and cajoling people into singing karaoke. We’ll sit at one of the outside tables, just chilling and drinking beer, and I can tell that the visitor is, well, less than impressed. The expression on their face is one of, “Ho-hum, so this is it, eh? Meh. I could‘ve had more fun if I‘d stayed home and watched my Chia pet grow.” Sometimes they say that out loud. It is perhaps not the magical, thrill-a-minute, exciting time they expected…that I make it out to be.

Because that’s just life. This is, after all, Brewster, Washington. It’s about as far off the beaten track as you can get. It’s halfway between Middle of Nowhere and Bumphuck, Egypt. There are no…as in zero bars in Brewster. “The” bar (Kodi’s) is six miles downriver in Pateros. In Brewster, there are three restaurants, and they all have “Mexican” in their name. (Although having said that, our McDonalds is fixing to reopen after being closed for two years due to a, ahem, “fire.”)

We go to The Bakery because it's basically the only place around where people can congregate and eat and have a good time. But that doesn’t mean it’s Times Square on New Year’s Eve every weekend. It ain’t Bourbon Street. Sometimes these places are pretty boring. Sometimes we are pretty boring.

And so for every night that somebody gets up and drunkenly karaokes “I’m On A Boat” (Note below) at The Bakery there might be two nights that we’ll just sit around with nothing happening. I like it when things are jumping, but I happen to enjoy the off nights too. And when it’s “lit” (as the kids say), we have an incredibly good time.

But it could go either way.

NOTE: “I’m On A Boat” is a…ahhhh…I guess you could say it’s a parody of a rap/hip-hop song by a couple of white guys. I won't post the video here, but I’ve put a link to the YouTube video. But be warned: it's raunchy - definitely something you don’t want your kids to hear. (And yeah, someone really did karaoke it at the Bakery. It's a long story. And it was perhaps not our finest moment.)

The Cherry Season: 2016

I got back up here to Brewster on May 6th. This year the area had a mild winter and an early spring. Each growing season seems to get earlier and earlier. Normally the contract to which I’m assigned begins around the second week of June and runs for a minimum of 45 days or until all the cherries are picked. This year, the grower put my ship on standby on May 20th. All of the growers in the area were in a panic as well, wanting their ships on contract early. This meant that we were scrambling to have the helicopters ready. So it was kind of hectic from the day I arrived.

I was in charge of hiring and training the new pilots this year. Even that didn't go smoothly. One guy, barely two weeks into his training suddenly left for a better job. That kind of put is in a bind; if he'd told me that he had other hot irons in the fire I probably wouldn't have hired him. Another, an older guy who we thought would be good turned out not to be. I had to let him go.

I've hired and fired a lot of people in the course of my various jobs over the years. Neither part of that process is easy. You agonize over resumes and interviews, never knowing if the people you hire are really going to work out. If they do it’s great! But when they don’t, it’s not easy to let them go. But it must be done.

Things have kind of calmed down now. We've got a bunch of good, mostly new pilots. And we've got the right people in the right places...I think (knock on wood). Which is good because it's been a wet year so far, and we've all been flying a lot. Many growers have already started picking, trying to get their cherries to market before the Big Dog in the area floods the market with his. I imagine that everyone will be done picking a couple of weeks sooner than last year. And then we can relax. So far...so good.

Blue Highways

Yes, yes, I know I’ve been remiss in my blogging duties lately. Mostly it’s because of a lack of things to write about. I used to think that I had something important! to say. Not so much anymore. Not that my life isn’t interesting and fun…to me it is. But we all have lives. The more people I meet…the more lives I get to hear about, the more arrogant I am to think that mine is any more important or special than anyone else’s. For it’s not.

Plus, I seem to have run out of stories. And without stories a blog is…well…pretty boring. “Today, I woke up and…” Zzzzzzz.

I often write about my trips back and forth between Florida and Washington State. This last time I drove up and it was the most uneventful cross-country trip ever. I’d get in the car, set the cruise control for “+9” and just sit back until I ran out of fuel or had to pee, two things I tried hard to get to coincide - not always successfully.

(And I’ve long wondered why gas stations don’t put urinals out at the pumps? And a soda machine. It would be so convenient if I didn’t have to go inside at all. Just defuel while I‘m refueling, grab a cold soda and I‘m off for the next 400 miles.)

Whatever romance Kerouac and H.S. Thompson found on the American road is gone, replaced by an endless, boring ribbon of Interstate highways, where moronic drivers doing the speed limit sanctimoniously guard the left lane as though their ultimate purpose in life depended on not letting dangerous law-breakers pass. I’m often reminded of comedian George Carlin’s insightful routine about drivers: Everybody who’s slower than you is an idiot, and everyone driving faster is a maniac. I’m usually the maniac.

The title of this post refers to a book of the same name by a writer named William Least Heat-Moon. He made a cross-country trip by staying off the Interstates and travelling only on secondary roads, those that are depicted in blue on most maps. It's an epic adventure, one still worth reading if you have not.

Cross-country travel has changed so much in my lifetime. The Interstate highways didn't always go where you needed to be. And the Interstate usually bypassed the town itself. You had to get off and go into the town to get something to eat or fuel up. It took a while, but now virtually every exit on the Interstate has food and fuel and every motel chain imaginable.

The Interstates offer a level of sameness and predictability. You know that the McDonalds at the next exit will have the same Quarter Pounder with Cheese as the last one. There’s comfort in that. It takes the chance out of stopping at a sketchy place with bad food, especially when you’ve got a car full of wife and kids with delicate digestive systems.

It was different in the 1960’s and early ’70s. You’d drive along, looking up ahead for the big, red “DINER” sign. The joke was that a lot of trucks parked outside meant the food was good. Sometimes that worked, sometimes not. On the Interstate, you might not see the sign until you passed the exit - D'OH!

Then the federal government started putting up signs prior to the exit alerting you that there was “Gas, Food and Lodging” ahead. Sometimes they’d add “Phone” back when there weren’t at least four phones in every family car (five if you include GM’s OnStar). Eventually they actually started putting signs up telling you which brands of fuel, which motels and which restaurants were at the next exit. Now, if you don’t see the McDonalds sign you just keep driving until you do. We make our overnight room reservations on the go with Hotels.com.

I’d like to say that I miss the old days…but I don’t. When you have to be 3,000 miles thataway in a couple of days, our modern Interstate system can‘t be beat. If you’re not in such a hurry you can always eschew the big road and take the “blue highways.”

I had driven a company car home from Washington last year. The boss cleverly gave it to me to use, knowing I’d feel compelled to bring it back for one more season. But this year I don’t yet know how I’m getting home. I could fly (but I won’t). Or I could buy a car (or maybe a motorcycle!) and take the long way home.