Tim's Tales from the Road
Tim's Tales from the Road
Seattle is in a daze. A sense of shock has settled on everyone. Gazing at one another with a troubling yet undefined "stirring", we sense that something different is in the air. Our hunch isn't specific, but its there just the same. Try as we might, we can't quite put our fingers on this new change. Locals, recognizing that things aren't quite right among other natives, give our reasons. It's the rain. Or the February gray. But we also know that this year something is different. Something has changed. Something unsettling is in the wind. We are trying to put the best possible light on this new reality while hoping to avoid giving it any further definition. Better to leave things vague then have to take them back later.
Outside observers used to point to Seattle as an example of how things "could be". Now we, who call this place home, are trying to grapple with just how the last few months came to be.
I am among them.
Although it is no secret that I am not exactly fond of the impersonal "hugeness" of urban living, I must admit that Northwest cities are easier on these sensibilities than many of the other population centers of the nation. Having a "love-hate" relationship with Seattle, I've lived in the Emerald City off and on through out my life. For the last two years while completing my degree, I worked in Seattle and commuted a thousand miles home to the ranch every other weekend. The resulting prolonged exposure created a grudging sense of appreciation for this area. Marking time in other places I believe would have been far worse.
Seattle with her rainy winters and splendid summers, her near endless coffee bars, neon lit wet streets and 18 hours of summer daylight produces a unique culture and a hands off approach to the trivialities of the rest of the world. In spite of being one of the most innovative localities in the world, we do not handle recognition well. We liked our undiscovered charm and we were content to acknowledge to visitors that it really does rain 390 days a year hoping their visit might be cut short.
In this semi oceanfront cities "Not making waves" is a DNA linked quality. Joy is usually an emotion embarrassingly excused for its uncontrolled excesses. Instead, we maintain a friendly, status quo rein on our successes. At the same time, we avoid discussion of failure altogether. It is very safe Scandinavian approach.
That was before the WTO (World Trade Organization) came to town. And before Alaska Flight 261 corkscrewed upside down into the pacific. These difficult to fathom events, occurring so close together in the same place, would leave a deep scar anyplace, anywhere.
But this is Seattle. We are innocent and naïve. Our calamities usually involve Mother Nature. Loss of life, destruction of property, and natural disasters are events we are well acquainted with. After all, this is the land of the most powerful North American windstorm ever recorded. A region where mountains blow their tops, where tidal waves come ashore without warning, and where world record snows fall with their accompanying avalanches covering skiers, interstate highways, and whole trains. We are used to unexpectedly burying people we love, digging out from the forces of unforeseen tragedy, and putting things back together again. But usually these events came from unexplained, supernatural places.
WTO and to a lessor extent flight 261 were our own doing.
In late November and early December, Seattle hosted the WTO. Dignitaries and trade representatives from all over the globe arrived in Seattle to civilize the worlds of trade and establish the vocabulary if not the language of multinational cooperation. As the delegates arrived, the world kept its usual time, content to bask in ignorance regarding the high stakes and subtle change blowing in the winds of trade.
WTO? What is that? Never heard of it…Does it lower your cholesterol?
Forty-eight hours later, as most of the world looked on, their jaws on the floor, our fair city exploded all over the front pages of the world's newspapers. Imaginations leapt franticly to unravel the bizarre dialogue that took place in the most polite city in North America.
Had Seattle gone mad?
Everything that week involved the unimaginable. Outgunned multinational corporations found themselves not only out numbered but powerless in what was originally billed as a friendly hometown crowd. It was a slam-dunk. Or so the supporters of WTO thought.
Washington's status leading the nation's trade exports became a mute point. Pitted against labor, environmentalists and agricultural concerns while colliding in a freak, unified super-cell thunderstorm of protest, the WTO agenda derailed. Much to the cheers of the various protestors.
Commonality emerged from many unassociated fronts in solidarity against the WTO. Producing appalled shock from the WTO organizers, the less than friendly Seattle reception was challenging to explain to the visiting leaders. Many of them, hailing from more repressed countries, expected a Starbucks-sponsored culture of caffienated rollovers instead of what they encountered on the streets; rolled over and burning vehicles and dumpsters.
As an unexpected "buy two, get one free" bonus, the "anti-welcome wagon" also arrived. A Eugene Oregon group known as the Anarchists appeared on the scene and all hell broke loose. While the spin-doctors futilely tried to get a lead handle on the dialogue, the World's conscience seemed struck by the passion of the Seattle revolt. Never mind that the street theatre occurring outside the grasp of the CEO microphones was mainly the work of non-Seattlites, the effect was the same. Seattle seemed to have an opinion about WTO. The city at long last had something to say and no matter what the spin, the delegates were stalled as the demonstrators kept dismantling their stage props.
During WTO week, nearly a hundred thousand people took to the streets, fled the streets or were beaten on the streets. The fallout was enormous. Damage estimates now approach the tens of millions of dollars. A police chief resigned, a mayor is fighting for his political life, the governor's ties to an embarrassed President Clinton were severed, and the residents of downtown, First Hill and Seattle's eccentric Capital Hill neighborhood waged a few counter demonstrations of their own.
Especially hard-hit was the predominantly gay Capital Hill neighborhood. Thousands of neighbors found themselves under police assault after the cops chased the anarchists into their neighborhood. Ordinary citizens of the typically understated, unemotional, "kill them with kindness" city, found themselves tear gassed, pepper-sprayed, and rubber bulleted in their cars, arrested at the grocery store, and beaten off the crosswalks. All for a party that they were excluded from. By the time the tear gas and pepper spray settled, the citizens of Seattle were unsettled and fighting mad. Pissed at the leadership of the city that brought this scourge among them, a counter war broke out.
Many here believe that post WTO Seattle will never be the same. Before the residents of this town let go of the week where many of us were held hostage, "Sleepless in Seattle", enormous time, public hearings, and leadership changes are bound to further transform Seattle. Indeed rebuilding will occur. But, most residents will be hard pressed to forget the tear gassings, the pepper spray and the unbelievable damage befalling Seattle.
Collectively, we look for something positive to carry away from the experience of sharing our streets with faceless riot police and the just passing through attitude of the well placed out of town dignitaries.
Something
Anything.
I suppose our saving grace is found in the hard fought truth that America and the World, as a result of the showdown in Seattle, now have an understanding of the WTO. Everyday folks now know that the WTO is not benign, and that someone has to be accountable in the daylight for what is done in secret. The WTO rode into our peaceful little town in the dead of night and luckily, when the dust settled, they were driven right back from where they came. Seattle handled WTO as only the best in the West can do, without loss of life, and in spite of our newly lost innocence we still stood up and said "Not in our town you don't".
In the process, putting on one hell of a show for the world. And through our tear gas, pepper sprayed tears, we did it with a sense of humor. Put perfectly by the Lusty Lady outside their strip club reader board at the end of the week it simply said, "Thanks WTO. It's been a Riot".
Unfortunately our everyday Seattle lives unexplainably upended again on January 31, when Seattle based Alaska Airlines flight 261 plunged from her sunny California skies into the blue waters of the Pacific. IT was just an ordinary flight. Sometimes ordinary flights disappear from the skies. What would it matter in the land of double tall skinny latte's that 88 souls vanished? It's a big WTO world and souls vanish all the time.
Yet this was different.
It was Our little western airline from Our little western town. Flight 261 took with it 50 of our neighbors. Thirty of whom were directly affiliated with the airline that carried them helplessly into the sea. This was not an aircraft filled with strangers. In a very real sense, it was a big part of a bigger community. Our community.
Almost immediately the news of the mishap reached the airline where I work during the evening. The news hit us hard. Many of Alaska Airline's current pilots got their initial start flying commercially with my employer. Moving from here to Horizon, Big Sky, or Sky West Airlines, future Alaska pilots cut their flying teeth on the rugged, turbulent routes we fly. Climbing the ranks of other carriers, onward and upward until they eventually fly the "big boys", their goal is to make the captain's seat of the big jets flown by carriers such as Alaska.
Informing me of the crash, the acting chief pilot seemed somewhat stunned. Staring out the window, with that increasingly recognizable, Seattle, deer in the head lights gaze, he spoke without making eye contact. Certainly this had to be a dream.
The next pilot to show for his assigned flight time announced that his mother might be on the flight. As pilots arrived for their flights, news trickled in. Disbelief followed. We waited. Imagined the unimaginable. We hoped against hope.
Then came confirmation. The pilot's mother was on the next flight. She was spared. Relief.
But, our relief was only temporary. One of my ashen faced pilots lost six friends. Another lost two.
Details emerged recounting the last minutes of the flight. The specifics surrounding the crash turned prayers for survivors into a futile effort. More facts trickled in and flight 261 became greater Seattle's drama as well. Another co-worker informed us that he was supposed to have been on that plane. Had Flight 261 made it to San Francisco, what might have been his outcome?
The phone rang every few hours and my father was called for advice and support. One particular family, long-term members my father's church, became pivotal in the aftermath and contributed to the dreadful process of piecing things together. A devastated childhood friend turned out to be the maintenance engineer who was frantically on the phone with the pilots during its last eleven minutes. His sister, married to an Alaskan Airlines pilot, was a former Miss Washington Titleholder. The next morning the photogenic couple found themselves on The Good Morning America Show and the local network programs. Sitting next to her husband, while the cameras rolled, everyone tried making sense of the senseless.
Seattle became a series of interconnected, human fiber optics as networks and connections were checked and double-checked. Which links were broken? Who had gone silent? Who remained? The World headlines screamed from the corner newsstands, blurring our vision as our innocence once again flamed out of the sky and our public image was carried on live remote updates.
Although the flight 261 tragedy was less than three days old, some pilots were already exhausted from the ordeal of the last few days. The pilots working alongside me quietly carried their heavy emotional baggage and no one talked about "it" after the initial news broke. Newspaper details remained unread, almost as if they were jinxed. Pilots still took to the air, on schedule, but their silence regarding the obvious questions screamed louder than any heart felt words could.
The following afternoon, the impersonal became personal. Images of the smiling faces of fiancées, newlyweds, and retirees graced The Seattle Times. Appearing from recent pasts like the unfinished sentences of highway markers, I read the details of each victim's life. Eyes bright and smiling stared back at me as each obituary gave meaning to the tragic end of so many young lives. Souls viewed up close and personal left a deeply felt sadness. Entire families gone. New loves gone. Old loves gone. Brothers. Sisters. Under -dogs. Champions. All gone.
The image of their faces forever gently held and caressed goodbye, captured on the barely dry newsprint.
Why? It is the question many ask during moments like these.
As I read the paper, I wondered what possible good could I take from so much grief. I did not know anyone on flight 261. But many close to me did. Looking at the pages again, unable to put the newspaper down, I went back to the black and white photos of those faces arranged across the columns. What will rise from this? The answer was immediate.
I couldn't believe I'd missed it.
Actually it was easy to overlook. Scattered and hidden among the pictures and histories of those lives, was a remarkable and moving tribute. I surveyed the pages again, double-checking what I'd read just to make sure. Reassuring myself that once again I was reading correctly.
I was.
In addition to all the other victims, two ordinary couple's lives gazed back at me from the newsprint columns. The pictures of one of the couples, 53 year-old William Knudsen and his significant other, 39 year-old Bradley Long were included. Standing together arms draped over shoulders, handsome and smiling towards their future, they seemed perfectly at place on the page. Normal.
At the prime of their lives the victims these were men who seemed happy. Content with the direction of their paths but more importantly and documented for the world to see, content with each other. Another gay couple was also listed. Craig and Paul Pulanco were not pictured but the quotes attributed to their zest for life and commitment to each other left no doubt in the readers mind that the loss of these two men would also leave gaping holes in the lives of those whom they'd left behind.
Smiling as I took to heart the details of both couples lives, read the quotes of their closest friends, associates and even their pastor, I realized that the Times had paid subtle but great respect towards wonderful lives cut painfully short.
The treatment these men were given was extraordinary in that the paper noted the passing of their lives together in an ordinary and dignified manner. Their names were not separated and listed separately. Their status as couples were honored even in death. No hushed whispers and innuendo's. These Gay relationships and their lives were given the exact accord as everyone else that perished. No more. No less. At par. Equal. Provided the identical respect, sensitivity, and reverence as the other couples who left behind unfinished lives, the paper simply acknowledged the obvious without special headlines and special treatment.
How graceful and fitting that at the dawn of our community's grief over the passing of their lives, those who knew them could mourn outside the darkness of the closet.
It gave me pause to consider. What is going on in Seattle, this change that sets us apart from so many other places? The answer seemed distant but clear. Seattle is questioning. Everything.
What has happened to us? How have we gone from the obscure to the envied to the pitied in such a short time? The richest men in the world are our neighbors but our saddest collection of hearts would be no match for their generosity should it pour forth. Something has happened in Seattle. Something has changed. We've have truly lost our innocence, naivete, and I don't think its something that we can get back. I am not sure we want it back.
For what we have gained, we now have so much more than we have lost.
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