Notes from Seattle

When even occasional bloggers Adam Gintis and Mike Mott are telling me I need to update, I know I’m long overdue. Apologies to everyone who’s been dropping by and to those I need to email. It’s been a very busy few weeks in the U. P. and Seattle, but now I’m back in Arlington for a while.

I’ve always been afraid that as soon as I went to the West coast I’d like it so much that I’d have to move there. That may be true. I loved Seattle: cool weather, lush vegetation, water everywhere, and, of course, the coffee. Unlike D. C., Seattle also has weird and colorful people roaming the streets. We should transplant a few of them to Georgetown to give the place some character.

Thanks go to the Seattle government for two of the most exciting events of the trip: leaping off of an overpass into Lake Washington and the most intense cab ride I’ve ever had. According to a seminar participant from the area, the overpass was begun a few years ago and then ran out of money. Now it’s a road to nowhere jutting out over the lake that’s found use as the world’s most expensive diving platform. A ten-minute canoe trip from the University of Washington, followed by a hundred-yard barefoot walk across dirt, weeds, and broken glass, then up the graffiti and glass covered overpass is all it took to get to the spot next to the “No Trespassing” sign that my friends and I took as the marker of where it’s safe to jump.

Now is probably a good time to mention that we were all completely sober.

Approaching the edge of the overpass, I peered over to see a seagull fly right below me. Yep, we were pretty high, probably about thirty-five to forty feet above the water. Five of us took the plunge, an exhilarating drop into the warm water below. If you visit Seattle with someone who knows the place, this is a great local adventure to try out.

Surprisingly, the jump was not the most dangerous part of the canoe journey. We were traveling west around sunset on our way back to shore when we heard a foghorn. Looking around we saw a few personal cruisers, but nothing coming our way. A few minutes later we heard it again, this time very near. Then we saw it: a huge freakin’ barge barreling down the channel right toward our tiny boat. It was carrying piles of dirt, so silhouetted against the lowering sun it had blended in with the landscape. We changed course immediately, averting what would have been a very close call.

The cab ride home began with a large, burly taxi driver berating us for hailing his cab. According to him, it is now illegal to hail a cab in Seattle and we had just risked $150 fines for all of us by doing so. This was followed by countless other rants against the Seattle cab system. Two of the girls tried to laugh with him about the situation, eliciting an angry response from the driver about how unfunny this all is.

The stories continued as we sat rather tensely, unsure of how to deal with the guy. Then he paused and asked, “Do I have your permission to illustrate dramatically for a moment?” We gave him permission, wondering how much more dramatic he could possibly get. Suddenly his arm was out the window, banging on the roof with great force. This was to demonstrate how Officer Dalrymple (I don’t remember the real name) pulled him over one night and pounded on his roof with a flashlight, doing significant damage to the car. But, explained the cabbie, he and his lawyer got the last word and put Dalrymple on desk duty in the evidence room until retirement. Good for you, we said.

By this time he’d gotten over our gaffe of hailing his cab and seemed to take a bit of a liking to us. For the second half of the ride he’d shifted to telling us about why he was retiring with disability pay and instead took out his anger on innocent stoplights and skateboarders. Watch out, Seattle skaters. Somewhere in your city is a taxi driver who has plans for you the last night of his job. He’s going run you mother-‘effers over and tell you to ‘effin get a life. And don’t think Officer Dalrymple’s going to save you, because he’s got paperwork to deal with. Skaterboys, say see ya later boys.

So that’s how the ride ended up. By the end I was sympathetic to the man, a hard worker beaten down by the insane regulations of the Seattle government and the abusive arms of its police force. On the other hand, I can’t find any record of laws against hailing cabs in Seattle, so for all I know both the law and Officer Dalrymple are the mere imaginings of a paranoid schizophrenic.

That was one exciting day in Seattle. The rest were good, too, as was the seminar. Now I need to go back in the winter some time to see if I can stand the rain.

Permalink - Share/Save - Comments (4)