Tuesday, June 1, 2010
I had an appointment to interview Cal Bush at 9 this morning—and I just might have, for once, gotten there a minute early. But it didn’t matter. Cal was sound asleep. I left him a note saying I’d check back later and went to see whether Mike was up. Not only was he up, but he was out.
I dropped my cameras and notebook in my car and found Mike at the pond. Oh boy. I was hoping he’d be there. And since no one else was, we parked ourselves on the tipsy dock and watched the floppy trout jump and splash.
A tiny little plane buzzed overhead, and Mike suggested maybe it was a parachuting trip from nearby Kapowsin Airfield.
Over the months at the Soldiers Home, I have begun to pick up on key words.
"Have you ever parachuted?" I asked Mike. I knew he’d been a pilot, but I’d never suspected he’d jumped out of a plane on purpose.
"Fifty-one times," he told me.
Of course he has. Mike has lived a life filled with adventure. He told me about his first jump, about his wife’s resistance ("Just once, Michael") and about her eventual excitement and pride when she watched him land. On his second jump.
Midway through his story, a huge bird swooped down over the pond, chased by a noisy smaller one. "An eagle!" I shouted like an idiot, as if it were a prehistoric pterodactyl no human had ever seen. The eagle ditched the pesky crow and landed atop "his" tree, the tallest pine by the pond.
Mike loves the eagles. He gladly stopped his story mid-jump, got out his binoculars for a closer look—and then picked up right where he left off.
He talked about rip cords, and stepping out onto the strut of the plane with one leg flying behind you, and the total absence of sound at 12,000 feet.
And I thought: Man, I wish I had my videocamera with me.
But I probably wouldn’t have been as present if I’d been recording, and Mike probably wouldn’t have been as comfortable. So I let it go, sat back and just listened: to Mike, to the bubbles of the pond, to the almost-total absence of sound at 500 feet.
We went back inside after an hour or so to check on Cal. Still out. I sighed and amended my note to say I’d try again another day. And then I let that go, too.
I had an appointment to interview Cal Bush at 9 this morning—and I just might have, for once, gotten there a minute early. But it didn’t matter. Cal was sound asleep. I left him a note saying I’d check back later and went to see whether Mike was up. Not only was he up, but he was out.
I dropped my cameras and notebook in my car and found Mike at the pond. Oh boy. I was hoping he’d be there. And since no one else was, we parked ourselves on the tipsy dock and watched the floppy trout jump and splash.
A tiny little plane buzzed overhead, and Mike suggested maybe it was a parachuting trip from nearby Kapowsin Airfield.
Over the months at the Soldiers Home, I have begun to pick up on key words.
"Have you ever parachuted?" I asked Mike. I knew he’d been a pilot, but I’d never suspected he’d jumped out of a plane on purpose.
"Fifty-one times," he told me.
Of course he has. Mike has lived a life filled with adventure. He told me about his first jump, about his wife’s resistance ("Just once, Michael") and about her eventual excitement and pride when she watched him land. On his second jump.
Midway through his story, a huge bird swooped down over the pond, chased by a noisy smaller one. "An eagle!" I shouted like an idiot, as if it were a prehistoric pterodactyl no human had ever seen. The eagle ditched the pesky crow and landed atop "his" tree, the tallest pine by the pond.
Mike loves the eagles. He gladly stopped his story mid-jump, got out his binoculars for a closer look—and then picked up right where he left off.
He talked about rip cords, and stepping out onto the strut of the plane with one leg flying behind you, and the total absence of sound at 12,000 feet.
And I thought: Man, I wish I had my videocamera with me.
But I probably wouldn’t have been as present if I’d been recording, and Mike probably wouldn’t have been as comfortable. So I let it go, sat back and just listened: to Mike, to the bubbles of the pond, to the almost-total absence of sound at 500 feet.
We went back inside after an hour or so to check on Cal. Still out. I sighed and amended my note to say I’d try again another day. And then I let that go, too.