I write a monthly piece for the Quilcene Community Center Newsletter. Occasionally I post it here. Here’s the latest, with a lot of help from Trish:

                                DESPERATE FOR A GETAWAY? THE OLYMPIC PENINSULA AWAITS

Trish is helping me on this. Since I was desperately late, as usual, in getting my submission ready (and I have a reason, more an excuse, that I will spare you from), I asked my long, long-suffering wife for a topic.

“Spring?” “Yeah, yeah; what about it?”

“Well, how about that there have been three police chases in Jefferson County in the last three weeks, each with speeds over one hundred miles an hour, and your wife and daughter almost got killed during one of them?”

“Yeah, well; maybe.” “I’ll look up everything for you.” “Okay… honey.”

So, I wake up this morning, the last day of February, and there are three newspapers on my chair and a big, long text message on my phone. Now, I had offered to set up a word document on the computer to save Trisha’s fingers, but she declined.

But first, I feel I must explain a Pursuit Intervention technique (PIT) maneuver. First I had to google it, then, to fully understand, Youtube it. Wow! For those without Youtube… wait, you’re reading this on a computer, so… Anyway, the pursuing police vehicle kind of gently nudges one of the sides at the back of the fleeing vehicle, usually causing that vehicle to lose control, but, evidently, this doesn’t mean the desperado actually stops.

I figure you already know about spike strips across the road in front of the getaway car, and, since Trish isn’t really big on my mansplaining stuff, and I just looked up myself… again, sparing you.

So, here’s what I have on my phone:

“3 chases through Jefferson County in 2 weeks.

“FEB 11: afternoon, 2 men were being chased after trying to get forged prescriptions filled in Port Hadlock. Down 19 to 104. ACROSS THE BRIGDE AND FLYING OFF, WITH YOUR DAUGHTER AND WIFE COMING FROM PORT GAMBLE HEADING TO HWY 3. WIFE YELLING AT DRU TO STOP WHEN THE getaway CAR IS HEADING ONTO 3, IN FRONT OF THEM. THEN A WSP CROSSED STRAIGHT AND ALMOST INTO THEM (FROM WHERE HE WAS WAITING FOR THE CROOKS ON THE EDGE OF THE BRIDGE), ANOTHER SCREAM FROM TRISH TO STOP. SPIKE STRIPS FROM KITSAP LAW ENFORCEMENT CAUSED THEM TO GO OFF THE ROAD AND HIT A TREE.

“FEB. 21 AT 2 IN THE MORNING, DRIVER GOING AT SPEEDS OF UP TO 100 MPH BEING CHASED BY JEFF CO. S. O. CAME INTO QUIL FROM DISCOVERY BAY WHERE SPIKE STRIPS HAD BEEN PLACED AT LORDS LAKE ROAD, DRIVER KEPT GOING UNTIL HITTING MORE STRIPS AROUND MP 295. 3 DIFFERENT PIT MANEUVERS. HE CRASHED INTO A YARD, TRIED RUNNING, BUT THE DEPUTIES ARRESTED HIM.

“FEB. 25^TH, MORNING. DRIVER WAS BEING CHASED BY WSP STARTING OUTSIDE OF SEQUIM, GOING EAST ON HWY 101, WHEN HIGH SPEEDS UP TO 100 & RECKLESS DRIVING CAUSED WSP TO TERMINATE THE CHASE. JEFFERSON COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPUTIES PICKED UP THE CHASE UP TO HWY 104 WHERE, A QUARTER MILE UP, STRIPS WERE PLACED. DRIVER’S VEHICLE HAD FLAT TIRES BUT CONTINUED ON WHEN QUILCENE’S HOMEGROWN DEPUTY ADAM NEWMAN AND DEPUTY CORONADO SUCCESSFULLY PERFORMED A PIT MANEUVER AT MILEPOST 7. DRIVER REFUSED TO LEAVE VEHICLE AND DEPUTIES HAD TO BREAK HIS WINDOW TO GET HIM OUT. HE WAS arrested on numerous charges.”

Wow! I mean, whoa! The all caps just added to the excitement; kind of glad Trish switched back at the end; gives the reader a chance to catch his or her (or my) breath. It was, I thought, a nice touch to include Adam Newman. He went all through Quilcene schools with our kids (he was in Sean’s class), and, in the several discussions I’ve had with him (no tickets, yet, from him), I have come to believe he doesn’t seem to mind ticketing or arresting people he knows, “if they do something stupid or illegal,” he loves driving fast, and is familiar and comfortable enough with me to ask a question like, “So, do you just throw paint on the side of your vehicles?” “Sort of.” “Okay then, Big Er.”

Trish and I did chaperone many activities when our kids were in school. There I go again with the mansplaining.

Here’s some more. Skipping it is forgivable:

Trish had to explain the near-death incident at the east end of the Hood Canal Bridge to me several times. Dru was driving from her house in Port Gamble, heading toward Poulsbo. They got to the traffic light. Dru thought she was being pulled over by a WSP vehicle, but it pulled into the merging lane, leaving her first in line at the light. She started to go when her mother yelled for her to stop (like, “STOP!”) because Trish observed the vehicles on the bridge were pulling over as the suspect rig came speeding toward them at high speed. Dru slammed on the breaks. Zoom! The desperado turned right onto Highway 3. So, since the light turned green again, and wanting to be ahead of the bridge traffic, Dru starts going again. “NO!” Breaks slammed again. This time the WSP guy jams in front of them and joins the pursuit. The suspect went off the road somewhere on our side of the Big Valley Road. Trish got to see part of that while Dru, I’m guessing, kept her eyes on the road.

Yeah, Trish told it better- way more exciting.

So, yeah; Spring is coming, I’m scheduled (thanks to Trish and Dru) to get my first inoculation some time this week at a drive-thru dealie in Port Townsend. I’m not really clear on the details; Trish will have to explain it to me when it gets closer. Probably several times.

Stay safe out there.

SO, I did get my first inoculation, yesterday afternoon. Since I didn’t cry, I guess I’m ready for a tattoo. Maybe later.

ON “SWAMIS” NEWS, and I know you care; I’m just trying to get some illustrations together to include with my submission package, and then, off to a publisher and wait… and wait. INCIDENTALLY, I submitted my (our) newsletter piece early Sunday. Trish called me up a bit later in the day, said there was no news from the Community Center folks. “Oh,” I asked, “does that make you a bit… anxious?” “A little.” “Crazy.” “No.” “Well, that’s what it’s like being a writer. You send stuff off, you have no control, you don’t know what’s happening; you have second thoughts, you thinking, ‘oh, maybe I just suck at this,’ and…” “I have to go.”

We got word back the next morning. “Yea, Trish; nice to have a writer in your family.”

MEANWHILE, here’s what we’re working on now (that is I’m working on this, with input from conversations with my surf friends- you might be one of them): ONE, the difference between ‘dismissive’ and ‘deferential;’ TWO, the question of whether or not an awesome ride you got without any witnesses actually counts, or actually even happened; THREE, is it better to burn a surfer you know or one you don’t know? FOUR, should I fucking worry about books centering around or containing a certain amount of surf-related… stuff, probably, even most-likely doggerel, pedestrian, cliche’-ridden crap with stilted dialogue and unrealistic and exaggerated surf sequences and characters that are just… I mean, should I?

No, and yet I do. Crazy. Okay, now I’m thinking about ONE, from above. Do you know a group, the members of which are EVEN MORE dismissive of others than surfers? Yeah, musicians. Yeah, chefs. Yeah… wait, pretty much anyone who is real at what they do, or believe they are real. Yes, there was an incident; and maybe I shouldn’t have said, “Oh, you’re a musician but you can’t perform right now. So, why don’t people just start with what they really do for a living? Example; I’m a house painter, but, in my mind…” That’s when I found out the person I was speaking with was actually a musician and a trustafarian.

None of that craziness, or my reacting to someone saying, “Oh, you’re writing a book. I seems like everyone in Port Townsend is writing a book. Steve (the building maintenance man and another possible trust baby) is writing a book;” with, “Fuck him.” Not nice. AND I did ask Steve about his book. No surfing, but definitely crazy stuff. “Good luck, Steve. Want to hear about my book?”

Dismissive. OH, and since I’ve gone this far, no I didn’t look to see if new guy to a familiar lineup JAMES was already on the wave. Guess I assumed he wasn’t. Sorry, man. OOPS, got into number THREE, from above; but here’s a quote I got from TOM BURNS: “If I don’t know you, I don’t owe you.” Yeah, Tom; that’s the problem; I just know too many real surfers.

REALNESS. Realsurfers keep it real, and no, if no one saw your awesome ride; it doesn’t really count. Except to you. Then, yeah.