We Conquer Buckeye

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We fly down to Buckeye for an airport event and do better than we expected — or hoped.

After our disappoint trip to Lake Havasu City (boy, is that an understatement), I didn’t have high hopes of doing well at any of our helicopter gigs. And then we went to Buckeye.

Buckeye had its second annual Air Fair on Saturday. I was supposed to appear at its first event, which was last April, but two things conspired to make that impossible: first, Tristan took back his helicopter, which I was leasing from him and second, I got a job at the Grand Canyon.

This year, Buckeye’s Airport Manager, Jason Hardison, called me about participating. That should have tipped me off that it would be a good event. When helicopter rides are requested, the event goes well. I went down to Buckeye, chatted with Jason, and checked out the proposed landing zone. Jason told me that the previous year’s event had gone far better than they expected. They’d figured on a few hundred people attending when, in fact, over 1500 had shown up. They thought helicopter rides would be a good activity for attendees. I agreed. As readers of these blogs probably realize by now, I think a helicopter ride is a good activity for anyone. (Unless, of course, they’re in a persistent vegetative state.)

Jason told me to come down to Buckeye by 9:45 AM, which I thought was a little late. Mike would come with me and, for a while, I had trouble finding a second ground crew member. But then I remembered Tom Rubin, who’d recently moved to Wickenburg. Tom runs AeroPhoenix, a pilot supply wholesaler down in Deer Valley. He’s been so busy building his business that he’d drifted away from actually being involved in aviation. I e-mailed him about the event and he agreed to come. He’d never been in a helicopter before, so that alone was a good reason to join us.

It was a good thing that he did come, since Mike would have been overwhelmed by the turnout if he’d been alone.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

We left Wickenburg at 8:30 AM for the half-hour flight to Buckeye. The winds at Wickenburg were dead calm, but as we flew by the summit of Vulture Peak, the wind suddenly picked up, tossing us around a bit as it sometimes does when I fly through a wind shear area. From that point on, we had a crosswind from the east. I didn’t realize how strong it was until we were landing. I’d lined up on the taxiway parallel to runway 17 while an airplane was landing on the runway. The three of us watched the plane struggle to stay lined up with the runway as it descended. First, the left wing dipped dangerously low. Then the plane touched down on the right side of the runway, its nose pointed toward the right. For a moment, we all thought he’d go off the runway. But just as it seemed his right wheel was about to leave pavement, he managed to pull it to the left and recover. Whew! Glad I wasn’t flying a plane.

Our landing was much safer, I came into a hover over the taxiway, then hover taxied to our landing zone in the southwest corner of the ramp, pointed right into the wind (tail toward the runway, of course) and set down. Easy.

The wind was blowing pretty good — at least about 15 knots. And it was blowing straight across the runway. It didn’t look good for the event as a fly in.

But, as we discovered, the event wasn’t a fly in. It was a town event held at the airport. There was a DJ, jumping hut for the kids, fire trucks with demonstrations, and lots of food vendors. Of course, all this was still being set up when we arrived. Jason had provided us with a table and a few chairs and lots of orange cones to clearly mark the boundaries of our landing zone. Tom and I wandered over to the entrance area to put up my two “Helicopter Rides Today” signs.

On the way back to the helicopter, I stopped at a gyroplane on display and chatted with the pilot, who was also the chief flight instructor. Gyros are a cross between an airplane and a helicopter. They can’t hover, but they can take off and land in a remarkably short space. Lift is provided by rotor blades, but there’s no transmission to turn them in flight. Instead, the aircraft is in a constant state of autorotation, with a pusher propeller behind the cockpit and engine to keep a constant forward motion. I’d flown one at Airventure Oshkosh a few years ago and have been toying with the idea of getting my rating. I took the instructor’s card. I’ll probably call him in October when the temperatures start cooling down.

I also talked to the skydiving guys. They were hoping to do some jumps later in the day, when the wind calmed down. They’re based in Buckeye and I’ve often heard them on the radio. “Jumpers away! Do not overfly Buckeye fifteen thousand feet or below.” I told them I wanted to go for a tandem jump to try it, but I didn’t want to get hooked on it. They laughed. I told him I was already hooked on one costly activity; I couldn’t afford another one.

Then we went back to the helicopter to wait.

People started arriving at the event a while later. I took two people for a flight. There was no one waiting after that, so I shut down. Then some more folks came and I took them up. My flights departed from the airport and flew southeast to the town of Buckeye. I’d circle the town and return to the airport. The total flight time was 8 to 10 minutes, but probably closer to 10. The third group of passengers asked for a special flight up into the White Tank Mountains. Since I still wasn’t busy, I took them and Mike charged my usual hourly rate: $395 (which he rounded up to an even $400). We were gone for .4 hours. When I returned, I had a line of people waiting.

The line persisted for the rest of the day. I had to stop for fuel and a bathroom break and lunch around 1 PM. Fuel was a nuisance. Buckeye does not have a fuel truck and they didn’t want me hover-taxing to the fuel island, which was right in the midst of the activities. So we used 5-gallon fuel cans, which I’d brought with me from home. I only had two of them and it took 3 trips to put about 35 gallons of fuel into the helicopter. Then I climbed back on board and continued flying.

The event was scheduled to end at 3 PM, but by 2 PM, the crowd was thinning. But not in my landing zone. I just kept flying, taking three people at a time. For some folks, I altered the flight to take them over their house or a relative’s house. I always made the trip in 10 minutes or less. More than half of my passengers were kids, and Mike gave them all helicopter toys when they got off. He sold a few t-shirts, too. Tom helped him load and unload the passengers and keep folks away from the landing zone when I was there.

It 3 PM, the rest of the vendors and activities had cleared out. I still had a line of people. I finally finished them all at about 4 PM. I was exhausted and low on fuel. Mike and Tom loaded our stuff back into the helicopter and I hover-taxied over to the fuel island, which was now clear. I shut down and let the guys top off the tanks.

I’d put 4.1 hours on the hobbs meter. When we got home and counted the proceeds, I discovered that I’d flown 65 passengers. That was 18 more than my previous big day (47 at Robson’s). The trip had not only been worthwhile, but it had been downright profitable.

I flew home up the Hassayampa River, circling Tom’s house once so he could get pictures of it from the air. Then we landed, shut down, and put the helicopter away. Tom hurried home. Mike and I were too tired to go out for dinner, so it was a hot shower and leftovers for us. Neither of us minded.

I want to thank Jason Hardiman for inviting us to Buckeye for their event. I also want to congratulate him and the town of Buckeye for putting on a great family event. It was a pleasure to participate, and not just because I made some money. I always like taking people for helicopter rides and since more than half of the people I flew had never been in a helicopter before, it was even more fulfilling for me.

A Good Attitude

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I’m happy to be appreciated.

Yarnell Daze is coming up in May. It’s an event that’s been happening just about every spring in Yarnell for the past 30+ years. It includes a parade, art fair, car show, and all kinds of other activities for people of all ages. A lot of fun up in Yarnell, high above the low desert just as the low desert is starting to really heat up.

Years ago, I noticed someone giving helicopter rides as part of the Yarnell Daze festivities. He was flying out of a lot beside the Mountainaire convenience store (Woody’s) in Peeples Valley. I only saw him one year and that’s because I was just driving through on my way home from Prescott.

So I figured I’d call the Yarnell Chamber of Commerce and ask if I could do helicopter rides for them. There was a machine when I called. (There’s always a machine when you call. I don’t think Yarnell’s Chamber of Commerce is very busy.) So I left a message. And so began our game of telephone tag.

Someone from the Chamber called back and said they were thrilled that I’d called. Thrilled. Wow. Can’t help liking that attitude. Her message said their first Yarnell Daze planning meeting was coming up on a Monday in February and could I attend? I checked my calendar and called back. I told the machine I’d be out of town that day (I was going to be at the Grand Canyon doing a mule trip I’d planned eight months in advance). Then I didn’t hear anything for a while.

I called back early this month to see where things stood. I left another message. Someone named Linda called back and left a message for me with a different phone number. I called back and actually spoke to Linda. Their second meeting was March 28. Could I come? I put it on my calendar.

The meeting was at the Buzzard’s Roost, an interesting little cafe on the north end of town. The Buzzard’s Roost was always a funky, kind of junky-looking place that specialized in smoked food — ribs, pulled pork, etc. It was tiny inside — maybe six tables? — and had a few tables outside. Then someone came along and fixed the place up. They enclosed the outside with clean, neat-looking siding, removing the outdoor seating and making the place look….well, normal. Around that time, the bikers stopped coming in and the place looked empty all the time. It had been stripped of character. Then someone must have woken up to the fact that the place’s old funky look was part of its formula for success. They somehow managed to make it look weird and funky again, added more outdoor seating, and parked an old Harley out front. Now it’s the same old place it was but bigger and people stop in for meals again.

I stepped inside, wearing my freshly pressed Flying M Air oxford shirt and feeling a bit out of place. There were people there having breakfast, but no big groups. A woman at the counter looked at me and said, “Yes, this is the meeting.” Her name was Wendy and with her was a man who turned out to be the cook. When he went into the kitchen to get to work, I noticed that he wore a western style holster under his apron with two revolvers tucked inside it. I don’t think they were fake.

Wendy owned the Buzzard’s Roost and was evidently part of the Yarnell Chamber. She was excited that I’d come and excited that I’d be doing helicopter rides. In fact, she told everyone who walked in or called on the phone while I was there that they’d be having helicopter rides at Yarnell Daze. I know she was more excited than I was. We talked about pricing, hours of operation, etc.

Then she asked me if I could be in the parade. She wanted me to hover down the street. Wow. I’ve always wanted to do that. I know I have the skills required. But the downwash would create hurricane-like winds as I passed. It could blow up dust and tiny pebbles. It could get in people’s faces or eyes or damage property on the parade route. I had to say no. But I promised to do a low fly-by during the parade.

Wendy suggested advance ticket sales. A great idea, especially after the farce at Lake Havasu City. I’d know in advance how many people I could expect at a minimum. We’d do advance ticket sales at a slightly lower price, to encourage people to buy before the event. The tickets would have time slots on them, so not everyone would show up at once. She could sell them at the Buzzard’s Roost, which would help her draw people in. All I had to do was create the tickets and a bunch of flyers.

Linda came by and we talked about landing zones. That’s the only thing that bothered me about the gig: the proposed landing zone was all the way out in Peeples Valley, about three miles further up route 89. Not exactly the in-your-face LZ I like to have. The presale tickets would help get people out there, but didn’t they have a better location?

A man having breakfast, who’d already chatted with me about doing aerial photography from the helicopter, suggested a field near “Choo-Choo,” the train museum at the edge of Yarnell. Linda and I scoped it out when we went to check the Peeples Valley LZ. We both agreed it was better. Linda had the job of finding out who owned it and getting their permission to operate there.

That in itself was weird. Most hosts require that I find and get permission for landing zones. Yarnell was doing everything for me.

Want to know something else that was weird? Linda told me they have insurance and I didn’t have to worry about it. Wow. Normally, the big stumbling block for these events is insurance — hosts normally want to make sure I have it and add their names as additional named insureds. It’s become part of my planning ritual for events. So I told Linda that I have insurance, too. I produced the certificate and made her take a copy. I told her that I pay a ton of money for my insurance and I wanted everyone to know I had it. She took it — probably just to be polite.

Yesterday, I had all the tickets and flyers ready to bring to Yarnell. But I don’t get up there too often so I wanted to mail them up. This way, they’d get them right away. So I called Wendy at the Buzzard’s Roost to get her address. They don’t have mail to their physical address in Yarnell. It’s all Post Office boxes. She told me that she appreciated me doing this. As if I were doing her a favor. I told her that it was my pleasure, that Yarnell was a pleasure to work with, and that I hoped I met their expectations.

And I meant it.

It’s nice to see a Chamber of Commerce that actually works hard to ensure the success of its events, one that invites local businesses to participate and makes it easy for them to do their part. A Chamber of Commerce with a positive “can-do” attitude rather than the “why should we do something for you?” attitude I’ve seen all too many times around here. I think I’ll be joining the Yarnell Chamber of Commerce. It’ll be a real pleasure to support such a good organization.

Now if only all of my helicopter ride hosts were as pleasant and accommodating as Yarnell.

Give Blood

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I leave a pint of “Power Red” at the Wickenburg Community Center’s blood drive.

I started giving blood when I was 17. I was in college and there was a blood drive and I decided to do my part. I was pretty dopey about it, though. After school, I came home, had soup for dinner, and went out drinking with my friends. (No, the drinking age in New York wasn’t 17 back then.) I got unbelievably sick and learned a valuable lesson: no giving blood and drinking.

Now, of course, they tell you not to drink alcohol. Duh.

I gave blood pretty regularly for the next 10 years. It was always convenient: blood drives at school, blood drives at work. When I worked for the City of New York, if I gave blood at the office blood drive, I’d get a half day off. I was all over that.

By the time I was 25, I’d probably given about a gallon of the stuff, making me what they called (back then, anyway) a “galloneer.” Cool.

I give blood, in part, because when I was born my mother lost a lot of blood and needed transfusions. Someone else had given blood so she could live. I thought I should return the favor.

My mother, of course, was the same way about giving blood. She claimed it was like getting an oil change.

Nowadays, there seems to be more accuracy to that comparison than she’d believe. I’m talking about “power red.”

But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself here.

Wickenburg often has blood drives, but for one reason or another, it’s not always convenient for me to join in the fun. I usually just forget. “Oh yes,” my mind says when it reads the sign, “there’s a blood drive on Tuesday. I should go.” But on Tuesday, without the sign in front of my face, I simply forget about it.

Yesterday, however, was tougher to forget. The blood drive was in my face, so to speak. I first learned about it when I dropped my car off at Big O to get an oil change. (Ironic, no?) I saw them unloading the stuff from the blood drive truck at the Community Center. Later, while I was on the phone with a local silkscreening company, the person I was speaking to told me she was going to the blood drive later in the day. Then, when I had to go pick up my car from its oil change, I had to walk right past the Community Center. I walked in. Two elderly gentlemen at a table near the door were all ready to sign me up.

“I have to go pick up my car,” I told them. “It’s about a mile walk. I figure I’d walk better with all my blood in me than a pint short. Could I come back in a half hour?”

“Sure,” they said. “You’ll get right in.”

I walked to Big O to get my car. The walk would have been pleasant if it weren’t for the smell of the exhaust from the trucks zooming past me on East Wickenburg Way and the trash on the side of the road. The weather was nice — quite clear and sunny with a light wind — and I needed the exercise.

I stopped at KFC/Long John Silver on my way back to the Community Center. I know the guy who owns the place and he’s struggling hard to make it succeed. Sadly, his place is on the wrong side of the highway, opposite the Burger King, Pizza Hut/Taco Bell, Filibertos, Tastee-Freez, and McDonalds. He’s an island of fast food out there. He just added the Long John Silver and I wanted to check out the fish. I picked some up at the drive-up window and ate a piece on the way back to the Community Center. It wasn’t bad. It was fast food.

Back at the Community Center, I signed in. There was a column there that asked if I wanted to give Power Red. I asked the two gentlemen what that was. They told me that they pump blood out of you, separate the red blood cells from the plasma, and pump the plasma back into you. Sure, I thought. And I sat down, wondering briefly what it really was.

Three other people waited on the chairs set up for waiting. One was a woman of about 50 with a bright red sweater, a fancy multi-colored bow on the back of her head, and bud headphones. There was a man in front of me, who was the first to leave us. Then a young boy, about 12 years old, wearing suspenders — likely a Mennonite. We have a bunch of those folks living in town and you can pick them out from a crowd by the way they dress. He was waiting for his dad, who also wore suspenders, and was dropping off his pint on one of the lounges. As I waited, a man with a serious breathing problem took the chair behind me and began reading the paper, a woman in her sixties came in and promptly opened a book, and an elderly woman wearing a shiny gold jacket and a pink hat came in and began talking to herself.

Here’s a weird thing. One of the people who worked at the blood bank was a woman in her early thirties who was absolutely round. This is weird because yesterday’s entry dealt with obesity and I used the word round to describe really fat people. This woman was the roundest person I’ve ever seen. I imagined her knocked over on her side and rolling down a hill. But I think she could have rolled down a hill without being knocked over.

The whole time I sat there, I listened to the classic rock that was playing over the Community Center’s speakers, just loud enough to be noticeable.

I was processed by three people. The first, a young guy from Phoenix, really needs to get a different job. He obviously hates what he’s doing. He refused to chat. All business. A young guy working at a place that sucks blood out of you shouldn’t be like that. He should be friendly and responsive to the people he’s processing. He took my blood pressure (148/90), pulse (78), and temperature (97.3) and checked a drop of blood for iron. Everything was A-OK. He sent me back to my chair to wait.

The second person was also young, but the opposite in personality to the first person. He and I joked together as he asked me about a hundred questions that covered health, medication, and sexual activity (for AIDS screening). He was also from New Jersey — the Greenwood Lake area — and he said that my accent reminded him of home, which he missed sometimes. We made jokes about the lady in the gold jacket and I told him that he’d have to ask her whether she’d ever accepted drugs or money for sex. (Yes, that was one of the questions.) Things got a little iffy when I couldn’t remember a prescription muscle relaxer I’d been prescribed 2 weeks ago for a tension headache, but I solved that by calling the Safeway pharmacy, where I’d gotten the prescription filled, and was given the name of the drug.

He asked me if I wanted to give “power red.” I asked him to explain what that was and he repeated what the men at the desk had told me. He told me that it was better for the blood bank to get power red because it got 2 pints of red blood cells from each patient, making it easier to give transfusions. It took 20 minutes longer and I’d have to wait a few weeks longer before I could give blood again. He said I had to be 5’4″ or taller and weigh more than 150 pounds. I met the criteria. He took another blood sample from me in a narrow tube and stuck it into a centrifuge. He brought it back to me 60 seconds later and said, “This is good. You’re 42 percent red blood cells. We only need 40%.” He showed me the tube which showed half red and half yellowish. The red was the red blood cells and the yellowish was the plasma. Cool.

At the end of the screening, when he walked me over to where the blood sucking was done, he told me I’d been the most enjoyable person he’d worked with all day and thanked me.

The next person was very businesslike, probably because he spent his day sucking blood out of people. I’d been seated next to a machine that he set up with three blood bags. I asked questions and he filled me in. One bag would collect my blood. Then the machine would send the blood into a centrifuge that separated it into red blood cells and plasma. The red blood cells would go into the middle bag and the plasma would go into the bag closest to me. The machine had two cycles. One sucked blood, the other pumped plasma and saline back into me. When the process was complete, the machine would beep.

He poked me, started the machine, and gave me a ball to squeeze. I was told to squeeze when the blood pressure cuff was tight — that’s when the blood would be coming out — and stop squeezing when the cuff was loose — that’s when the plasma would be going back in. Then he left me to stick someone else.

One of the old guys from the door came over, grinning from ear-to-ear. “You’re giving power red,” he said happily.

“I thought you were kidding when you told me what it was,” I told him.

“You thought I was kidding?”

“Yeah. It sounded pretty weird.”

He told me that when the plasma went back in, it would be cool because the blood cools down while it’s being processed. Then he wandered off to chat with someone else.

He was right. When the cuff got loose, the tube running from my arm turned pink, then cloudy beige, then yellow. The plasma went in. It was noticeably cooler than the blood going out. But the weird part was seeing the tube turn red again, quite abruptly, when the cuff tightened. Cool.

I was in the middle of the third cycle when I started feeling light-headed. I told myself that I wasn’t really feeling light-headed, but the room was getting a bit darker and I was feeling a bit nauseous. The machine made a noise, which brought the poking guy over.

“I’m done?” I asked.

“No. Flow’s low. How do you feel?”

“Not good.”

He reached down to the foot of my metal-frame lounge and picked up my legs. I was reclining now. “Breathe deeply in through your nose and out through your mouth. It’ll pass.”

It did. About three minutes later, I felt fine again.

I was done a short while later. As the poking guy came over to disconnect me, the machine started pumping the red blood cells out of the middle bag and into two smaller bags down below, out of sight. The plasma bag and fresh blood bag were just about empty.

I opted to remain on the lounge for a short while. I’d seen people fall over after giving blood and I didn’t want to be one of them. If you pass out, they keep you there. I didn’t want to spend the night at the Community Center.

I had some orange juice and pumpkin cake with two elderly ladies who were providing refreshments. They’d seen the way I waited on the lounge and told me I had to wait the full fifteen minutes before I could leave. We chatted about Wal-Mart. (They brought it up, not me.) One woman said the last thing she ever wanted to see in Wickenburg was a Wal-Mart. The other woman, who was her sister visiting from Illinois, told me about how it had destroyed her town.

As I left, the old guy who’d spoken to me said, “See you again in August?”

“You bet,” I told him. That would be just about the right time for my next oil change.

Ugly Fat Americans

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I hear a startling bit of information on the radio.

I listen to NPR. For those of you who favor reality TV over reality, NPR stands for National Public Radio. It’s PBS (Public Broadcasting System) for the radio waves. Funded by “listeners like me,” charitable foundations, and corporations looking for tax breaks, it’s primarily talk radio with news and information shows that go far beyond what you can find on regular television and radio. News shows focus on politics, foreign affairs, literature, science, and other topics that people who think actually think about.

My friend Jim says that NPR is for liberals. But Jim worships Rush Limbaugh, so I can’t take anything Jim says very seriously anyway.

The other day, on my way to work, the discussion on Talk of the Nation or the Diane Reems Show — I can’t remember which one I was listening to — they can be very much alike at times — focused on the problems with Social Security and Medicare. As you may (or may not) know, both services are in financial trouble, although Medicare is in much bigger trouble than Social Security. Why? Well, the government is paying out more in benefits than it’s collecting and it isn’t earning enough on the balance of funds to sustain it. (I think financial mismanagement is partly to blame for that, but that’s not the point here so I won’t pursue it.)

The man being interviewed — and forgive me if I can’t recall his name or the position that gives him his expertise — presented a shocking piece of information. For the first time in decades, the average life expectancy of Americans is going down. Yes, down. That means that today’s Americans are not expected to live as long as Americans a few years back.

The cause of this sorry statistic: obesity.

The phrase “ugly fat American” takes on new meaning. Not only are we spoiled rotten and accustomed to having our way with the world (thus making us “ugly” in the eyes of the people who really don’t like us), but we are literally fat. And those fat tissues are starting to eat away at our life expectancy.

If you’ve got eyes and you use them to look around yourself in public places, you must have noticed it by now. There are a lot of fat people. But worse yet, there are a lot of very fat people.

Look at yourself. Honestly. How many extra pounds are you carrying around?

Heck, I’m overweight. I’m 5’8″ and weigh about 30 pounds more than I should. Anyone looking a me would likely say to himself, “Now that’s a big girl.” He might not use the word fat, but that’s only because (lucky for him) he hasn’t seen me in a bikini. My height helps camouflage my extra pounds. Those 30 pounds are 20% more pounds than I should be carrying around. And I can feel that extra weigh. Last spring, when I weighed 20 pounds less (can you believe it?) I felt better. Healthier. And my clothes fit a heck of a lot better, too.

I was lucky enough to have a high metabolism until I was about 30. That meant I could eat as much as I wanted and never put on a pound. In fact, for a while, I had trouble keeping weight on. In college, my weight dropped down to 105 lbs. I looked terrible, like a walking skeleton. I began to have digestive problems. I wasn’t anorexic — it wasn’t like I was trying to keep the weight off. I was just too darn busy. Working two jobs, commuting 30 miles each way to school, shouldering an 18-credit course load. I had trouble finding time to fit meals in. Then I moved on campus and got on the meal plan. That fixed me up. They made these warm rolls….

As time ticked on, my metabolism adjusted. Now I have to watch what I eat to prevent myself from getting any heavier. And I have to diet to take off the pounds. I’m on a slow diet now. I’d like to drop 20 pounds over the next few months. Maybe by the end of June. We’ll see how I do. I’ve been at it for a week and have lost 3 pounds. Big deal. But if I can keep that up, I’ll do okay.

Obesity runs in my family. (Yes, it has been linked to genes.) At 5’1″, my mother weighs more than I do. Her brother (my uncle), who died last year, was at least 100 pounds overweight. He did a lot of sitting in front of the television in the last few years of his life, and pretty much ignored the doctor’s recommendations about diet. He developed diabetes (which also runs in my family) and heart problems. We weren’t surprised when he died at age 69. Instead, we were surprised that he lasted that long. Fortunately, I have a good helping of my father’s genes. He’s always been tall (6’4″) and thin as a rail. So was his mom. I think that spared me from a fat fate.

But my 30 pounds of extra weight is nothing compared to some of the people I see when I get out and about. I’ve seen many people who are 50, 75, or 100 pounds overweight. There are people who can easily be described as round. People who, if you tipped them over on their side, would roll down a hill with arms and legs sticking out, just like in a cartoon. People who are so fat, they have difficulty walking, so they wedge themselves into one of those motorized carts at the supermarket when it’s time to do their grocery shopping. And around the house, when they’re not hiding the La-Z-Boy from view with their bulk, they use wheelchairs.

Don’t these people understand what’s happening to them? Don’t they care? Don’t they want to be healthy and active, to live life to the fullest — and longest — possible? Why won’t they get help?

And what of the millions of Americans like me who are “just a little” overweight? How many of them don’t make a conscious effort to stop their weight gains and start to reverse them? They’re 30 pounds overweight one year and 40 pounds the next. Then 50 and 60 and before you know it, they’re spending more time on the sofa in front of the television than moving about — simply because that’s the only thing they can do.

I don’t want to live forever, but I also don’t want my life cut short by obesity — something I can prevent.

How long before the rest of this country wakes up to what’s quickly becoming a leading contributor to early death?

How the Other Half Lives

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Mike and I spend time down in Phoenix, chatting with “city folk.”

A few weeks ago, I was invited to a housewarming party down in Phoenix. The party was yesterday evening. After some minor discussion, Mike and I hopped into my city car (the Honda S2000), put the top down, and sped southeast.

We hit Home Depot and A.J.’s Fine Food along the way. At Home Depot, we needed to gather pricing information for a summer cabin I’d like to build on our property at Howard Mesa. The plan is to have a building shell put on the property, then fill the shell with the comforts of home — things like toilets, sinks, lights, a bed, a stove. You know. That stuff you have where you live that makes your home feel more like a home than a campsite. We bought our hostess a nice orchid plant with a decorative pot and a Home Depot gift card. Then we hit A.J.’s for some deli salads and a cake.

Our hostess was one of my editors. I write articles for a technology Web site called InformIt, which is somehow related to Peachpit Press, one of my publishers. I write about the kinds of things that can be found in my Peachpit books and InformIt adds links so readers can buy my books. They also pay me a few hundred bucks per article. That’s a good deal for me, since I can knock off two articles in a day and they seem interested in publishing anything I want to write about. When I’m done with my Tiger book, I plan on writing eight or ten articles for them before I dive into my QuickBooks book.

I’d never met Esther in person and the photos she uses as her iChat icon looks nothing like she does in real life. (I think it might be a glamour photo.) So when we arrived at her house, it took some guessing to figure out which one she was. I got a big hug before she hurried off to do other things. Mike and I grabbed a coke and tried to mingle with the other guests. We were not very successful. The other guests were gathered in groups and obviously knew each other. They pretty much ignored us newcomers. I guess they didn’t need to meet anyone new. We didn’t need to meet anyone new either, but you don’t normally go to a party with that attitude, so we’d left it at home. Since several of the conversations seemed to revolve around OS/2 (an ancient IBM-created operating system, if you recall), we didn’t feel as if we were missing much.

After a while, Esther showed us around the house. They’d been living there three months and had finished most of their unpacking. Both Esther and her husband, Bill, work out of the house and their offices were in the two front bedrooms, side by side. Lots of computer stuff. Mike says the house was probably built in the 70s, but I think it might be early 80s. It had an interesting layout, with a master bedroom suite tucked into one corner and a long, narrow kitchen with two giant refrigerators and a chest freezer. (Seriously into refrigeration, as Mike said.) Esther brought us back out into the back yard, which was completely surrounded by a 6-1/2 foot wall, and had a curvy-shaped pool with a fence around it. There were big trees that shaded the half of the yard without the pool. The next door neighbor had really, really tall palm trees. A third of an acre, Esther told us proudly. “Pretty big for this area.”

The area was just south of Thunderbird around 56th Street. All the houses were like Esther’s: single-story homes with walled-in back yards, and security company signs on their front lawns. Suburbia. Later, Mike commented about how odd it was to not be able to see the horizon from the backyard. I hadn’t thought about it. The backyard hadn’t seemed like the outdoors to me and I wasn’t really expecting to see the horizon.

We found some folks in one of the two living rooms who were more friendly and we settled down with them. One group was a family: mom, dad, and two kids. The son, who was probably about 11, had his head buried in a Game Boy the entire time we were at the party — about 2 and a half hours, as it turns out. He even managed to continue playing while he was eating dinner. The girl, who was 8, spent much of the time browsing through Esther’s impressive collection of books, which includes some compilations of comics and an odd book called “Why Cats Paint.” The dad told us about his flight training experiences, which were impressive but did not result in a pilot certificate. The mom talked with two other moms about the school systems where they lived.

Another guy who heard we’d driven down from Wickenburg was very impressed. “That’s a long drive,” he said. “And I was debating whether it was worth the drive for me.” He’d come from Thunderbird and 24th Street. Just over thirty city blocks away. Well, to be fair, blocks in Phoenix aren’t like blocks in New York. You can walk 30 blocks in New York and not break a sweat. Thirty blocks in Phoenix has to be at least three miles. That was some drive.

The conversation turned to neighborhoods and this is where it got weird. They all started comparing their neighborhoods. Apparently, it was a good thing that in one neighborhood, people liked to put their barbecue grills out on the driveway and hang out there. So everyone had their barbecues out in front of their houses, within shouting distance to their neighbors. Almost every house in that same neighborhood, which was on Wagon Wheel Road, had wagon wheels in front of their houses and they’d put colored lights on the wagon wheels for all the holidays. People would drive through the neighborhood on those holidays just to look at the lights on the wagon wheels. Another neighborhood got hundreds of kids for Halloween because people from South Phoenix would drop off their kids there to go trick or treating.

Esther’s real estate agent showed up late with a woman and a plate of cookies. They were dressed as if they were ready to hit some posh wine bar in Scottsdale after the festivities at Esther’s. They joined in the conversation. And that’s when Esther started talking about the convenience of living two houses off Thunderbird. When they lived in Taranto, they’d get in the car and have to drive 10 minutes before they got to any shopping. That gave them plenty of time in the car to decide where they were going out to eat. Now they have no time for discussion in the car. They get to shopping within minutes and there are so many choices. And sometimes, they even pass their house while they’re still out shopping!

Wow. I never really thought of convenience as a reason to live in one of the thousands of “compartmentalized” homes in the Valley. Sure, I bitch that there are no dining options here in Wickenburg and shopping is somewhat limited. But never in a million years would I consider moving down into the Phoenix area just to increase my dining and shopping options. That’s a quality of life change. Those folks get their privacy from 6-1/2 foot walls that block the views. I get my privacy from having neighbors that live too far away to see into my windows. Those folks make their neighbors an integral part of their lives with community barbecues and home lighting rituals. I make outdoor activities and recreation an integral part of my life with hiking, horseback riding, and Jeeping — all from my backyard. Those people live with the sound of traffic on Thunderbird or other major arteries a backdrop to their daily existence. The soundtrack for my life is the sound of the wind and the birds and the occasional howl of a coyote or hoot of an owl.

We left the party at 9 PM, using our long drive as an excuse for early departure. We were tired — Mike had done some serious yard work early in the day and I’d spent 3 hours that morning at the office. We drove up to I-17 and Carefree Highway with the top down. The sky was clear and the moon was full. As the ambient light around us faded, the stars emerged, one by one. I realized that the folks we’d spent the evening with probably couldn’t see the stars from their homes.

Would I trade my lifestyle for theirs? What do you think?