Hooligans!
The phone rings. It’s Mike. “The police are looking for Doug,” he says. “He’s a wanted man.”
I’d left Baylands Park early to have lunch with an old friend, so I’m hearing the punch line to a story I don’t know.
As I peel the story out of Mike, I learn that Doug and Dave were flying their planes when a woman walked up to watch. Her four-year-old son was fascinated by the airplanes.
Time to Move. After a few minutes, the woman decided to leave but her son wouldn’t budge.
Did she pick up her child or perhaps take his hand to guide him away from the riveting scene? No.
“She showed a complete lack of leadership skills,” Doug later observed.
Instead, she asked Doug and Dave to move to the end of the field so she could pry her son away.
“I’m not moving,” Doug said firmly. Dave landed his plane and went to the picnic tables to observe.
“I’m calling the police,” the woman told Doug, and left, towing her son with her.
Doug finished his flight, packed up and left.
Police Arrive. Mike was still there chatting with lunchtime flyers when a police car pulled up.
A large Sunnyvale police officer walked up to the tables.
“We got a report that some hooligans are flying planes and buzzing people,” he said pleasantly.
Mike told him what had happened. No buzzing. No hooligans. No bad behavior. Just a fascinated kid and a mother with strange impulses, like asking people to relocate and calling the police.
The officer was nice. He chatted a bit with Mike, then left.
The next day, no surprise, Mike showed up with a Wanted poster featuring a crude drawing of Doug.
Tags: Baylands, Flying, Life, People.
October 21st, 2007 at 9:33 pm
Now the Children are in charge…
What has our society wrought?
Gary
October 21st, 2007 at 9:39 pm
The kid only weighed about thirty pounds and was too young to speak yet his mother was determined to move Dave and me to the right to make it easier for her to move her toddler to the left. I wonder what she would have done if her son was fixated on the soccer teams that play on the field. Maybe then she would call the National Guard.
Thanks to Mike for clearing it up with the police and making the funny poster.
Thanks to Pete for another good blog entry.
October 22nd, 2007 at 7:44 am
I did not in fact retire from the field of battle, though I did land the plane. It was not out of any desire to abet the person-one-normally-doesn’t-meet-outside-a-bowling-alley, but rather hopefully to get rid of her. Landing my plane is nothing I haven’t done before in hopes that something annoying will eventually go away.
But she kept up a solid litany of “putt putt airplane” over and over and over and over in the most annoying voice since Phyllis Diller.
If I were the kid, I’d probably be scheming ways to escape — perhaps that’s what he was up to. Or is that “up to what he was?”
Doug’s brush with the law might very well have been nudged along a whit by my response when she threatened to call the police (Doug didn’t hear that — he was busy flying). I believe I riposted a witty jibe along the lines of “Fork off, butch!”
Something like that anyway.
Don’t worry Gary. If the kid actually takes over control of that duo we’ll all be better off.
October 27th, 2007 at 7:05 am
I found it funny that she uses the word hooligans when calling the police when you guys not even young or a young street thugs. A word hooligan describes someone who is a violent youth. Also is it ironic that she did not stick around to wait for the police. I’m sure she knew her story to the police will not hold water and decided not to stick around and just call the police to give you guys the inconvenient and spoil your day flying a airplane. I just hope the police call her back and tell her that her report is a bunch of nonsense and she look like a fool.