High Five

I know it's not quite the right issue, but it *is* springtime here.

#readeverywhere

@ParisReview

Welcome to Season 5.  Somehow this time it feels I was only gone a month or so.  The familiar scenery, setting, sunlight, smell, the sourness of the yogurt: this place I know well, and even marking its changes solidifies and reaffirms for me its character.

We have a fun, diversely talented Shuttles crew this season, amongst whom I am the least-experienced professional driver.  But my knowledge of town and its arcane customs and jargon, and at times feudal interrelations, make me a sort of tribal elder.  Whippersnappers a decade younger than me, who have driven big rig semis across country, listen as I ride shotgun and describe where to park at the Tower of Power, how best to approach Sausage Point on a windy day, and the specific door at which to drop off NASA Roy at the Golf Ball.

It was a busy/not busy first week -- meeting new people, endless training sessions, hours of chit-chat while we wait for vehicles to revive from the near-death of wintering outside, and a barrage of activities and freshly effervescing enthusiasm.  I've already trained as a guide for the historic huts and ice pressure ridges, sung with jazz folks, consumed several pounds of cheese, and submitted my three-years-procrastinated literary journal fan mail pic.

Up close delivering some important stuff to the C-17.