Okay, Dreaded Guest, you have established beyond all doubt that you really are the south end of a northbound horse.

I won't bore you with the details of my brother-in-law's sterling qualifications other than to say that he learned to fly in the Air National Guard where he flew F-89 Scorpions for twelve years. In civilian life during this time, he taught math in high school. Then he hired on with Northwest Airlines where he learned to fly the big ones (Boeing 747s, Douglas DC-10s, etc.). For almost three decades he flew a number of routes all over the world, much of that time between the U. S. and the Orient (Japan, Hong Kong, et al). He recently passed his 60th birthday, and he is now retired because, ageism notwithstanding, Northwest has a policy of retiring pilots when they reach 60. He has also flown a wide variety of small, private planes. His son (my nephew) cut his teeth in small aircraft by working for several years as a bush pilot in Alaska, then he followed in his father's footsteps and has now been flying for Southwest Airlines for several years.

They both know quite a bit about contrails because they have made a bunch of them.

How long have you been hanging in mid-air, wise guy?

Now, it looks like my shooting you down on the Sand Point thing really got up your nose. You can't seem to let it go. So, as a public service, and for the sheer, mean-spirited joy of the thing, let me rub it in one more time. Brace yourself!

Let's take it from the top:—

Out of the 40,000 who demonstrated at the WTO conference in Seattle in 1999, some 450 were arrested for assault, setting fires, smashing windows, and otherwise disrupting what was intended to be a peaceful protest. 153 were booked at the King County Jail, which filled the facility to capacity. The remaining 400 were transported on Metro buses (regular city buses that people take to and from work) to Magnusen Park (formerly the Sand Point Naval Air Station) to be booked and processed—by the Seattle Police, not any Federal agency. Most of the protesters remained on the buses, and fourteen were taken to cells in the old brig, because they in particular had been arrested for vandalizing property. The brig was built to handle the occasional salt who was picked up by the police or the shore patrol for getting a bit tipsy or rowdy while on shore leave. It consists of ten (10) cells, about the size of the average jail cell. Fourteen people actually exceeds the capacity of the brig. So it could hardly be called—or used as—a "concentration camp."

Some years ago, the naval air station was decommissioned and turned over by the City of Seattle. The City of Seattle turned it into a park, naming it after long-time Washington State Senator Warren G. Magnusen. The brig is in basement of Building 406, which now consists of meeting rooms and classrooms. Magnusen Park is a nice place to go for a picnic on a sunny afternoon and children often go there to feed the ducks who frequent the shores of Lake Washington. My wife and I once attended a wedding reception there, and although they offer all kinds of classes there, I have never taken a class there, not even Art Therapy, as you suggested (although I have taken many courses in illustration, life drawing, cartooning, and aeronautical drafting). I do, however, know people who have. My wife recently attended an antique show in one of the buildings at Magnusen Park.

Magnusen Park, located at the former Sand Point Naval Air Station.

If you're interested in taking a look at the old brig, I'm quite sure the Seattle Parks Department would be amenable to taking you on a tour of the place. The telephone number for the Magnusen Park facility is 206-684-4218.

Or would you find that too frightening?

Don Firth

P.S., I find the following note on a flyer for "TREEmendous," an environmental group:

" May 5, Friday - Chili Feed and Annual Meeting - Come see our new office at Sand Point Naval Station. We will have our Chili Feed and Annual meeting in 'the brig'. Any of you WTO veterans shouldn't have any trouble finding it."

Now. Why don't you go make an appointment with a good counselor and leave the adults alone?