_RIDING MY MOPED, I dodged a half million people at AirVenture 2018, the annual fly-in of the Experimental Aircraft Association in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. This is the ecstasy and the agony of Oshkosh: Nowhere else can you be around so many people who share your excitement about airplanes, and because of that, it can be hard to move. But my toughest day was the day almost no one was there. It was my first day-a rain-soaked orientation for a security temp-during which I learned why only golf carts patrol the 12,300 campsites of EAA's campgrounds. I also learned that a moped turning a corner in mud will fall over. When crowds grow as big as they do at Oshkosh, a security detail's main task will undoubtedly be missing persons. I helped half a dozen EAA visitors find the ones they came with and, in the process, I learned something else-or, rather, relearned it. People from Wisconsin are nice. One, an amiable lady in her 80s on a four-wheel scooter, told me earnestly she "didn't know she was lost." Her husband had reported her missing after she-knowingly or not-had given him the slip. Obligingly, she stayed with me until they reconnected.
展开▼
