TACTLESS IN SEATTLE

By CALVIN TRILLIN

Some business happened to take me to Seattle on the day the Sonics were down 3-zip to the Bulls, so naturally I hoped to cheer everybody up while I was in town. As soon as I got off the plane, it became obvious that I had my work cut out for me. The headline of the Post-Intelligencer was HOME GROAN. The Seattle Times headline was READY TO CRUMBLE?

The people standing around the airport, which had been festooned with GO SONICS! signs, looked gloomy. It's true, of course, that people in Seattle can look gloomy even in the off season, despite the city's obvious charms. It rains a lot, after all, and many Seattle residents are of Scandinavian descent. I wouldn't attempt to describe in detail what it's like to come upon Scandinavians who have been rained on for a while, except to say that it doesn't have much in common with seeing Jerry Lewis in The Nutty Professor.

Was it my imagination, or did my taxi driver have a particularly forlorn look? Just in case, I told him that in 1932 the Cincinnati Reds lost the first three games and then came back to take the World Series. I've found that it's pretty safe to make up facts about the Cincinnati Reds. They didn't seem to have many knowledgeable fans outside Cincinnati even before they fell into neo-skinhead ownership.

The taxi driver grunted. "Also," I continued, "I'd pay no attention to those commentators who are going to write about how this series shows that a team from Chicago, which Carl Sandburg called the 'City of the Big Shoulders,' can obviously push around a team from a city where, well, where people drink a lot of latte."

I thought I heard another grunt, but it might have been a knock coming out of the transmission.

"Also," I went on, "I'm sure people will understand that this is totally unconnected with Bill Gates, of Seattle, being certified by TIME as the second most powerful person in the country, so I think it's unwarranted to make any connection between having a team that's been pulverized by the Chicago Bulls--I'm not saying that's how it's going to turn out--and having as your most famous and powerful resident someone who's known for being a little bit wonky. I mean, Oprah Winfrey's not absolutely everybody's cup of tea either. And sure, deep-dish Chicago pizza may sound more like big-shoulder food, or even big-gut food, than something like, well, let's say, latte, but maybe we should discuss relative incidence of stomach distress for a while, particularly if we're talking pepperoni."

"Unghh," the taxi driver said, unless it was something in Swedish.

"And you can certainly take pride in being one of the two teams in the finals," I said. "Losing is really winning if you think of it that way, not that the Sonics are necessarily going to, well, crumble. That's what I tried to tell the residents of Buffalo after the Bills kept losing the Super Bowl. 'You have one of the two top teams,' I said. 'Not to speak of Poles who've been snowed on for a while and can still feel like doing the polka. And the famous Buffalo chicken wings. And--'"

The taxi came to a halt. "Buffalo?" the driver said. "Buffalo! BUFFALO!"

I looked around. We were in what seemed to be an industrial district near the port. I knew we were miles from my hotel. "Perhaps it wasn't an appropriate comparison," I said. "Well. Now. It's great to be in Seattle again. Terrific city! I hope to get to the top of the Space Needle this time, not to speak of the Nordic Heritage Museum."