I am an alien. I work with aliens and I have several friends who are aliens. We all have identity cards that confirm we are aliens.

I’m not a lunatic from the moon. Nor am I a goofy from Pluto. Although female, I’m not from Venus. Or Mars.

To look at me, you wouldn’t know I was an alien. I am an ordinary Caucasian female of Homo sapien form. I don’t really have antennae. In fact, no one can tell I’m an alien – until I open my mouth.

But my teeth aren’t green; my tongue’s not purple; and I speak perfectly good English. The good English, is, in fact, the give-away. I speak English too well. I pronounce every consonant that I come across in words. I am English.

I came to the United States from Plymouth, England. History buffs will realize the quaint irony of this because Plymouth, England, is the departure site of the Mayflower, which ventured to this country back in 1620, filled with pilgrims seeking a better life for themselves. I too came seeking a better life for myself, only I came by airplane some 366 years later, in 1986.

Like my pilgrim forefathers, I landed on the East Coast, married into an old pioneer family and made my way west, eventually settling in the Astoria area. The “old pioneer” I married happened to be a long-distance runner, like myself, who I met at a running club in Atlanta.

About five years ago, my friends and I formed a running club in Astoria. Initially we named ourselves “The Great Astoria Come Hell and High Water Running Club,” because our inaugural run was held on a Wednesday evening in January in one of those gloriously tempestuous Astoria winter storms. Although this name captured the essence of the club, it was cumbersome, so we changed it to The Columbia-Pacific Running Club – “The CPR Club” – and meet regularly on Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings for group runs and socializing.

In late-June, six humans and one dog set off running from Astoria Middle School on a regular Wednesday evening club run. We planned to run down through the U.S. Coast Guard housing, down Alameda Avenue to the Doughboy and then east along Marine Drive.

As I approached Hume Street, by the Astoria-Warrenton Area Chamber of Commerce, I was “attacked” by a Road Work Ahead sign and crash landed onto Marine Drive. Ouch! I slowly picked myself up and quickly realized that I was bleeding profusely. Running buddy Joe Shawa, a local dentist, rushed up to administer first-aid and check my teeth. (I later asked him if my teeth were OK and he replied, “They’re fine, that’s the first thing I checked.”) Another running buddy, Leslie Burke, rushed into the Mini-Mart to get paper towels and ice. Dr. Shawa declared that stitches would be needed and attention shifted to getting me to the hospital.

As we had run for almost three miles before the crash landing, our vehicles were not readily accessible. A couple kindly offered to drive me to the hospital, so Leslie and I crammed into their car with the five of them and set off.

I was soon on a gurney in the ER awaiting my fate. ER Nurse Hien Delong asked the inevitable question: “When was the last time you had a tetanus shot?” I didn’t know, so she trotted off to get the appropriate remedy.

Because I tried to keep my mind away from syringe needles and sutures, it struck me how many possible aliens had thus far been involved in my “rescue.” My friend and first-aid provider, Joe Shawa, is of Middle Eastern descent; the thoughtful couple who gave me a ride had roots elsewhere; and the ER nurse was of Asian heritage. All people whose own personal space crafts had somehow landed in Astoria.

If my fellow aliens are anything like me, they fell in love with America and all things American within a short time of arrival. Apart from such things as better quality of life and more opportunity, the American people are, to me, far more open and accepting than those in my native land.

Maybe this is because everyone is either an alien themselves or are descended from aliens. Perhaps it was their parents who came looking for a better life, or their grandparents, or their great-grandparents. One thing is for sure, those that seek do find in this most lovely of all nations.

Lyn Baker, editorial assistant at The Daily Astorian, hastens to thank many others who aided in the rescue from her crash landing.