My wife's a brilliant driver

My wife is a brilliant driver, how do I know that? She told me while sitting in the back seat of my car.

Don't get me wrong way back when I was a younger man I used to be a boy racer. I've been known to practice handbrake turns in my 850cc Mini when ever there was a hint of rain on the road. In my youth I dreamed of driving for the Ferrari Formula 1 team, of course I didn't have to speak Italian because I was English, I would just have repeat myself but shout a bit louder for my team to understand me.

As the years have passed I've become a slower driver and my days of driving just under the 100 MPH automatic ban limit in England are way back in my rear mirror. These days I tend to set the cruise control for 4 MPH above the speed limit and relax when I see a hidden police vehicle at the side of the road. It so much fun not to have to jump on the breaks if I see something like a police car on the road. While it was fun to see the miles click away on the speedometer my driving style also involved a lot of stress as I constantly checked, double checked and then checked again for the traffic police.

These days my fear is that the standard punishment for speeding in my old home of Cobb County involved the running of huge currents of electricity through my veins or perhaps the more humane method of using three drugs injected into my adonis body.

Obviously my wife is special, she's a retired school librarian and not many of them reach retirement age. She believes that she can drive 10 MPH above the speed limits without fear of a policeman giving her a ticket. I think this has less to do with her ability to beat any NASCAR driver to the line but more to do with her rather top heavy body, not to mention her smile. It doesn't take a great deal of imagination to see my wife adjusting her clothing as the policeman exits his vehicle, in the past I've also enjoyed being the victim of her charms.

My wife is a faster driver than me, that feels better now that I have that off my chest but I'm yet to be convinced that this is a good thing. While I've left behind the zigging and zagging across lanes of traffic to gain some kind of advantage on the other drivers around me I can't claim the same for my wife.

Don't get me wrong, my wife checks wing mirrors, rear view mirrors, signals and maneuvers in the most effective and safe way but also at the same time manages to text, apply make-up, adjust the radio, perfect the the venting and the adjust the seat position. She has the most amazing hand-eye coordination, much faster than Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) or my fictional hero Jack Reacher.

Sometimes with the top down and driving in the sun under clear blue skies I catch myself driving 10 miles and hour under the speed limit. I never understood why some interstates had minimum speed limit signs but now that I'm over 60 years old I've come to realize that they are there to encourage me to speed up now and then.

My driving style frustrates my wife, even when I say I'm going to wait for an car in the opposite lane to pass before I turn left because I don't want to place her in any danger. If I'm lucky I just get "the look" but more often I'm reminded of our expected arrival time. Even if my wife is in the back seat I can get "the luck" and depending on the other passengers in the car I can be told to stop driving like an old man.

It's a strange thing, I'm driving two 4.3L Lexus cars, one a convertible and the other a sedan, both with the most impressive acceleration speed and they've never been above 80MPH while I've been behind the wheel. Some would say it's a waste of engineering but I'm quite happy enjoying the luxury of the brand, laughing at the modified Honda's trying to blast away from the lights. Sometimes while I'm listening to the boom, boom of younger men's sound systems I find myself playing some soothing classical music and thinking how wonderful life has been to me.

These days I don't fight traffic I just go along with the flow, I play follow my leader and arrive stress free with no tickets. Of course I could mimic my brilliant driving wife with her zigging and zagging but sadly I just can't be arsed with all the effort that this entails.

That's my reality,

Jobsonian

My admiration for truck drivers has reached an all time high

We've decided to retire to Durham, North Carolina. Now there's a sentence that I never thought I'd be writing. I've loved living in Cobb County, Georgia for just over 20 years. I love our house, our neighborhood and our friends. Why on earth would I even consider moving away from my wonderful Arbor Bridge life.

The seed of the idea started when we visited my wife's brother and her best friend from college in Durham. It was just after New Year's when we looked at some properties and realized that we could afford to live in the beautiful neighborhood of Treyburn. In the past before I became the wonderful sensitive caring man I am now I'd have shut down the idea of moving before my beloved wife could get past "What do you think about . . . .", but for some reason I remained noncommittal about the idea of retiring to Durham, I positioned myself firmly on the fence.

If I was water boarded I'd be forced to confess that I kind of hoped that my wife's granddaughter in Atlanta would be the anchor that kept us living in Atlanta but I was shocked when the librarian continued to push the idea of retiring to Durham.

Fast forward a couple of months and you find me in the Budget Rental Truck office being given the keys to a 26 foot truck. I didn't give it a moment's thought when I booked the truck online, I saw that it was cost effective to rent a larger truck and make fewer trips from Marietta to Durham.

It was only when I looked at the various lengths of trucks parked in the Budget lot that I started to panic. Some of the trucks were ginormous and it didn't take me long to realize that I'd booked the longest truck they rent to a man with a basic driving license. Believe me in the truck rental world size does matter and when I climbed into the cab I started to understand that I'd booked myself a "character building experience". When the Budget representative told me that I must use the various weigh stations on my journey I knew I was joining the big boys of the road.

My first drive was on roads I was familiar with but even then changing lanes and turning corners required lots of thought and preplanning. Somehow I managed to drive home and reverse the truck into my drive. While driving I thought I was shaking from the vibration of the 8.5L diesel engine throbbing away, but when I hit the ground after rappelling down from the cab I continued to shake. I knew that for the first time in my driving life I was scared to death.

We hired some young flexible muscles to load the truck that evening and planned to depart for a storage locker in Durham after the rush hour in the morning. This plan fell apart when I couldn't sleep because various nightmare truck driving scenarios that kept playing in my mind. Around 3 A.M. I decided to get up and hit the road. I managed to throw a few more things into the truck before I fired up the engine and made my tentative way out of the neighborhood to the interstate. 

It's always been my experience that the roads around Atlanta are never completely empty but I was taken by surprise by the number of vehicles driving around in the middle of the night. I played some soothing music on the radio and tried to think positive thoughts as I drove around I285 and eventually headed north on the I85. 

In less than 20 miles of driving I'd learned so many new things, some should have been obvious but there were lots of challenges that I'd never thought about. Just the act of braking takes far longer than you could ever imagine; it also takes a while to accelerate to a cruising speed of 70 MPH. Drivers in cars are dangerous: they cut you up by overtaking and then joining your lane and braking. Meanwhile, in the cab you're holding on for your life. 

Often cars join the interstate at a nice sedate speed, you can't imagine that they will cause you problems. Then they pull over into your lane, dawdling about as if they're running through some kind of preflight check to drive at 75 MPH. These drivers study their phones, adjust the sat nav, tighten seat belts, play with the radio, eat a sandwich, brew some tea and then run out of space in the on ramp and take an immediate left into my lane. This means I have to try to decelerate from 70 MPH to their crawl speed. 

My well toned leg muscles pump away on the brake pedal in desperation, no time for the horn or to flash my lights but strangely enough to view an entire replay of my life. Then just as I'm about to collide with the trunk of the car in front of me, the driver puts his foot down and speeds away into the distance having absolutely no idea what went on behind them. 

Meanwhile, I'm still sweating from having to brake for my life and now I have to concentrate on speeding up to avoid the wrath of the trucks behind me. As I bounce around in my truck the big rigs blow their horn as they pass me, causing my truck to be buffeted by the wind and turbulence, demanding emergency steering input to keep me in the driving lane.

From near death because I couldn't brake in time I have to find the guts to press down the accelerator pedal and try to return to 70 MPH. All this using a right leg that has just lost all feeling due to exhaustion and absolute fear.

The problem is you can't take a quick look in your mirrors, signal, accelerate and pull out into the overtaking lane. Checking for vehicles in the adjacent lane is quite a process because there are so many blind spots. Changing speed instantly isn't an option;  changing lanes involves small precise movement of the steering wheel to avoid major wobbles and loss of control.

After enduring the 5th mental movie review of my life I changed strategy and followed a truck that seemed to be able to maintain the same speeds as me, however this wasn't perfect because cars would jump in the gap I left and my natural reaction was to hit the brakes.

I'd been on the road about 180 minutes when I decided to take a break. I'd lost feeling in my right hand due to gripping the steering wheel so hard. I tried every distraction technique I could think of, but I couldn't remove the feeling that I wasn't going to reach Durham in one piece. Fortunately I found a place in the "big boy truck" area of the rest stop that I could drive in and out of. The idea of having to reverse the truck was too frightening to imagine.

My problem was similar to situations I'd faced when skiing. I'd get halfway down a run and then get scared to death, but the only way to escape was to continue skiing down the hill. This trip to Durham was the same kind of challenge, I was about a third of the way to my destination and it would be impossible to extract myself without driving to the end.

I managed to stretch out on the bench seat and sleep for just over an hour, then I gave myself a huge pep talk and turned on the ignition, put the truck in drive and bravely entered the interstate again. After the power nap I did feel better, perhaps even a bit more confident because logic told me that the worst part of the journey was behind me.

However, that wasn't the case; further up the road I encountered my first "road under repair" with "narrow lanes". When you are seated high in the cab of a strange vehicle it's difficult to see where you are in relation to the lanes in the road. I tried to keep to the edge nearest the hard shoulder but when other trucks passed me at speed only inches away, it was obvious that I was the problem. I also imagined that the professional truckers would be on their CB radios warning their fellow scanners about the idiot in the Budget Rental Truck on the road.

Perhaps driving a big truck is like steering a huge cruise ship: any input on the steering doesn't take effect for quite some time. I'd try to make any change in my direction as smoothly as possible but that would increase the time I was getting in other drivers' way. I knew that because of the horns blaring and headlights flashing as I drove along like a modern day Mr McGoo.

After another two hours I was ready for a break. I pulled into a truck stop for gas and some food. Stupidly I followed a truck to some diesel pumps but it turned out that real trucks have their own gas lines; rental trucks such as the one I was driving must to use the normal diesel. Once I understood this I became aware that I wasn't a real truck driver but just an interloper.

Once out on the road again I passed my first open weigh station. You have to get to the right lane and join the line of trucks that are mandated to go through the weighing process. I learned that some weigh stations have a rolling weight check device implanted in the road surface and if you pass that test you receive an indication that you can continue on your journey. I guess it's almost impossible for an amateur like me to load a rental truck to the point where it's above the capacity of the truck design, so I was able to pass all rolling weigh stations without a problem.

Three more hours down the road and I arrived at my accommodation in Durham. I was going to spend the night at my brother-in-law's and then meet some local muscles at the storage facility the next morning. Although I was only 10 miles away from unloading the truck I had a lot of anxiety about maneuvering into the storage facility.

Fortunately my sister-in-law had lots of experience directing trucks in and out of warehouses and she was able to give the most professional instructions that made the final part of the trip much easier than expected. She really came into her own when I visited three gas stations before I discovered one with a diesel pump. While it's often easy to drive into a gas station I know from experience that getting out in a 26' rental truck is never straightforward.

I gassed up the truck and drove four miles to the Budget depot where I dropped off the truck. When climbing down from the cab with my paperwork, gas receipt and recorded mileage I found myself shaking with relief. While I was proud that I'd managed to complete a run without major incidents I was ashamed that I did it with so little courage.

When I handed in the paperwork and signed off on the rental I was so happy that it was over. We all went out for lunch to celebrate and I was able to declare that I was never, ever going to do that again. Less that two weeks later I had to repeat the exact same process but by this time I was a seasoned profession 26' truck driver.

So what did I learn from the experience? Pay more attention to trucks, give them plenty of space, never move in front of them and apply the brakes, let them move into the overtaking lane when they have momentum because if they have to ease off the gas it can take minutes for them to build up the required overtaking speed again. Take care when merging on to an interstate using the on ramp. Also move to the right lane well in advance of using an exit ramp.

Truck driving is a real skill. These drivers aren't your enemies, they are just trying to do a job. You never know - one day you might need them to transport your things around the country. It's a difficult job, they see idiots like me on the road all the time and their life is on the line!

That's my trucking reality,

Jobsonian

Once I was faster than Usain Bolt

My first serious conflict with the establishment took place at Carr Lane Middle school, I was pulled out of a line for bad behavior. Of course I was innocent of breaking any rules but it would be many years before the idea of human rights emerged as a legal privilege, in those days the teacher was the sole judge, jury and executioner.

Every morning no matter if it was raining, snowing or blowing a gale we had to wait outside in the playground before the start of school. A teacher blew a whistle that signaled the start of school and then each class had to form a single line of its own. Then each class took turns in walking through the school door into the cloakroom where we left our coats and from there directly to our classrooms, regulations demanded that this procedure had to take place in complete silence and with military precision.

To this day I don’t really understand what I’d done wrong because it all happened so quickly, I think I laughed or smiled at the wrong time. On this morning the teacher was a particularly strict battle axe who went by the nickname of “Mrs. Spitfire” because of the spittle that would emerge from her mouth when she was angry. I remember someone in the ranks said “watch out it’s Mrs. Spitfire” and this caused her to wade into the lines and pick a bunch of boys located in my vicinity, interestingly the girls around me had behaved perfectly.

Mrs. Spitfire was a huge fan of corporal punishment, she had a collection of canes that she’d use to strike the open palm of your hand. Legend had it that this was not only painful but that parents would be able to see the mark left behind and further punishment at home was to be expected because you’d disgraced the family by being naughty. Once I’d been pulled to the side I knew my fate was going to a good whack on the hand, just the thought of it was bringing me close to tears but I had to try and look brave because my friends would have enjoyed making fun of me acting like a big girl.

The school was designed with one long corridor consisting of six class rooms on each of the two floors, at the ends of the corridor there was a staircase  that connected the two floors. My class room was on the ground floor and Mrs. Spitfire had a classroom in the middle of the top floor. There was about 15 fellow pupils in the line of condemned boys and we were the last line to be allowed into the school, Mrs. Spitfire counted us and told us to get out of our coats and form a line in the corridor.

I found myself second in line behind a regular “victim” of Mrs. Spitfire, once we were all ready Mrs. Spitfire instructed us to walk to her classroom. She led the line to the stairs and then she paused halfway up the staircase where she made certain that the end of the line continued to follow. I’m not particularly religious but even at that early age I could appreciate having a priest administer the last rights could be comforting for a boy about to meet his maker.

Then we reached the top of the stairs and turned the corner, for a brief moment we were out of sight of Mrs. Spitfire, below I could hear her telling the stragglers in the line to get a move on. It was then that the boy in front of me started to sprint to the end of the corridor, due to some kind of survival instinct I followed. I remember being way faster than anything Usain Bolt has achieved. Within seconds we reached the stairs at the other end and didn’t look back as we rounded the corner. It was a brilliant move, Mrs. Spitfire didn’t see anything because she was concerned about the back of the line. It was strange but my partner in crime and I didn’t exchange any words throughout the entire process, we walked down the stairs, peered around the corner to make certain that the coast was clear and then darted to the safety of our classrooms.  

I tried to hide in plain sight and retrieved my books from my desk, I didn’t feel safe from Mrs. Spitfire’s cane because she’d counted us and felt certain that one of the other bad boys would give us away in the hope that their punishment would be reduced for good behavior. I was scared, I knew I’d raised the stakes by running and no doubt faced several more strokes from the cane if I was caught but thankfully our lessons started without interruption from Mrs. Spitfire.

About 10 minutes later boys started drifting into our classroom with red eyes and rubbing their palms, obviously still in considerable pain. I felt guilty that they been punished so violently but at the same time I was relieved that I had escaped the wrath of Mrs. Spitfire in full swing. I decided to forget the entire episode, to pretend that I’d never been involved, it was difficult because I was very curious about what had happened once the line had reached Mrs. Spitfires room and she’d realized that she’d lost two very bad boys. Looking back she didn’t seem physically strong enough to go down a line of 15 boys and give them each a full power whack perhaps under normal circumstances the back of the line was the place to be.

At lunchtime the “regular victim” asked me if I’d been caught and I said no, he confirmed that he’d also escaped the cane. I asked him if he’d done that before and he said that he’d done it twice and got away with it. He also divulged that he’d climbed out of the toilet windows three times and once hidden under a bunch of coats. My admiration for him grew immensely but I certainly didn’t want to become his regular partner in crime, once was enough for me.

That’s my reality,

Jobsonian

Olympics on BBC at lunchtime

The 2016 Olympic games in Rio have ended and Team Great Britain is going home with a record 67 medals, 27 gold, 23 silver and 17 bronze. This is an achievement that anyone from my generation would find amazing. Early in my lifetime Great Britain, the United Kingdom, England and Yorkshire struggled to win anything. Now that I’m on the back nine of the golf course of my life I can enjoy the memories of victorious Ashes cricket campaigns against Australia, a world cup in rugby and just recently the Yorkshire cricket team has won the championship several times. 

My first real memory of being interested in the Olympics dates back to 1968, that year Mexico were the hosts and we took home 13 medals, 5 gold, 5 silver and 3 bronze. I’ll never forget David Hemery winning the 400m hurdles, Chris Finnegan’s gold in the men’s middleweight boxing and Lillian Boards silver in the women’s 400 m. It was the meeting where Dick Fosbury flopped to a gold in the men’s high jump and Bob Beamon jumped to a new world record that would last 22 years and 316 days. 

Back in 1968 I was 11 years old and attending Nunthorpe Grammar School in York. The BBC covered the Mexico Olympics via satellite and broadcast a special lunch time show, at the time this was a huge deal well before 24 hour television was available. The school made it’s only black and white television available in the school gym for the pupils to watch the show but only pupils allocated to the first sitting for lunch were allowed to watch. Also for some reason 1^st year students were banned. Unfortunately I was a member of the second sitting lunch group and being a 1^st year student I wouldn’t be allowed to watch. Of course I didn’t quite see it that way I decided to skip school lunch and join the smokers at the nearest fish and chip shop and return to watch the show.

This plan worked well, if I ran in both directions I could get back in good time to watch the show. I had to bluff my way into the room because prefects had been posted on the door. Since I’ve always been tall it wasn’t much of a problem to walk past the pimpled gate keepers and once inside everyone was glued to the sporting events on the screen. Everything went well for about 7 school days and then everything went wrong. The faculty decided to start a campaign against the smokers and the fish and chip lunch guys, for some reason leaving the school grounds for lunch was illegal. About twenty fellow pupils were caught eating fish and chips, you didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to spot the offenders because we were all in school uniform, the good news is that I didn’t know the teacher and he didn’t know me so I identified myself as Richard Kirby (my cousins name). I was given a detention form by the teacher and despite the administrative delay I was able to run back to the gym in good time for the start of the Olympics TV show. 

I walked confidently past the gatekeepers only to hear my name called, it turns out that one of the prefects lived a few doors down from me and he knew that I didn’t belong in the room. The peperoni pizza faced prefect was 4 years older than me, so he wasn’t really a friend and after he handed me a detention form his chances of becoming a friend decreased dramatically. This time my real name was on the form, there was no chance of me escaping my punishment, at the end of the school day I dutifully reported to the sixth form common room to serve my detention. My name was checked off the list of about 30 boys that had been given detention, some were fish and chip offenders, others were smokers, there was one other pupil who’d tried to get in to see the Olympics which is probably a hanging offence these days. 

When I looked down the list I could see that Richard Kirby had failed to turn up, fortunately my cousin attended another school and wouldn’t face any consequences from my deception. There was about 20 boys that had reported for detention and after a short sharp lecture from a teacher we were given the task of writing 200 lines before having to go to every classroom and make certain that all chairs were on top of the desks. The detention would take about one hour to complete, it was a pain to be held back after school but rather than mess about I set about writing my lines and quickly moved on to the next phase. I kept my head down and managed not to smirk at the teacher and prefects as they discussed what to do about the pupils that hadn’t reported for detention, my dear cousin was in for some serious detention time if they ever caught up with him. It’s my sincere hope that there was lots of fictitious names on that list. 

At the time I couldn’t understand why anyone would ever want to become a prefect and have to stay behind after school to run the detention program. The only benefit was being able to wear an upgraded school tie and boss people around, back then I didn’t understand the drug of power that can become an addiction for a certain type of person. After my detention experience I decided that my days of viewing the Olympic lunchtime show was over, I wasn’t going to lower myself and join the other 1^st years trying to watch the TV through the gym windows!

Jobsonian

Voting, what was I thinking

As a young 18 years old living in the UK I voted against joining the European Union. At the time of the EU vote I was concerned about wine lakes, butter mountains, grain surpluses and foreigners dictating what should happen in the country of my birth. Recently I was back in the UK when the Brexit vote took place and I must admit that I’d have voted to remain in the EU. I’ve no idea what happened to the lakes and mountains that resulted from the “crazy” agricultural policies of the EU but there was no mention of surplus farming in any of the debates that I saw. I also believe that the EU fishing quotas is helping to restore the stock of fish around our shores and yet I still wonder why Spanish trawlers continue to fish in British territorial waters.

However I can’t get too emotional about the Spanish because I remember the UK had no issues harvesting cod from what the Icelandic government considered their territorial waters. In 1973 the UK was so convinced that it could fish inside the new 50 mile fishery limits declared by the Icelandic government that it sent some war ships into the area in what we now call the “Cod War”. I’ve just looked up the naval strength of the two parties involved, Iceland had 3 large patrol vessels, 2 small patrol vessels and 1 armed whaler against the Royal Navy with 30 frigates, 1 destroyer, 11 RFA supply vessels and 5 defense tugs. I guess the UK government was fairly confident that if it came to a real fight the Royal Navy would be victorious with a 47 to 6 vessel advantage.

Having said that the so called minnows of the Icelandic soccer team just dispatched the mighty English team out of the 2016 European Cup. Iceland has a population of 323,002 to find the talent for their soccer team while England can select from a pool of just 53,010,000 million. Perhaps the Icelandic soccer team have proved once again that "size doesn't matter". Even though I'm an English supporter I admired the Icelandic teamwork and they enjoyed excellent support from their travelling countrymen. Like many other soccer tournaments before this I found myself relieved that England was out of the competition and I could start to enjoy watching the soccer without any emotional investment other than the "anybody but Germany" ideology. 

A long time after the EU vote I spent 6 weeks in Iceland which is one of the travel highlights of my career, one of the reasons being that it’s not a popular destination and always generates interest in any conversation.

The project I worked on was at the government printers and they had the most wonderful cafeteria with restaurant quality food. I mentioned this to one of the managers I was working with and the next lunchtime I was show to what we’d now call the chefs table where I enjoyed the personal attention of the head chef and what a character he was. I’ve always gravitated towards friendship with people that have the joy of life in their eyes and the Icelandic chef was no exception, he’d spent time working in Scotland and had plenty of stories about his experiences among the kilted Celts.

I’d never been much of a fish eater, I didn’t like messing about with the skin and bones but my time at the chefs table changed my life forever. The fish my new friend prepared was so delicious that I started to wonder if all the chefs in the UK didn’t understand how to cook seafood. The chef laughed when we talked about that and he said it’s no special secret, he told me that they keep all the best fish in Iceland and send all the low quality fish to England. I thought he was joking but then again the product on my plate suggested that he might be serious.

I was quite sad to leave Iceland, I’d made some great friends, seen some fantastic sights and had some fun experiences.  The work had been challenging but also successful and so I felt quite pleased with myself as I boarded the flight home. I should mention that there was a huge shortage of men on the island and from what I saw a surplus of ultra-attractive single blonde women, if I wasn’t married even I might have been able to find love. I could have been a big fish in a small pond so to speak.

The "international" standard hotel that I stayed in would rent out TV sets for your room, of course I didn't bother paying for this luxury but it was very interesting to learn that no television programs were broadcast on Thursdays, the Icelandic government decided that Thursday was family day. I guess that law doesn't continue today but perhaps if the UK had a day free of television our soccer team might be able to practice and eventually become worth the money they are paid!

On my last day at the Icelandic government printers the chef gave me a package of frozen fish to take home, it was well wrapped and he assured me that it wouldn’t leak if it started to defrost. Although my wife wasn’t too impressed with my gift from Iceland she changed her mind after cooking some of the fish for dinner, it just tasked better than any fish we had available in our supermarkets. We had enough fish to be able to give some to a friend and his family also thought that the fish was something special.

That's my reality,

Jobsonian

I'm only certain of one thing

I’m enjoying a Yin & Yang experience in my TV news viewing, I’ve switched from watching Fox News with wife 23 to CNN and even MSNBC with my beloved librarian. It’s proving to be quite a ride and I doubt I’ll ever recover from the whiplash effect of the difference between the left and right political interpretation of all news events.

When I was married to wife 23 she insisted on watching Fox & Friends in the morning. I’ve never really been a political kind of person, I couldn’t see myself signing up for any kind of political party because I can’t vote in the USA but mostly due to the fact that over the years I’ve realized that life isn’t easy and there’s always lots of differing opinions and solutions to issues we face. I guess in the perfect world we’d adapt the best ideas rather than be concerned about which political party was behind the proposition.

The morning ritual of watching Fox & Friends ended after I started to pay attention to the actual content of the “news” show. Little by little I realized that much of the news they presented wasn’t accurate or deep enough for me to form an opinion. There was two events that made me find the courage to tell wife 23 that I didn’t want to watch Fox & Friends any more. One was the Terri Schiavo case where she’d suffered a cardiac arrest which caused massive brain damage and eventually declared to be in a vegetative state. Eight years after the diagnosis her husband Michael petitioned to turn off Terri’s life support but her parents opposed the move.

To watch Fox news you’d think that Terri was up and about doing the Riverdance and completing Monday’s New York Times crossword inside 15 minutes despite the fact that Florida’s best medical experts had declared Terri vegetative.

It must have been a very sad situation for everyone involved and Fox news moving into a parking lot opposite the hospital can’t have helped ease the pain. Eventually the feeding tube was removed and Terri died, a postmortem of her body revealed that her brain had deteriorated and lost a great deal of tissue. However I didn’t learn this from Fox news because they didn’t even have the grace to acknowledge that their so called reporting was wrong let alone apologize to Michael Schiavo, Terri’s parents or indeed their viewers.

The other even was far less emotional but was the straw that broke my back. Fox news was covering some kind of Royal event in England and up pops their Royal Correspondent who is a Royal Family insider and so called expert in all things Royal. I was in total shock as I saw some idiot from England spouting utter nonsense about the Royal family and their private thoughts and fears. This “expert” wasn’t a former member of the BBC or ITV news team, he had the reputation of being an eccentric fool when I was in England and once again this viewpoint was being confirmed as he spouted verbal diarrhea on my TV screen. I would have loved to get the Queen to come out of the palace and confront the charlatan, she’d have no idea who he was but the very idea of him being “close” to the Royal family was preposterous and yet Fox News fell for his bullshit and expected their viewers to do the same.

I turned off the TV and declared that my house would be a Fox News free zone in the mornings, wife 23 was taken aback by my passion, so much so that she let me have my own way for the first time in our relationship.

My beloved librarian, has a fabulous brain with at least 3 degrees from reputable American universities for this to be an indisputable fact. The librarian subscribes to The New York Times newspaper, The New Yorker magazine and The National Enquirer. No seriously The National Enquirer is just a joke. We don’t listen or watch the news in the morning because the librarian believes in quiet time, initially this was a new concept for me but I’ve become a great fan of quite time.

For election coverage the librarian has morphed from watching CNN to MSNBC, in particular Rachel Maddow who like Bill Clinton is a Rhodes Scholar. The librarian is always interested in the academic achievements of TV presenters and Rachel excels in this area gaining a Doctor of Philosophy from Lincoln College, Oxford. While I’ve nothing against Rachel, MSNBC or the librarian I’m always agitated by anyone who has an opinion and a certain amount of reluctance to embrace input from other sources and yet I respect someone who has an opinion. Try living with that contradiction in your life, the phrase "I used to be undecided but now I'm not so sure" is so appropriate to my life.

I’ve always enjoyed great strategy even though I’m a person that’s been gifted with a fantastic eye for a ball but a small brain that hasn’t been worthy of academic certificates. I just enjoy evaluating both sides of an argument but this prevents me from being able to give 100% commitment to one side or the other.

I can see the Yin and yet also see the Yang and so I remain firmly non-committal about anything in life apart from having no doubts that I was born in the best county in England or even the world. That’s my Yorkshireman reality,

Jobsonian

The journey to the predators lair

Wife 23, or "the predator" as my friends would call her, had two black Labradors when she first moved in and started to live with me. These two dogs appeared to be almost identical but their character couldn’t have been more different. KC, the eldest dog by two years, was kind of stand offish, aloof and very rarely showed any need for affection or gave any affection unless you had food in your possession. The youngest dog Chance was a lover, constantly giving and wanting to receive affection even if you didn’t have any treats in your hand.

When I got home from work Chance would be at the door wagging her tail and very excited to see me, minutes later after hearing the noise of their food bucket open KC would turn up and wait for her bowl to be filled. Sometimes I thought I saw KC nod her head to say thanks but deep down I knew this was just a figment of my imagination. As a child the only pet I’d ever had was a hamster and so I was quite inexperienced with regard to living with man’s best friend, never mind two of them.

My first meeting with the dogs didn’t go that well, both KC and Chance spent the first 15 minutes barking and snarling at me. Like any brave Yorkshireman I stood my ground and tried not to show fear, eventually they gave up and went back to their couches. I must admit that I wasn’t too impressed with the way I was left to face the music by my eventual wife. At the time I concluded that this was some kind of test or initiation process that I had to endure.

When KC did gave some affection it felt wonderful, it was so rare that it was memorable and in many ways meant more than anything Chance could give. Of course this feels wrong, why should affection from a cold heart mean more than affection from someone who always gives affection all the time? In many ways I had the same problem with my two daughters, I enjoyed a fabulous warm and loving relationship with my youngest child Emma but for many reasons including my own fault I’ve never had anything like the same deep affectionate exchanges with my eldest child. While Emma could be very demanding and needy, I’d give anything to face that kind of problem again. Looking back now I probably took Emma’s kind and caring nature for granted, unfortunately I won’t get a second chance to correct that stupidity.

One Friday I’d just returned to the USA after spending 3 months in Denmark due to issues with my USA work visa. When I got home my old Jeep Laredo and even older Jeep Wrangler wouldn’t start due to what I thought was battery issues. Eventually I managed to get the Jeep Laredo going but even after driving around and attaching a battery charger overnight any attempt to start the car couldn’t be guaranteed to be successful.

My mixed tennis team was having an end of season party on Saturday, I was looking forward to seeing my friends again. Since the venue was in the next neighborhood after making certain my AAA card was valid and in my possession I decided to risk taking the Laredo. Over the 3 months I’d been away I’d kept in touch with a few friends via a group email, after one of these exchanges a lady who was single sent me an individual mail. Unknown to me at the time this was the start of my relationship with the “the predator” or wife 23 as she eventually became.

The emails between “the predator” and me hadn’t been romantic in nature and so I walked into the party without any expectation of any kind of relationship starting. In fact previously I’d never had a one on one conversation with “the predator” but that was about to change. The party was fun and I enjoyed circulating and playing games with my friends, it was the perfect way to catch up. In a break between games I was refreshing my drink in the kitchen when “the predator” approached and we started talking about our mails, eventually she double checks to see if we are alone and then asks me what I’m doing later. Since it was already 1:00 AM in the morning I said I’d be going home, “the predator” slipped me a piece of paper with her phone number and address and informed me that I might want to grab a night cap at her house. Obviously experienced in these matters she told me that we should leave the party separately, that she was going to leave soon but I should follow after 30 minutes or so.

I was like a deer in headlights, not knowing what to expect but hoping that things could get interesting. In the course of the evening I’d had several beers, while I felt sober the reality was that I could have been on the very edge of failing a potential breath test. I watched “the predator” leave with her friend and shortly after that the party started to break up. My heart was pumping with excitement as I jumped in my car and turned the ignition key but disaster followed as I heard “clunk” rather than the purr of the 4.0L engine kicking into action.

Trying not to panic I tried again and again, sometimes the engine turns over and sometimes it doesn’t but it never showed any sign of bursting into life. By this time most people have left but one friend offers to take me home, I couldn’t tell him how important it was to me that I was able to drive away in my own car. Each time I tried to start my car the friend became more and more persistent that he should take me home saying that we could deal with the problem in the morning. Inwardly I just wanted to scream but I had to try and remain calm so that nobody would become suspicious of my situation. Then just before I’m about to give up, there’s a huge backfire and the Laredo engine starts to show signs of life, it started with a non-rhythmical chuga chug chug and then after another backfire it settles into a normal running sound.

From the depths of despair to elation in just five seconds. My friend even commented that I seemed happy but he’d no idea how happy I really was! This was back in the days before GPS and so my first task was to drive home and MapQuest the predators address. Since I’m a smart Yorkshireman I left the Laredo running when I went inside, I could hear the car on idle from the computer room and 10 minutes later I was on my way. It was about 01:45 by this time and I was hoping that this would be the last driving I’d be doing that night. While I wasn’t exactly driving like I stole it I was making haste to my destination, then I noticed that I had a police car behind me. I lifted off the accelerator and dropped 4MPH below the speed limit, when I checked the mirror there was no flashing lights and the police car was pulling out to overtake me. My car needed gas and I had to turn left into the nearest gas station which was going to be difficult because the police car was alongside me and the passenger was “observing” me.

I didn’t know what to do, several minutes passed as we drove side by side and then we reached the lights where I needed to turn left. On the dash my gas low light was flashing, I couldn’t risk driving any further and so I decided to tell the officer about my dilemma when we were stood at the red light. He told me to turn left in front of him when the lights went green and that’s what I did but the police car followed me, I thought I was doomed to a breath test and consequent death by electrocution. I was so relieved when the police car continued driving straight when I turned into the gas station. Again I kept the car running and performed a dangerous splash and dash rather than wait for the entire tank to be filled.

Fortunately the rest of my journey was incident free and I arrived at “the predators” lair ready and willing for anything.

After I’d been to the lair four or five times the two dogs actually seemed pleased to see me. One time when we were on the phone the predator mentioned that her dogs liked me and I told her that they actually like me more than her. The predator declared that we’d test that theory in the evening, I’d go into one room and she’d go into the other and we’d see who the dogs followed. Previously I’d overheard a conversation about the wonderful powers of a dog food called Bil-Jack, it’s a frozen dog food and that evening I prepared for my visit to the lair by rubbing my legs with Bil-Jack and also filled my pockets with the dog treat.

When I walked through the door I secretly gave the dogs a small treat of Bil-Jack and they got very excited. Then the predator said that we should go upstairs, I should go in the back bedroom and she would go in the front bedroom. She was so angry when both dogs followed me into the back bedroom, she couldn’t believe what had happened. I told her that some people were dog people and some just didn’t have the dog thing going for them, this didn’t help improve her mood. By now the two dogs were jumping up and down against me, they could smell the Bil-Jack in my pockets and it was time to reveal my trickery when I gave them a handful of the dog treat each. The predator was so relieved to see that I’d had to resort to bribery to get her dogs into my room.

That’s my reality,

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