Month: March 2022

Those who can’t…

First Published: 19 April, 2005

A friend of mine in the pipe band is a school teacher by trade and at a recent performance was more than a little embarrassed to see one of his students in the audience. She and her mother both waved vigorously and shouted hello as we passed so we all got a lot of mileage out of hearing him called “Mister”.

“What do they call you behind your back” I asked, to which he responded “Nothing, they don’t have a nickname for me”. Which, I thought, displayed a rather touching naïveté on his part. He may not know what it is, but it’s almost certain they have a nickname for him. School kids are like that.

When I was eleven and preparing to enter the “Big School”, my mother cautioned me about the husband of one of her acquaintances who had been teaching there since the school opened in the 17th Century.

“You’d best be careful,” she warned “the boys call him ‘The Rock’, because he’s so tough”. Well, maybe in his dreams they did. During my career I never heard him called anything but ‘Bill’, that being his name. And once you got past his pseudo gruff demeanour, he was one of the biggest softies on the block.

He was in fact, one of the better teachers at my school. With a remarkably small number of exceptions, we were blessed with a ragtag crew of psychopaths, nutcases and other assorted incompetents. Fortunately, several opted for retirement before I left the school and when it went co-ed a couple of years later, the school-board used the opportunity to decontaminate the place of several more.

Presiding over the bunch was ‘Slimey’ the head-master, an oily little creep of a man who glided rather than walked and was blessed with the skill of always appearing at the most inopportune moments. During the first drag on a shared cigarette, or moments before a smaller boy was separated from his lunch money for example. In later life I spoke to people who’d known him years before, as a junior teacher and he’d been known as ‘Slimey’ then too, so I imagine it was ingrained.

The assistant head, ‘Zan’, was a giant monolith of a man. Picture an Easter Island statue brought to life, although not totally. His style of teaching was to set some tedious assignment, before settling down to read from one of the huge books he habitually carried under his arm. Someone once snuck up on him and saw, buried in the pages of the gargantuan tome, an Ian Fleming paperback.

‘Taffy’ hailed from the valleys of Wales and was inevitably, if unimaginatively saddled with the traditional moniker of his compatriots. The story was that he’d had a lung shot out while serving as a rear gunner on a WW2 bombing run over Germany. That may have been true, but it didn’t prevent him from inhaling some three packs of cigarettes a day, causing the nicotine stains to reach up his hands beyond his shirt cuffs. Theoretically Taffy was a Latin teacher although it only took a few minutes for each class to degenerate into a shouting match as he ejected one pupil after another for blatant insubordination. The record was 19 out of a class of 32 in one half hour lesson.

There was ‘Geoff’, a 6’ 6” Yorkshireman who taught mathematics to finance his true love of mountaineering. He was actually pretty good (at the latter) and had taken part in a number of high level expeditions. We loved his lessons for the simple fact it was easy to get him off the subject and onto something more interesting.

“What would you say is the average angle of the North Face of Everest Sir?” we would ask innocently and in moments he would be off on a rambling tale of his climbing exploits.

Then there was ‘Fred’, who was of the old school in every sense; in that he had once been a pupil there himself. He had strong views on how teenage boys should deport themselves and rarely got around to teaching French, his chosen subject busy as he was, lecturing us on how we should dress when out of school uniform; doff imaginary caps when meeting a teacher in the street, that sort of thing. Fred had a pathological hatred of boys whistling, a remnant we were told, of a day many years before when the class had locked him in a cupboard and whistled loudly to cover the noise of him banging on the door.

And who could forget ‘Trevor’, a beloved art teacher who had to retire at a relatively young age after succumbing to crippling arthritis. Trevor took his own life some years later, choosing a rubber hose and a monoxide filled car rather than the daily agony which drugs couldn’t touch.

There were others of course, too many to mention. ‘Lenny’, who’s hairpiece would slide backwards on his head as he wrote on the chalkboard; ‘Ma’ Mitchell who looked like Freddy Mercury in drag; ‘Stormy’ Whitehead, who was deaf as a post and a whole herd of history (alliteration) teachers who seldom lasted more than a term. I wonder where they all are now. Well, no I don’t. I don’t really care.

Although there is an exception. One of the biggest regrets of my life is that before immigrating to the US, I should have made more of an effort to track down a certain Mr. Starkey, who taught at my junior school. What a nasty little sadist that guy was. If ever we should meet again Mr. Starkey, there’s a head butt with your name on it. You know why.

Schooldays are the happiest days of our lives, or so we’re told. The day I walked out of my school for the last time, I made the vow “Those are not going to be the happiest days of my life!”

And I’m pleased to say, they haven’t been.

Pick a card, any card

First posted: April 5, 2005

I lost my bus pass this week. No, I’m not a senior citizen, although I feel like it some days, but it’s not that kind of bus pass. Instead, it’s a handy little card called an Eco-Pass, provided by Denver’s public transport company and heavily subsidized by my employer. It allows me to travel anywhere on the public transport system, bus or train and living as I do, almost 50 miles from my office, I take advantage of it every day I can. Not only do I save on petrol, and wear and tear on Angus, (The 4-Runner) I can avoid paying downtown Denver’s exorbitant parking charges. It’s a wonderful thing. Except when it magically disappears from my wallet as I found it had done on Thursday morning.

I was pretty sure I knew how I’d come to lose it. The previous Tuesday, which was the last day I’d ridden the bus, disembarking had been something of a challenge due to the incredibly slow elderly lady in front of me and the fact that I was trying to take a work call whilst juggling my coat and backpack in the other hand and the Eco-pass in my third. This is probably why my phone ended up bouncing down the steps of the bus and ejecting its battery into the snow. Somewhere in the kafuffle my pass vanished.

Hoping I’d simply put the card in my shirt pocket, as I’ve done before, I called The Light of My Life™ and asked that she check the laundry basket for the shirt I’d been wearing. No pass. How about the jacket? Nope, not there either. Lost and Found once more came up blank (See Dressed for Success) so lunchtime found me at the transport company office going through the ordeal of obtaining a replacement. You would think for the $25 replacement fee they would have given me one with a better looking photo on it.

Historically, I haven’t had good luck with cards. When I set out on my 2-year quest to become a full-time hippie, I took all the usual steps. Quit my job, sold my flat, renounced all worldly possessions and ordered myself a credit card. After all, I had to have some way to access the money sitting in my bank account. On hindsight, it would have been better for me to have ordered two credit cards, so I would have been able to eat during the times when the first one went missing.

The first occasion was only a couple of months into my trip. I’d found myself the sole resident of a rather cheerless backpacker’s hostel in Ballarat, Australia and anxious to preserve my funds, was spending a lonely night in my room. To pass the time I spring cleaned my bag and cleared out a bunch of receipts, tourist leaflets, old maps and the like. Oh, and my credit card. I chucked that in the bin too although I didn’t notice until almost a week later when I next went to draw some cash.

The girl at the bank was very sympathetic but there was little she could do to help so I found myself backtracking to Melbourne, the nearest big city where Visa had a base. Ten days for a replacement so all I had to do was survive until then on the AUD $12.50 I had in my pocket. I achieved this by mooching off friends, sleeping on their couch, eating their food, and making myself as accommodating as possible by cleaning the house, running errands and the like. They were good people and we enjoyed each other’s company but it was a big day when I set out to Visa’s office bright and early, ready to pick up my new card and be on my way.

They had mislaid my paperwork and had never processed the application.

My British accent was still pretty strong in those days and it’s possible they didn’t catch all the words I used but I think I got my point across. Even so, it was another ten days before I finally received a shiny new Visa card and could set off on my trails once more. On hindsight, I could simply have called my folks and have them wire money out, but I was still young and naïve back then and didn’t want them to know I’d screwed up so early on my travels.

I had no such compunction the next time, over a year later when I lost my credit card again. By now I’d suffered through two more bouts of being unable to access my stash after maxing out my (pitifully inadequate) credit limit on plane tickets and having to wait a week or so until my bank back home settled the monthly bill. On both of those occasions I’d carelessly dipped into my “emergency” fund and on the latter had found myself with only $3 to my name. I threw myself on the mercy of the hostel manager and begged a week’s board on credit, then blew the lot on a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter – my only food for the next six days. On day two, someone stole the peanut butter.

So when my card mysteriously disappeared for a third time, in Phoenix, Arizona; I didn’t think twice about calling home collect and giving my dear old Dad detailed instructions on how International Money Transfers worked. If I’d thought obtaining a replacement card in Australia had been frustrating, it was nothing to the drama I went through trying to get one in Arizona. However, as that episode led (albeit somewhat circuitously) to me becoming a permanent resident of the USA, I think it merits a Gunsmoke Diary entry of its own someday. Suffice to say, the day after I reported it lost, my card turned up safe and sound, but due to the lock on the account, totally unusable.

I had reason to reflect on this sad tale while I was dressing for work on Monday morning. The clocks went forward this weekend so the first day of the week found me even groggier than usual as I hauled on my clothes in the darkness. Underwear successfully negotiated, on with the shirt, then the pants. I hadn’t even finished zipping up the fly when I felt a mysterious scratching on my hip. I checked the pocket and a second or two later was staring in befuddlement at a perfectly serviceable, but now completely useless Eco Pass. It hadn’t occurred to me to have The Light of my Life™ check my trouser pockets.

So…anyone want to buy an almost new Eco Pass, valid through the end of this year?

Hey c’mon! The picture probably looks as much like you as it does me!

A Wuss in the Woods

First Published: 29 March, 2005

I’m meditating.

My mind is calm, my body relaxed, my senses in tune with the music of the cosmos, my whole being focused on the one…ohmigod here comes another gust of WI-HIND!

Damn, it’s cold.

Reluctantly, I give up on the meditation and open my eyes to see Wiley the dog staring back at me. The question on her face is obvious. “Can we go home now?”

A camping trip seemed like a good idea when I initially made my plans. The weather was sunny and warm, with definite signs of spring in the air. Of course, I should have remembered, Colorado doesn’t give up winter without a fight and by the time the trip rolled around, the temperatures had plummeted once more making the whole prospect much less appealing. However, the weather had also turned nasty the last time I’d planned a camping trip, several months ago and to my regret, I’d wimped out. Not so this time. I was going ahead, cold weather or no.

At the last moment I decided not to take my little hike tent, but to sleep in the back of the car. With the seats folded down there’s plenty of room for me and a dog and I figured the ease of set up might be handy. After checking the weather forecast, I also changed my destination, deciding that a high mountain pass might not be the best location to camp during a winter storm. So southbound we were, to the back roads and jeep trails behind Buena Vista. It was one of the many areas in this state I’ve yet to visit so spirits were high as we bowled along the road early Wednesday morning.

It’s a while since I’ve been camping, and it was disturbing how much I’d forgotten when it came to packing. A warm hat would have been nice. And a tin opener. And perhaps that loaf of bread sitting on the kitchen counter at home. And definitely some hot drinks for the evening. I had my coffee of course, and a healthy supply of beer. But I can’t drink coffee in the evenings and even cold beer loses its appeal in sub-zero temperatures. But those concerns were hours away; at this point we were still optimistic of a fun couple of days, getting back to the wild and communing with nature.

It took a while bumping and wheezing along the trail before I found the perfect campsite beside a picturesque rock outcrop, and I jumped excitedly out of the car. Seconds later I was hopping back in to re-organize my attire. As in, to put on every bit of clothing I’d brought. Man, it was cold.

Now I had anticipated the temperatures dropping during the night and had brought plenty of warm stuff. What I hadn’t really allowed for was how to fill the day when all I could think about was how bitterly cold it was. I had some kind of fantasy about getting in touch with my primal spirit, becoming one with nature and aligning my energy with the natural forces of the earth. I saw myself spending time drumming, reading and meditating, with frequent walks among the flora and fauna which surrounded me. I hadn’t really envisaged myself huddling behind a rock in a desperate attempt to avoid having my face seared off by the wind.

And once darkness fell, oh boy did those temperatures drop. I was using The Light of my Life™’s sleeping bag rather than my own, for no other reason than that I came across it first while rummaging through the shed. It was billed as a three-season bag when we bought it, but I think that must have been one season in Florida, one in Hawaii and one in Acapulco. It certainly isn’t warm enough for spring in Colorado. Although to be fair, considering the water bottle by my head froze in the night, keeping me toasty would have been a challenge for sleeping bags a lot more expensive than this. Wiley had already staked her claim to the tartan rug I had intended to use as back up insulation and as she’s eleven now and presumably every bit as cold as me, I reluctantly cut her some slack. Instead, I lay and shivered, and wondered how long it would be until morning.

When daybreak finally arrived it took several mugs of hot coffee to warm my soul but as the sun made its feeble appearance through the clouds, I was feeling less like a popsicle and ready to face the day. All eighteen hours of it.

We went for walks. Lots of walks. And I spent a lot of time reading whilst huddled in the back of the car. This wasn’t much warmer than outside but at least it offered a respite from the wind. And every now and then I would climb outside and stretch my stiff limbs in an attempt to keep the blood circulating. I tried drumming but the percussion hurt my frozen hands. And I meditated; for a few minutes but totally failed to empty my mind of extraneous thoughts, concentrating as I was on the next gust of icy cold wind.

And all the while there was that nagging voice. The one questioning why I was doing this in the first place.

“You could be in town, sitting in a café, or a bookstore, or a bar. You don’t have to stay out here. You could always spend the day in town then come back and sleep out tonight. Or you could stay in that cheap motel you saw. Or, in two hours you could be home. You’re supposed to be having fun. You aren’t having fun, are you?”

Eventually I silenced the voice by telling myself that I’m a middle-aged guy who works in an office. I can barely run a mile and I can’t lift anything heavy. I can’t fix things around the house, and I wouldn’t know how to kill my own food. When civilization finally breaks down, I won’t last five minutes. But I am not going to give up on a camping trip just because it’s cold!”

And I’m proud to say, I didn’t. I stuck it out for the full 2 days before scraping the ice from the inside of the windshield and running for home. Am I a hardened camper or what? Wiley would probably have wimped out though, given the choice.

What, you didn’t think the wuss in the title was me, did you?