Adam got his learners permit back in June and we’ve been letting him drive here and there. He’s doing pretty well. He was a little jerky with the steering wheel in the beginning but he hasn’t really made me to nervous yet.

Tricia and I have been debating about what he’s going to drive when he actually gets his license in January. Tricia wanted him to drive the old 1988 Dodge Ram Charger. Her theory is it’s big, slow, and not very pretty, so any damage he might do wouldn’t be costly. I agree with her in theory. The problem with this is that in reality I don’t think it’s safer. The truck has lots of mechanical issues, not the least being the lazy steering. Driving it on the highway is a very tiresome process of correct and re-correct to try and keep it in your lane. Additionally it’s really starting to rot out.

So that leaves us with letting him drive the brand new convertible, the brand new 4 Runner, or my 1991 Eagle Talon. I think the choice is obvious, although Tricia fears I’m giving a 16 year old a sports car. Fortunately, I think Adam has a great head on his shoulders for his age and I’m really not concerned about it in the least.

Today I took Adam out for his first drive in it. We went to a secluded parking lot down the street and I showed him the ins and outs of driving a standard. I showed him the shift pattern, explained the idea of having the engine turning at the same speed as the wheels as you let out the clutch, and I showed him how to use the emergency brake for a hill start.

I parked the car and changed seats with him. As he climbed behind the wheel I flashed back to me and my father. My dad had a Mercury Capri and I can vividly remember him taking me to the parking lot where he worked one Sunday and teaching me in the same manner. As Adam jerked out the clutch and my head snapped back I could remember the feeling as I first let the clutch out on the Capri and snapped back my fathers neck. The butterflies I got as I tried so hard to do it just right. I could actually put myself in the drivers seat with Adam and it was a weird feeling.

As Adam got better slowly, with the starting and going, I remembered something my father did to me as I was learning to drive the Capri. We were driving along in the parking lot and he said “STOP” so I stopped, thinking I had done something wrong. He said “no, I wanted you to stop hard” So I got moving again and he said “STOP” I jammed on the brakes and the car stalled as I forgot to push the clutch in. It’s amazing how this exchange my father and I had so many years ago was the exact same one Adam and I had today when I told him “STOP”.

I have to wonder if some years down the road Adam will have the same conversation and experience with his son/daughter.

Adam is an avid skier and decided a few years back to pursue a job as a ski patrol member at a local ski mountain near us.  In order to do this he had to take and pass a 90 hour first responder class.  he did this in 3-4 hour increments a couple of times a week.  It was hell for his mother and I transporting him back and forth but Adam was getting a lot out of this and enjoying it.  Last ski season was his first year as a jr. ski patroller and I must say I'm one proud father.

A couple of events have happen that kind of fill me with mixed emotions.   I thought I might relate them to you.  Towards the end of the last ski season a 14 year old boy, new to snowboarding, hit a tree at the ski area and Adam was one of the ski patrollers to respond.  It was not a pretty sight to behold, without getting into gory details I'll just say that the boy had sever head injuries.  A senior patroller on scene immediately called for a airlift and they tossed the boy in the sled and headed down the hill.  This event was traumatic for Adam and traumatic for us to.

It is normal (at least I hope) for parents to keep their children from having to deal with the horrors of life.  So as I tried to calm my upset son I wondered if allowing him to do this was the right thing.  Not only was this traumatic for my son but it was also somewhat confusing.  The accident scene followed little of the procedures he was taught.  They didn't back board the boy, they didn't tie him into the sled.  The ski patrol that Adam belongs to is a fantastic organization of skilled people.  The head patroller called Adam that night and offered consoling and also explained the need to break procedure in critical situations.  In this particular case the options were to break procedures or deal with a mortality.  The head patroller continued to console Adam through-out the remainder of the season, the boy finally regain consciousness and is undergoing a long recovery.  Adam also seemed to recover this traumatic event.  We support him and have allowed him to decide if and how he continues on in this endeavor.

The story of the boy ends here, but the story of the training Adam received does not.  As most of you already know we are very big race fans and Adam and I both race karts at NHIS throught-out the summer.  Every event Adam goes to the ambulance crew when we arrive and lets them know he is a trained first responder and to feel free to call on him.

At the last NASCAR event we went to Adam went to get a snack and found a little boy being cuddled by a parent under the stands.  The boy was bleeding profusely from the head, the parent walking in a daze with the boy.  Adam took off his T-shirt and applied pressure to the wound taking the boy to the medical building, after handing the boy off he left, not looking for a thank you just feeling good that he made a difference.   These are the lessons we all need to learn and looking back I think we made the right decision to support Adam in this endeavor.  Perhaps it has made him grow up to fast, but more then that it has given him a sense of self worth and two damn proud parents.

This latest incident prompted the following letter from our good friends in North Carolina Lee and Belinda Murdock to Richard Childress Racing.  Letter to Richard Childress

I'm a volunteer'. For some unknown reason I can't get involved with something without really getting involved. As I think back I've always been like this. I'm not sure why this is. Perhaps it's my quest for knowledge. Perhaps my way of paying back for the good times I've had. Perhaps my desire to try and make something better. Perhaps my way of doing something I like more often. Perhaps it's my need to try and get other people to have fun too. I'm really not sure but I'm a volunteer.

I was a boy scout as a youngster. As soon as I was old enough I volunteered to work at a local boy scout camp. No pay, but I loved camp and this was my first chance to be out on my own and be at camp. My first volunteer experience wasn't very pretty. I think I was too young for the responsibility and I didn't make it through the entire summer. I did however learn from this that a commitment was a commitment. This experience that I now look back on and laugh about certainly had a major roll in my personality and my need to volunteer and get involved.

Through out the years I've dug myself deep into many volunteer ventures. Having a son certainly creates enough opportunities to volunteer. Lets see, there was soccer, School PAC, baseball, and a few others. To add to the madness my wife is the same way. For 6 years we have volunteered to help run events at New Hampshire International Speedway for the New Hampshire Karting Association Racing Series. Both my son and I race in this series and I think I initially got involved for number of reasons but the main reason was because I loved wheel to wheel racing and I wanted to make sure I had a fun place to race with plenty of people to share the fun with.

This brings me to the reason I'm feeling a need to write this and it's not for my ego, it's not looking for a pat on the back. I think it's more a need to question my sanity and perhaps to vent a little.

This past weekend my wife and I helped run a Grand National Karting Race at New Hampshire International Speedway. I say helped because there are a number of people, besides us, that volunteer there time (and a lot of it) to make this event work. My wife does registration and I'm the Race coordinator. Without going into a lot of specifics the next three days for us will begin at 6am and run non-stop till 6 or 7 pm. We'll be working late into the night to complete our volunteer jobs and then later still to get our kart ready for the races the next day. It's 90 degrees out, very humid, and I comment to someone else that we have to be a mile from the sun. We both do our normal hectic routines and handle a barrage of questions and complaints through out the day. We try very hard to remember why we are there "because I loved wheel to wheel racing and I wanted to make sure I had a fun place to race with plenty of people to share the fun with". For the most part people are great, they see your trying your best, they are having fun, if they have a question they watch and wait to ask when your not dealing with something already. Some even make sure they make the effort to come thank you. For this I thank them! It's the few people, obviously from the "NOW" generation, or perhaps with a brain tumor that push your sanity to the limit. Unfortunately one of these people seem to erase every 50 of the other.

Let me relate one personal experiences from the weekend. We're running the second to the last race of the weekend and a women comes up to me while I'm dealing with a protest someone has put in for an earlier race. She interrupts me and wants a printout of the top 5 finishes of all the races for the weekend. She goes on to say she writes a racing newsletter. I try and explain to her that it's not a simple thing (maybe it should be but it isn't). First off registration and scoring are very busy trying to recap races and get results posted, they are handing out trophies from the day before, selling T-Shirts and basically already out of control. Additionally, the scoring system doesn't know about disqualification's so it's not as simple as hitting a key and sending all the results to print. At this point the women actually gets an attitude towards me. I'm some what shocked but continue to try and help her. I point out to her that my wife hand writes the results at the end of the day and perhaps we could get her a copy then. She continues with her attitude saying "Well that will be too late, I'm not staying late just to get these results, I thought you'd want to have this published" I did want this published and after 8 hours of standing in the blazing sun and dealing with all these issues for some reason I was still trying to be nice to this women. I then suggested that perhaps I could fax the information to her or I could type them in and email to her when I got home. Mrs. Attitude says "Well that's no good, I'm going on vacation for two weeks – I guess you just won't have this listed in the newsletter" My mind is saying "Give me a frigging break lady!" but my mouth says "why don't you come with me to registration and I'll see if I can get you a print out and perhaps we can take the full listing and write the disqualification's from the races that are posted. She walks with me over to registration and I walk around to the back to try and get at the computer for a print out. I lean in to ask my wife how I could do this but when I look up to introduce this women to my wife I see her back heading out the door in a huff. I tell my wife never mind as she is harried enough and I'll bore her with this story after things settle down. I should also point out that there is no reason this women couldn't have gone to the posting board and written down the top 5 of each race herself. Instead she looked for the easy route – Abuse the volunteers.

Now this is only one example of one thing that happen to myself. Things like this happen many times to all of the volunteers for this event and for volunteers all over the world. The significance of this event is that it immediately erases all the good things (and there were lots of them) that happen at the event and through-out that day. It's the thing I will remember, it's the thing I will talk about, it's the thing I will write about, it's the thing that makes me question my sanity for being a volunteer.

Perhaps this is the real reason we volunteer? The need for conflict? The need to be abused? The need be belittled for doing the best you can? Naaaaa, I think it's mostly our human nature to want to help those people that appreciate it and in my case the need to spread the fun. Repeating to myself "most appreciate it, most appreciate it, myself "most appreciate it, most appreciate it."

I'm a volunteer.

Society says we should have kids and teach them the ways of the world.  Some of these teachings are so that they fit in with society, some are mechanical skills they need to survive and get a job (the three R's), and some are passing on lessons of life that we ourselves have experienced, hoping your kids don't make some of the foolish mistakes you might have made.  I'd like to put forth to you that the kids teach you as much in return.

Adam wanted a fish tank.  He always was, and is still, fascinated with nature and it's creatures.  He was around 5 years old when Tricia and I bought him his first gold fish.  Sitting in an unfiltered gold fish jar on the table Adam spent many hours watching and feeding this fish.  Soon after he got his fish we built a house and moved into it.  Of course the fish, as a member of the family, came along.   Seeing that he could and would care for the fish (with an occasional prodding) we decided to let him get a full fledged fish tank with filters etc.  We got a few more fish and the original gold fish seemed to love the new environment.  When Adam was 10 he came home from school one day and the fish was belly up (I thought it lived a long life) Adam on the other hand had his first dealing with death.  Tricia wasn't home and Adam was hysterical.  I tried to calm him, held him, told him what a long life the fish had, basically did everything I could to no avail.  Tricia got home and Adam went screaming to her.  She explained to him some of the same things I had, but then pointed out the fish had gone on to a better place, heaven.  That he was in gods hands.  This immediately calmed Adam down and I swear I could see the wheels turning in his head.  We had a little funeral and buried the fish out in the yard.  Life was good again.

As I laid in bed that night I replayed the events in my mind.  I am not an atheist (although I tell the holy jumpers that when they come knocking, it sends them running) but I have never been really religious.  I always thought it was somewhat strange that people would hold so dear something with so little fact to back it.  I mean what was the sense?  Did they feel that going to church and praying would ensure them a place in heaven?  It never made much sense to me.  We sent Adam to Sunday School and have always taught him about religion.  In it's very basic sense it certainly has molded the world and set history.  He is free to believe in what he wants and to further his education or beliefs with our full support.  I might add here that one of the reasons I think I doubted religion was because it always seems to be pushed upon us.  You should of seen some of the literature Adam got from Sunday school.  I felt they were teaching my way or the highway, and this is FACT, when in reality it is just a theory.  Anyway, I got off on a tyrant here I think.  So as I laid there thinking about the day it occurred to me what is so important about religion.   Although it itself is unexplainable it helps us to cope with things that are unexplainable.  Death, sickness, etc.   I certainly view religion in a little different light now.  Thanks Adam.  By the way, we still have fish (new ones) and the fish tank, actually a bigger one, and Adam still feeds them every day.

This probably should be under "things that piss me off", but fits well here as I started to grow up.

Back in 1983 I took a job with Wang Laboratories as a customer engineer.  I was in a group that handled hardware and software calls for internal people within the company.   There was about 10 of us in the group.  I was young and energetic and excited about my new job.  I spent a while following others around and getting some training before I was eventually on my own shagging calls.  Most of the people had been in the group a long time and they had set routines.  We would get in at 8am and meet in the cafe for coffee and breakfast, then do a few calls, then meet in the cafe at 10:15 for break, lunch at noon, 2:30 break and end the day around 5pm.  After a while I was trained and taking calls on the "micro computers" that ran Wang.  I was totally fascinated with the technology and I was proud they trusted me to fix them.   Things were great, or were they?  After a while I noticed people in the group avoiding me, talking bad about me behind my back and basically trying to make my life miserable.  After stressing about it for months, I finally got the courage to confront one of my older peers.  He said everyone was pissed at me cause I worked too hard and it made them look bad.  That I didn't take the scheduled breaks.  I tried to explain my thinking that if the company did well we would benefit.  I tried to explain that when the computers were down the company was loosing money.  They didn't want to hear it.  I was shocked!  Didn't everyone want to feel good about what they did?   Didn't everyone want to make the company the best it could be?    Wasn't everyone as interested in learning new things? Well surprise, apparently no one else in my group was.  They came to work, collected a pay check and went home.  I struggled with this the rest of my career at Wang.  Eventually I moved up to higher skilled jobs and into groups where more people held there work with pride.  Although I have learned how to handle those situations better I still haven't changed my work ethic.  If I'm going to do something, I'm going to be proud of what I do.

I call these peoples mentality "union minded".   I think at one time the unions were very badly needed.  Transportation was minimal and jobs were hard to come by.  Because so many people needed jobs and in some cases a local company was the only source of work, companies would take advantage of people.  Now a days however the world is a small place.  Jobs are plentiful.  Companies, for the most part, have to fight for skilled people.  Unions today I fear only hurt the majority of us.  My view may be slanted because I never really worked in manufacturing, where I think most of the Unions are strong, but from where I stand those unions hurt me.  $30,000 for a car!  A good chunk of that is the $30 an hour someone is getting to turn a wrench, and not well I might add, while they make sure they take all their breaks.

Look at the successful companies today and you'll find the fastest growing ones are based on the shared want of everyone to make a successful company.  I remember someone telling me years ago a story where a small fire broke out in a small startup company.  The owner, and a few others, started to fight the fire.  The majority of the people took it as a way to get the rest of the day off.  The building burned down and the company failed.  Had more of those people cared about the company they may have still had a job. 

My current job takes me to NYC were a lot of companies are under union eyes.  Just last week I went to give a presentation to a company.  I had overheads and they had an overhead projector there.  I turned it on and the fan came on, but no light.   I popped open the cover and there was a spare bulb in there (kewl I thought, I'll just switch the bulbs)  Wrong!  The people in the room wouldn't let me do it.   It wasn't my job!  So we (about 8 of us) sat around for 40 mins while we waited for the "Audio visual guy" to come, open the cover, and switch the bulbs.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we should make sure we work every minute we get paid for.  I'm not saying there isn't time to screw off.  Companies need to spend this screw off money to keep up moral, share the wealth of company success, etc etc.   What I'm saying is if the buildings on fire, try and help put it out and don't sit back and say "It's not my job!"  If there's nothing to do I'm the first to find something fun to do, but if something needs to be done I'm gonna give it my best.

I will never work for a company that is union!  There are plenty of jobs today where people are paid for what they produce.  Unions bread complacency and as such are, in my opinion, a depressing place to work.  You spend a lot of your life working, do something you enjoy.  Enjoying it in part is having some pride in what you do and how you do it.