Mattthew Syed - Sunday Times

From the Sunday Times 27 March 22

Our democracy is chaotic, shrill and utterly terrifying to autocrats

"I tuned in to Question Time (BBC One) on Thursday evening after a long hiatus during which I haven’t felt any inclination to watch. Over the years, the programme has become more shallow, less willing to discuss complex issues and, with five guests rather than four, more shouty. People tend to hector more to get their points across, and as a consequence one learns precious little.

As I watched, though, I became intrigued. It wasn’t the content of the debate that struck me so much as its tone. The panellists slated the government on the economy, the cost-of-living crisis, the response to the Ukrainian refugee disaster and workers’ rights. Words such as “risible”, “disgusting” and “shameful” were common, and that was just in the first ten minutes. At times the hostility was volcanic, and the live audience roared along.

But, perhaps because I have recently returned from Poland, where the ideals of liberalism are still being cemented (and in some cases contested), I found myself watching the programme through an entirely different lens. Normally I would have been rather dejected by the hostility and rancour. Instead I was marvelling at the system we call democracy. Strange though this may sound, I am not sure it has ever looked so alluring.

I mean, how on earth does our system survive this kind of bitterness? This is the miracle that Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are, perhaps more than anything else, intimidated by. All that anger, all that freedom to express it, all that potential to spill over into violence, and yet democracies continue to bumble along. Economic growth in the West since the 18th century remains one of the greatest stories in history, eclipsing anything that has happened in autocratic societies, which have largely copied (or stolen) western technology. Even China is now hitting the middle-income trap.

How they envy what we have here. How they resent the way all this chaos can be channelled into so much creativity and dynamism. How they wish they could undermine the miracle of co-operative competition, something they haven’t yet come close to matching. And how they puzzle over the invisible thread that runs from the ideas of the ancient Greeks through those of the Enlightenment thinker John Locke to the articles drawn up by America’s founding fathers and beyond.

I mention this, too, because Joe Biden was quite right to state on Friday that the world faces a choice: one between democracy and tyranny. I hope that all of us can now see the risks of the latter more vividly as Putin brainwashes the Russian people through the ruthless control of information while using batons to quell dissent. What is perhaps less well understood is the logic of China’s social credit system, which many western scholars seem to think is some scaled-up version of the ratings system on Uber or Airbnb but which is slowly morphing into the ultimate instrument of oppression.

In one of the social credit schemes individuals are judged on what they buy, what they say and even the friends they have on social media. The Communist Party wants to measure everything so it can determine which individuals are “trustworthy”. Those who say the wrong things, who befriend the wrong people and who are guilty of thought-crime are marked down. Those on the blacklist are already denied air tickets, train tickets and university admission — a trend that is coming to dominate life for 1.3 billion people, perhaps even in their most intimate interactions.

Doesn’t this reveal the stakes of defending our way of life? Last week I watched as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe tore a strip off the British government for taking so long to secure her release from incarceration at the hands of the criminal clericsy of Iran. I noticed a couple of emails from friends vexed that she had focused her ire on those who had liberated her rather than those who had imprisoned her, but, here again, I couldn’t help marvelling. Here was a free citizen slamming those in power for not doing more, while fearing to call out her persecutors, given what they might yet do to her extended family in Iran. Could there be a more perfect illustration of what we have in democratic societies, and what we must never lose?

The late American novelist David Foster Wallace began a graduation day speech at Kenyon College, Ohio, in 2005 with the following parable: “There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, ‘What the hell is water?’”

Wallace’s point is that when you are surrounded by water all your life, you stop noticing it, stop valuing it, perhaps even start taking it for granted. It so permeates your experiences that it becomes a kind of background factor that melts away from everyday observation. As Wallace explained: “The point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about.”

Hasn’t this become true of democracy? For so much of the time we are focused on the squalls of everyday interaction — the petty online arguments, the crass sound-bites in parliament, the social media squabbles amplified ad infinitum by banal algorithms that feast on the divisive and sensationalistic — that we have almost stopped noticing the miracles embedded in our way of life: the willingness to rub along despite our differences, to accept the verdict of democratic elections even when we hate the result, to transfer power peacefully to opponents whose views we’ve slated. What the hell is democracy? This is democracy!

It perhaps goes without saying that the strength of democracy across the West has been in retreat over recent years, something that most of us can see all too clearly. But every now and again it is worth celebrating what we have, not least because it provides the impetus to fight for it.

As the writer Melody Beattie puts it: “Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

@MatthewSyed"

Salary Caps

 Association Football

“Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don’t like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that.” – Bill Shankly

I try to avoid commenting on Association Football – “football” in the UK and most other places, sometimes called soccer in the US.

But, there is so much BS said and written about it sometimes it’s just unavoidable and moreover necessary.

For example:

From the Eastern Daily Press:

Norwich City's joint majority shareholder Delia Smith has reaffirmed her commitment to the club and said she has no plans to leave.

"We have to always remember that it's called sport.

"Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose and that's how it goes. It's a roller-coaster with more joy than pain."

Ahead of Norwich City's match against Chelsea on Thursday (March 10) evening, the government issued sanctions against the Blues' owner Roman Abramovich amid links to Russia president Vladimir Putin.

In a display of support for Chelsea's Russian owner, travelling fans chanted Mr Abramovich's name in the away end which was met with boos from the City fans - including from Delia herself.

She added: "I was with our crowd and we were booing at the top of our lungs, including me, when Abramovich was mentioned.

"They had a lovely little song which was sang back at them.

"It's interesting because it's been going for nearly 20 years and it's taken a war for it to come to the surface."

Abramovich took over Chelsea in 2003 and his millions have helped propel Chelsea to become one of Europe's elite clubs.

Delia pointed to the Russian owner's takeover of Chelsea 19 years ago and said it "hadn't done football a lot of good".

She said: "If you have multi-million pound players not even playing in the game and sitting on the bench while you have clubs like ours who are self-funding, sport goes out the window.

"It's so unfair."

The situation described by Delia is just completely incomprehensible to NFL fans.  The idea that soccer clubs can act as Delia says seems just stupidly crazy to American football fans!

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1665623-how-does-the-salary-cap-work-in-the-nfl

The situation has recently been highlighted by the “flight” of  Roman Abramovich – owner of Chelsea FC. Finally, after the Russians declared war on Ukraine; the UK authorities have decided that maybe having Russian oligarchs running Premier League football clubs is not such a great idea.

In order to be deemed a fit and proper person to own a football club a person need to pass a test.

What is the Owners’ and Directors’ Test?

The Owners’ and Directors’ Test outlines requirements that would prohibit an individual from becoming an owner or director of a club. These include criminal convictions for a wide range of offences, a ban by a sporting or professional body, or breaches of certain key football regulations, such as match-fixing.

The test is applied to prospective owners and directors, who are then subject to a review on a seasonal basis. You can read the criteria of the Test in full at Section F of the Premier League Handbook.

I would very much like to be able to read the criteria on this: but, the Premier League Handbook has no index so I can’t find section F!!  Deliberate or am I being a victim of conspiracy theory?

What I can tell you is that Chelsea FC fans are more than a bit upset because their oligarch has been singled out for a ban whist other (probably) just as odious fellows have not. Note Delia’s comment on Chelsea fans and their chants!

Why is this so?

A convincing case can be made that (perhaps Delia exempted) the Premier League is just a convenient way of laundering money which has been gained from either illegal or morally dubious sources.

But, wait a minute!  Last time I heard Roman has said he will sell the club and not ask for the millions he has loaned Chelsea to be repaid!

Are we to really believe that he is happy to give away millions?  Why?

Would it be to avoid any scrutiny of Chelsea FC and how it has operated under his ownership?  Now I’m in full-blown conspiracy theory!

Lest the NFL get off scot-free, we should note that there are plenty of skeletons in the cupboards of the multi-millionaires who own NFL franchises. 

 Congress may be persuaded to investigate some of them. After all, the NFL only operates a salary cap and restrictions on player movements because they did a deal with the government to exempt them from the anti-trust legislation that most American businesses have to abide by.

https://www.city-journal.org/html/bench-nfl-15465.html

There are more than a few cupboards that could not stand opening.

Congress is unlikely, in my view, to investigate as the NFL is the most popular sport in the U.S. - eclipsing baseball (also exempt from legislation, basketball, also exempt and ice hockey – exempt, and also exempt is MLS).

https://www.lawinsport.com/topics/item/how-mls-single-entity-status-works-and-its-relationship-with-antitrust-law 

This has a direct bearing on how the association football is run, financed and organised in the UK and Europe, if not throughout the known world!

The NFL owners, in order to keep producing a product that folks want to watch on TV or go to stadia and pay exorbitant prices for tickets, a beer, a hot dog and various items of team merchandise are quite happy not to have to play players what the market will bear.  It’s just good business and with the government on board it’s a no-brainer.

Why, then does the same thing not apply to soccer?

I believe a lot of it has to do with the respective fans.

NFL fans are dreamy-eyed every March because, thanks in no small part to the salary cap, they believe all 32 teams have a chance to win the Super Bowl. In theory they do.  In practice the bookies are rarely wrong and the odds reflect this.  By contrast, soccer fans are much more realistic and consequently more sanguine about their teams’ chances.  They accept that if their team is not one of the top six (for wins and also for money spent) they are just making up the numbers.  So crazily tribal are they that the foolishness of their situation is lost on them.  Like lions led by donkeys and financed by shady dealers and downright crooks they cheerfully continue to line the coffers of the already obscenely rich.

Any chance this might change?  No.

Summer School Deliquents

 

If I have to lay an egg for my country, I'll do it: Bob Hope

I mostly managed to stay out of trouble during High School. My attendance was good enough and my grades were fine, rather than spectacular.

Some of my friends were not so academically gifted or perhaps just unlucky.

In those long gone days, if you failed to pass certain academic subjects, like English, you were required to attend what was called Summer School to make up for your poor performance during the main school year. Rather than learning a lot, I suspect it was just a sort of punishment meted out to miscreants. Johnnie Temple (known as Triple-Tit Temple, as like Francisco Scaramanga in the Man with the Golden Gun he did indeed have three nipples) and Robert Taylor (known as Towbar) were two such summer school attendees.

Unfortunately, this coincided with a job opportunity via my Old Man (OM).

OM had a great business idea. Already having set the milk business on fire, he decided to branch out into eggs.

In those distant days the milk business was about milk, almost exclusively. It’s true that there was a small freezer in the truck which carried Ice Cream, and sometimes Meyer’s Dairy would have a promotion for (say) fruit drinks.

Usually the OM paid little attention to such efforts to drum up business, but when they started offering prizes to the milkman who shifted the most fruit drink he suddenly became like a demon possessed.

He had the other poor smucks at a disadvantage. Although his round was not necessarily the largest, and he may not have been the greatest salesman; it did have one distinct advantage. The OM had developed such a relationship with some customers that they would more or less let him deliver whatever he wanted to. So, he would load their garages with fruit drink, not charge them for it and thereby win the prize – once it was a portable TV. Then we the contest was over he would denude their garages, slowly, and eventually shift the overstocked drink.

Now,when the OM had an idea usually the whole family was roped in to help. His egg idea consisted of getting a small truck (from who knows where), driving up to an egg farm somewhere near St. Joseph, Missouri as I recall, load it up with eggs and bring them home, which at that time was on 23rd Street in Independence, Mo. The eggs then had to be “candled”. A bright light was shone through the egg to make sure it was OK and fit for human consumption. He loved finding a “double-yoker” which was owing to the random propensity for chickens to produce one.

Now-a-days I suspect candling is done on an industrial scale and perhaps it was then, but the deal he made with the egg producers in St Joe was for wholesale eggs - I expect he got them cheap for it was the Kauffmans who were the labour force for candling.

Sum total: he had eggs to sell.

In theory he could have just put some on his milk truck and sold them as extras, but Meyer’s Dairy were not altogether stupid and he knew they would not allow that.

So, he purchased a beat-up 57 Plymouth station wagon to serve as Egg Delivery Central.

 

Needless to say it was not in such pristine condition as some of the beauties you can find for sale in the net, but it did run.

(aside – it was in the old beat-up Plymouth that I taught Linda Taylor to drive).

All that was required now was a sales force to hawk the eggs and build a recurring round of satisfied egg customers who would buy eggs on a regular basis, say a dozen or two twice a week.

American ingenuity and free enterprise now had one of its finest moments!

My Mom was in charge of recruiting the sales force. She picked me (of course), Johnnie Temple, Robert Taylor and Mousy McMillian.

Because Temple and Taylor were deep in the doghouse of Summer School we had to pick them up from WCHS at about 13:00 before we could go and try to sell any eggs.

Mom drove to WCHS; we picked up the two miscreants and, obviously, before we could sell any eggs we had to eat, so Mom would take us to Maconalds on 24 Hi-way for some lunch. and it’s still there! (11700 US-24, Independence, MO 64054)

We would then go and try to sell eggs. I wish I could remember who decided where to go, but alas I have no idea. The routine was simple. Mom would park up on some suburban street, we would get out armed with a few cartons of eggs and knock on doors, trying to sell them, but more importantly, trying to get folks to sign up for regular egg deliveries.

My salesmanship was poor, so was Towbar’s, Johnnie Temple could sell sand to the Arabs and Mousey wasn’t completely hopeless. Temple, in particular, saw this as an opportunity to meet pretty girls, and as it was the school holidays teenage girls often were the ones who answered the door bell.

We sold quite a few eggs and signed up some customers for regular deliveries. Things were going well.

I believe that he downfall of the egg round plan was mostly to do with the shoestring budget that the OM devoted to it. He bought the eggs cheap and his sales-force was had for only the price of a Big Mac or two; the crappy Plymouth was just about serviceable for delivering eggs and all seemed promising.

But, the whole thing was built on a house of cards. Thanks mostly to Triple-tit Temple we could sell eggs and sign-up customers; and had the OM had sufficient financial backing to employ an on-going sales and delivery force it might have led to a real business with real profits.

Alas, it eventually petered out. Having to drive to St Joe to collect eggs cost time and money. Candling the eggs was time consuming and left little time for the kind of entrepreneurial oversight that was required to make a real go of it.

Now, if the OM were still alive, no doubt he would have a completely different take on it, though, to his credit, I don’t ever remember him bemoaning the demise of the egg round while he was alive.

From the workforce’s standpoint it did provide an interesting summer vacation job and a lot of burgers.

E-leben-d-eleben

 I had very little to do with my  Dad (The OM) until about 1962. 

He had always been a somewhat menacing figure in the background enforcing the family discipline.  My Mom would say, if we kids were being particularly awkward, you just wait until your father gets home!  That usually did the trick.  I often helped him on the milk round, but I looked upon it as simply a chore, maybe the OM thought it was “team-building”?  Once he hurt his back so badly that I had to more or less do the milk round as all he could do was drive the truck and make notes in his log book.  

That unfortunate tendency for bad backs has descended the generations.  I’ve got it and so has my number two son.

He was, in truth, not much of a businessman.  He would let people have milk who had little prospect of being able to pay for it.  Maybe he was a secret philanthropist, but I suspect not.  People who owed him money might “skip town” or just disappear, or they might do a deal - a kind of modern barter system.  On one such deal he acquired a go-cart.

He brought it home in the back of the milk truck and got me to help unload it.

I had developed an appreciation of motor racing. As a teenager I liked to go to the stock car racing. My buddy Bobby Lawless’ dad owned the local Phillips 66 service station and Bobby raced quarter midgets.  I used to hang out with him and I learned a lot about general automotive things from watching and helping him.

(Quarter midget racing is a form of automobile racing. The cars are approximately one-quarter (1/4) the size of a full-size midget car. The adult-size midget being raced during the start of quarter midget racing used an oval track of one-fifth of a mile in length. The child's quarter midget track is one quarter that length, or 1/20 mile (264 feet).

An adult-size midget in the 1940s and 1980s could reach 120 miles per hour, while the single-cylinder 7-cubic-inch quarter midget engine could make available a speed of 30 miles per hour in a rookie class (called novices), or one-quarter the speed of the adult car. Most of the competitive classes run speeds near 45 miles per hour. Current upper-class quarter midgets can exceed 45 miles per hour, but remain safe due to the limited size of the track.  Quarter midget race cars have four-wheel suspension, unlike go-karts.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go-kart

Go-karts were in their infancy in the sixties.  But, the idea of racing one was definitely an idea I could get on-board with.  And, for once, the OM seemed almost inhumanly positive in his enthusiasm for the project.  Once unloaded from the milk truck and with me in the driver’s seat we gave it a shove down Berry Lane, which had a conveniently steep hill. It fired up and I was well and truly hooked! And, more importantly, so was the OM.

His sudden zeal was not entirely without its difficulties.  It soon became apparent that in order to race a lot of information and knowledge had to be obtained, sometimes from sources not altogether legit. 

(Remember there was no internet or Google in those days)

Some research led the OM to understand that the go-cart he had taken in lieu of payment was not really up to scratch for racing.  The engines needed to be upgraded, so he purchased two Mcculloch two-stroke engines almost brand new. These little two-stokers were originally designed to power chainsaws but cubic inch for cubic inch they packed a punch and could rev forever. He stored them in the garage in full view  and somebody stole them.  OM was not very happy.  He was convinced some disreputable friends of my sister, Ruthanne, were the perpetrators.  In any event, he was sure with a little effort he could find the engines, and somehow he did.  

A guy named Bob Osterberger advertised two engines for sale and I went with OM to see if they were our engines.  They were and Bob admitted that he bought them from some kid.  Turns out he was a nice guy and he and the OM became buddies.  

This is significant.  As a rule,The OM did not have buddies.  We sometimes played golf with his boss at Meyer’s Dairy.  Pat Clune was his name.  A guy named John Crockett, who worked at Myers Dairy, (I am not making this up - heck his first name may even have been Davy!)  took us hunting for squirrels down in South Missouri a few times. He knew the neighbours and would be pleasant to them, but that was it.  He wouldn’t invite them in for a cup of coffee, that’s for sure.  Sometimes this puzzled me.  In the end, I decided that his lack of close friends was probably the result of growing up during the depression; he graduated from Blue Island High School in 1933. And he took after his dad, my grandpa, and a less out-going and un-personable soul, you would be hard pressed to find this side of Timbuktu.

Most of the racing in those days was on dirt tracks way out in the boonies.  There were tracks at Odessa, Mo, Higginsville, Mo and Excelsior Springs, Mo.  These I remember well.

They are not next door to Independence, so me and the OM would race around the milk round, rush home, sling the cart into the car and rush to the track.

The OM soon discovered that whilst he had the interest in racing he had not much talent.  He was too big (heavy) and seldom finished in the money. In the early days we had two West Bend engines and only one cart, so he would fire up both and race, then remove the chain from one and I would race with the single engine.  I won a lot of races.  Om had crash helmet and his number was E-leben-d-eleben (11 d' 11). My helmet was red with 17 on it.

I won a lot more races, after he had a special cart made for me:  he improved its performance by investing in a Power Products engine that was highly sought after and highly tuneable. Some guy on South Kiger made the cart and it weighed almost nothing.  A skinny kid didn’t add much weight either.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1qXmp989vM

The formula for a race was simple.  There were heats and depending on how you finished you earned a spot on the start line for the final. Except for practice times deciding the grid order, it’s not that much different in F1 today.

I started on the pole almost every time.  The starts were rolling starts so when the flag dropped I was almost always first to the first corner.  There was no real way to catch me. Races were 10 - or 15 laps and because I was so far in front the only danger I encountered was going so fast that I caught up with the back markers.  Even this was not too much of a problem as the engine’s air intake was rear facing so that you did not get dirt or stones or heaven knows what in the engine.  

For fuel we used:

Alcohols like methyl alcohol (methanol) and ethyl alcohol (ethanol) are often used in race fuels. Sometimes they are a small part of the fuel and sometimes they are a primary component of the fuel. Methanol is commonly used “straight” – that's why it's called racing alcohol by many.

There was also something called Moon gas, which, as I remember, was  a really high octane mixture with some additives.  Engines were mostly modified by increasing the compression (bolt on a new aluminium head to increase the compression and increase the bang and upgrade the carburetor to provide more fuel ((https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell%27Orto)) and away you go like a bath out of hell).

Or sometimes we used : nitrous oxide (often referred to as just "nitrous") allows the engine to burn more fuel by providing more oxygen during combustion. The increase in oxygen allows for an increase in the injection of fuel, allowing the engine to produce more engine power.

I dreamed of kart racing in my sleep and can now still recall the smell of the screaming engines and the oily cans so we could add just enough to make a 2 stroke run quite lean and very fast.  The trick was on the warm-up lap you leaned back and adjusted the carburettor jet on the fly, so when the flag went down the little 50 cc engines were turning at about 13 000 rpm sending the lightweight cart (with me on board) hurtling to the first corner at about 60 m.p.h.  

Now this may not seem very fast, but when you are sitting only two inches from the ground, it’s akin to flying!

Most of the tracks were small ovals so that getting first to the first corner meant that nobody was going to catch me.

Only later did we get asphalt tracks in Odessa and Excelsior Springs.  They were laid out more like a grand prix circuit with straightaways, where you might reach 90 m.p.h. and sharp hairpin corners to negotiate.  

The winner usually had a choice of taking money (only say $5 or $10) or a trophy.  I mostly took the money. Still I did collect enough trophies to make a reasonable display.  They were displayed proudly on a home-made bookcase on S. Lynn in Independence when we lived there in the 70’s

When I moved to England, I stored them in my buddies basement, but after he moved to a new house they kind of disappeared.

I sure wish I had kept one or two to take to Europe with me.

Austin Healy

 Most beautiful car ever

Perhaps fate is a real thing.  Perhaps some things are preordained.  Perhaps life is more than a series of not very interesting, accidental occurrences.  Perhaps pigs might fly.

In 1965 or 66 some guy at CMSU had an MGA he was desperate to get rid of.  Or perhaps unloading it on some poor unsuspecting idiot might be more accurate.  I got it for $100.  It had no third gear in the transmission.  It had no side windows and the brakes didn’t work.  What a bargain!  To get it home, my buddy Larry Stoner had a great idea.  We found two old tires and lashed them tightly between the back of his Ford Falcon and the front of the MG and set off, hoping against hope that the two cars wouldn’t part company on the way.  We made it.

Desperate to try it out, Stoner convinced me that if we set off up a steep hill - not too fast - we could kill the engine and coast back home unharmed.  It almost worked.  Unfortunately, we crested the hill and were headed straight for 71 Bypass with no brakes.  Somehow I managed to slow it sufficiently by steering left, then right, then left again so that we regained control, slowed and avoided crashing.  Somehow we pushed it back to the top of the hill and coasted back home.  My interest in English sports cars was born and has  remained with me for the rest of my life.

By hook or crook, I managed to get the MG into good running order. It was a fun car to drive, and I eventually sold it to a dentist from Overland Park, Kansas for $450.  Not bad, not bad at all.  Deducting the cost of fixing it up, I just about broke even.

I got to hear of a guy selling an Austin Healey 3000 Mark III for the not inconsiderable sum of $650.  Now, considering that (provided you could find one ) one of these beauties would set you back $60 000 at least today, that seems an alright deal.  There was a slight problem in that I did not have $650.  But I did have friends. I borrowed $150 from Bosco Cox and $500 from Larry Titus and bought the car.

(addendum - I did pay them back)

It was, and still is the most beautiful car ever made.  The interior was white leather and it was painted a sort of pale blue.  It did have a few problems. Somebody had removed the standard exhaust and replaced it with a modified one from a Chevrolet.  I assume they did this to increase ground clearance, which with the standard exhaust in place  was about nil. 

It was designed to operate in England ( a maritime climate).  It did not really like a Kansas City winter.  To get it started in January you had to spray Easy Start directly into the air filters and pray.  Having started, it would not go far with the standard radiator configuration.  Cardboard must be inserted behind the grille to block air intake or the heater would not put out even lukewarm air and the engine would only run under protest and the temperature gauge would not move from zero.  With limited ground clearance I eventually broke a rear spring, driver’s side.  Perhaps with a hoist you could get enough clearance to remove the rear spring shackle.  I had to borrow Pa Hall’s acetylene torch to cut the spring free.  Me and Bobby Hall used the whole cylinder of gas to get it done. Pa Hall was not all that pleased. 

I used to take my mother shopping or up to the laundromat at 39th and Lee’s Summit road.  The Heally had no glove box, just a small parcel shelf where I would dump my extraneous paperwork.  I picked up Mother and was headed back home along 39th street when I noticed that she was attempting to rifle through some of my stuff.  She dropped something on the floor, I reached down to retrieve it, and when  I looked up, every butthole in front of me had stopped for some guy turning left.  I glanced at the solid line of cars in front.   I looked right - a solid telephone pole.  I slammed the Healey into first, stood on the brakes and went under the back of a Chevy station wagon. Mother smacked her head on the windscreen. (there were no seatbelts in those days).  I got out to survey the damage.  The radiator had been pushed back about eight inches,  The passenger side fender (wing) was a bit crumpled.  The Chevy sustained no damage at all and the guy was kind enough to depart with no more questions. A passing copper asked if he could help and provided me with a tire tool which I used to lever the radiator away from the fan blades and eventually limp home.  Who ever said the Independence police were a bunch of asshol**!

The Old Man came out to assess the damage. He, quite rightly in my view, decided that although the law required that you have two headlights, it did not specify where they were to be mounted.  So we simply bolted one to the crumpled wing.  Job’s a good’un!  The fact that it pointed skyward seemed of little consequence, according to the OM.

The next problem to overcome was the squashed radiator mounts. The OM had an idea.  At that point I should have bailed, but unfortunately did not.

He got a chain from the garage and tied one end to the radiator mounts (with the radiator removed) and the other end to the back of his milk truck.  He reasoned that if we started the Healey, put it in reverse and slipped the clutch we could generate enough force to pull the mounts forward a few inches.

Rather like Hitler’s decision to hold the panzers outside Gravelines allowing for the miracle at Dunkirk, this plan had the distinct disadvantage in that it was crap.

I got in the Healey whilst the OM was busy attaching the chain to the radiator mounts at the front.  In my defence, I distinctly heard him say start it up, so I did.

Without the radiator in place, his hand was still near the fan blades.  He somehow managed to neatly slice the tips of his fingers longitudinally.  This is not even remotely funny in any sense of the word.  But, as he had managed to do exactly the same thing to himself whilst doing what he called “monkeying around” with the milk truck not three days before:  therefore I had to laugh.

He was not amused and grabbed the nearest implement with which to inflict the maximum damage upon me and charged.  I can still see the raised wooden 2x4 inches from my head as I went from zero to sixty in a record time for a human being.  I would have easily beaten Usain Bolt in getting away from the wrath that was descending upon me.

I hid out in Bosco’s woods for three days with my Mom providing food after the OM left for work. 

I got a job with the Southland Corporation, who own the 7 Eleven stores.  I was doing OJT at a store in Grandview, Mo., and I was using the big Healey for daily transport.  This was problematic, as it had developed some annoying habits. When I had the requisite cash I would take it to a specialist and they would tune it to perfection.  It ran beautifully - for about two months, then it got sick and would struggle to outperform a horse and buggy. There was this party at the Hall’s place and I was trying to get there in a hurry.  This involved some danger, which at my tender age I confess not to have considered.  Getting back to Independence was more or less a straight shot down 71 Bypass (now 291), so I developed a cunning tactic.  The Healey would run fairly well as long as you kept the revs up at about 2000 r.p.m (in overdrive).  Let the revs drop below this and it was sick as a dog and getting it back up to any kind of speed was near impossible. I would keep the revs and 

speed up and if anyone was in my way I simply floored it and passed them.  This worked well if there were no hills and no traffic coming from the other direction.

I can distinctly remember cresting a hill flat out at about 80 and swerving to pass a VW Beetle only to find another small car (God was looking after me that day) coming from the other direction.  We passed three abreast (it’s a two lane highway) at an astronomical closing speed.  The Beetle, and I hope this guy did it on purpose, got as far left as he could - I was in the middle and a car was close aboard on the right. I regret I did not see what kind it was, but it must have been small-ish, for even at a closing speed of (say 150 m.p.h.) it flashed past and no crash happened.  The age of miracles was not indeed over.

I remember getting 5 or 6 miles down the road and shaking so badly that I had to slow to about 30 and eventually pull over.  It was only then that I realised how lucky I was to be alive.  I limped on.  I turned down 39th street going East past Lee’s Summit Road when I ran out of gas.

I called somebody who was at the party,  left the Healey off the road as far as I could and joined the party and consumed more than a few beers.

Next day I went to get it and discovered that overnight some butthol**s had come over the hill - probably drunk, and ploughed into the back of it.

It was a mess and there was no-one to sue for damages.

We managed to get it home and I got my insurance company estimator to come out and have a look at it.  It’s a write-off, he said.  You simply can’t argue with these numpties, so they gave me a hundred bucks and took it away to that great Healey graveyard in the sky.

What a waste.  And, what’s worse, because I had no camera at the time (yes, before digital images were a million for less than a penny cameras were in short supply) I have no record of it ever existing.

What a waste

Delivering Milk for Delmar

 

In Memorium Alan Austin

 

I learned just the other day of the death of my brother-in-law Alan Austin. He was married to my sister Ruthanne, and they had three children before they divorced, my nieces and nephews.

He was at least three years older than I.  We went to the same high school and worked together at Western Electric in Lee’s Summit, Missouri before Uncle Sam interrupted my promising industrial career with a stint in the US Army.

Long before then, in an effort to provide an income for My sister’s family, The Old Man (Delmar O. Kauffman) decided that Alan should learn the milk delivery business.  The OM provided the truck and the contacts at Meyer’s Dairy and also provided me to show Alan the ropes.  Even at the tender age of 15 I was an experienced milkman.  The year was 1961 and Alan must have graduated in 1960.  

Now, working for the OM did have certain distinct advantages, but they were, in truth, few and far between.  You could stop at various coffee shops on the route and get coffee and a sweet roll and the OM would pay.  Stop, but only once, I may add.  They were greatly outranked by the disadvantages.  Firstly, my labor was not seen as a negotiable quality.  The pay was poor.  The working conditions were second-class. The early start was at a soul-destroying 0:500.  Finish time was when you finished, say about 14:00.   My task was to turn Alan into a cracker-jack milkman on a shoestring budget and in record time.  

Nevertheless, I attacked the job with my usual gusto.  At my young age, I did feel a certain pride in being selected for this responsible position.  After all, I loved my sister and I thought that Alan was an all-right guy.  I vowed to do my best.  

I was hampered by macro-economic factors of which  I was just too young and too disinterested to take any notice of.

“Recession of 1960-1961 (April 1960 to February 1961)

The 10-month recession saw the GDP drop by nearly 2% and unemployment peaked at 6.9%, while President John F. Kennedy spurred a rebound in 1961 with stimulus spending that included tax cuts and expanded unemployment and Social Security benefits.”

Perhaps this was not the most auspicious moment to start a new career (new, at least for Alan).

On the plus side, folks needed basic commodities like milk and in those days (I know this is hard to believe, you'll just have to take my word for it) most folks had their milk delivered by conscientious and hard-working men like me, the OM and Alan.

I believe home milk deliveries are now almost non-existent.

What Happened to The Milkman?

So why did home milk delivery start to decline?

There were also a few other factors: mainly, refrigeration and grocery stores.

By the 1930s and 1940s, almost every home had a refrigerator. Fridges replaced iceboxes- the first step in the decline of milk delivery.

The invention of refrigeration meant that people didn’t need milk delivered to their homes as often because they could keep it cold on their own.

It’s easy to see how home milk delivery went into decline. So why is it making a comeback now?

In a world where many things are processed and imported by big corporations, more people are becoming sceptical about where their food comes from. People have begun to focus more on buying local food.

One of the benefits of having milk delivered to your door is the comfort of knowing exactly where your milk is coming from.

You’re supporting your local dairy farmer, a valued community member just like you. When you spend money on local businesses, that money gets put back into your local economy instead of going to an out-of-state or out-of-country conglomerate.

Your milk hasn’t been sitting on a grocery store shelf for who knows how long. When you have milk delivered, it can go from the cow to your doorstep in as little as 24 hours!

 

What is for sure, there are now no milk deliveries in Kansas City or surrounding suburbs.

Damn, good old google has proved me wrong:

Shatto Home Delivery

Whether it is the simple fact that you have fresh products on your porch weekly, or it is the excitement that is gained when the kids wake in the morning and rush to get the fresh milk from the porch box, we are certain you will enjoy bringing the Milkman to your home.

 I regret that I don't know anyone who has milk delivered.

I seriously digress!

Let’s get back to 1961 and my efforts to see my brother-in-law prosper in the home milk delivery business.

A word about the home-milk delivery process. First you take your milk truck to Meyer’s Dairy (on South Dodgion in Independence - the building is still there and you can clearly see the loading area) You calculate the quantity and variety of milk or dairy products you require for the day’s round.  You fill out the paper-work and load the truck. Then you go to the local Ice-house. Ice was imperative in any weather but the dead of winter.  The Ice house was just off Noland Road.  I can see it in my dreams, but I suspect it’s not there any more.  The milk had to be kept fresh or it would spoil on the customer's doorstep.  

A word about the milk truck.  The OM was not in conscience going to splash out on a brand-new fancy truck for Alan and I to deliver milk in.  No way.  He did get us a truck from somewhere, who knows where?  It was just about serviceable, but did have one glaring defect.  The power steering did not work.  Now if you have ever successfully driven a large-ish heavily laden vehicle with no power steering then I say you are either Superman or a bodybuilder.  It took a lot of effort just to negotiate straight roads.  Turning was problematic.  A whole new method had to be employed if any progress was to be made.

I say this in my defence for reasons which will soon become apparent.

Now, also in my defence, I contended that then as I do now,  the best way to learn the milk business is to deliver milk to customers. That’s how I learned and if if it was good enough for me, well it would have to be good enough for Alan.  

We came to an arrangement.  I would drive the truck and he would deliver the milk, meeting the customers and learning the important parts of the job whilst on the job.  Simples!

Well, there were a few drawbacks.  Firstly, I was only 15 and had no driver’s licence.  At that time in Missouri this was not an insurmountable obstacle.  I had been driving cars for about two years and whilst helping the OM deliver milk he used to sit me on his lap (I was a skinny kid) and let me steer whilst he did the gears and pedals.  I learned to use a column shift by sitting in the driver’s seat on the odd occasion when the OK was actually outside talking to customers (usually because they owed him money) and practising my shifting.  I was good at it.  I was supremely confident in my ability to train Alan to deliver the milk whilst I the truck.

So befell it on that day . . . I paraphrase the Canterbury Tales . . . when it all went wrong, we were somewhere in the suburbs making our way from one stop to another whilst I was trying to man-handle that beast with no power steering around a tight right-hand corner when I made a fatal error.  Well, I say fatal, but actually no-one died or was even hurt!  

I got as far to the right as I thought I safely could.  I misjudged. I can see it again in my mind’s eye.  There was a car parked on the road and some lady was in her front yard watering her plants.  I was too far over and sideswiped the car in the road. I wrenched the beast around the turn, slammed it into third and shot off up the hill.  

Alan stopped me from compounding an already crappy situation and making it  into a tragic one.  We shuttered to a halt and rolled backwards down the hill, coming to rest by the parked car.  It was a fairly new 4 door Chevy as I recall.

The lady turned off the watering hose and told us to come inside whilst she rang Meyer’s dairy to confirm that the truck was insured and to report the damage.

Her phone was, fortunately as it turned out, up a small flight of stairs, perhaps in a bedroom, so she eventually called down to us, “What’s the driver’s name?”

I said a silent prayer and looked at Alan.

He said nothing, nor did his expression change.  “He just said,  Alan Austin”.  Since the injured party could not see us, and I suspect did not notice who was driving the milk truck any way, she returned downstairs satisfied that the company’s insurance would pay.  

There was little apparent damage to the milk wagon, but the car was going to need substantial repairs to the bodywork.

I, needless to say, never told the OM or Meyer’s Dairy who was really driving.  Neither did Alan, to my knowledge. OK, tell a lie, I did tell the OM  very many years after, when no harm could befall.

I was sad to hear of his passing.  I never remember having a cross word with him.  I saw him last at another nephew’s wedding and exchanged pleasantries.

I was glad I knew him and he was part of our family.

State Cola Factory Number One

 

A lesson in real socialism

I was amused to read in the Sunday Times about Jeremy Clarkson’s conversion to socialism. Amused, shocked and perplexed might be a better descriptor.

Our Jeremy is probably best known as a critic of government, any government and an undying opponent of any attempt to limit the individual’s choice as to how they wish to screw up their life.

This seemingly illogical conversion is all to do with his more publicised and perhaps better known conversion to the fraught life of an Oxfordshire gentleman farmer.

The bee in his bonnet this week is the continuing drama surrounding cladding on buildings - in the wake of the Grenville disaster. Clakson owns a flat in London and - guess what? It’s covered in cladding. Not the good stuff either. His insurers want to up his cost from £6 000 to £80 000 a year. Not surprisingly he’s about as happy as a badger sitting securely in a sett on his farm which sees the hose pipe snaking down bringing his demise.

What’s to be done? Take off the cladding? Cost £400 000. Bit of a non-starter.

Leave it to Jeremy to neatly sum up the predicament he (and many others) are in. “There’s a technical term for what we are. And, it’s fu**ed.

Fortunately, like most of his rants this one has a solution.

Jeremy proposes that “the government should start a state-run alternative for the thousands of people who are in the same boat as me.” But, what if the government says the risk is too great even for the government to step in and insure. (Yeah! Right - this is the government who has spent billions bailing out banks and buying shitty Covid-gear!)

Jeremy says in that event the government should pay to have the cladding removed.

There’s a pattern here in case you missed it.

Basically anyone but the owners of the affected flats should pay - says our Jeremy.

Were it not for the fact that Jeremy has a long record of moaning about the government getting involved in what is a private business - insurance companies, many reading his article might be taken in by the very real injustices he exposes. They may even support his plan for the government to do the nice thing and help him out.

Fat chance! These are the same guys who are currently baulking at paying a few quid to maintain Covid tests for the general public.

The whole thing smacks of socialism.

No other word in the English language is guaranteed to bring on a attack of apocalyptic proportions to Tory suburbia. The idea that socialism is to be used to solve problems, even problems brought down on the heads of unsuspecting citizens like Clarkson is just too awful to contemplate, otherwise implement.

Briefly socialism is: “a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.” Trust me, that’s what google says, so it must be right.

Sounds horrifying, doesn’t it? Even if Clarkson is in favour, it must be terrible.

When I taught Animal Farm to 15 year old’s, I always used cola as an example of how socialism might work in the real world

Now some people like Coca Cola, some like Pepsi Cola and some like other brands of Cola.

Each company making cola drinks owns the means of production, distribution, and exchange of their product.

Not only that, but each company spends in one year (even one week even) the amount equal to the total budget of a medium sized African nation trying to increase its market share by even the infinitesimal amount. This money does not improve their product, nor does it benefit the nation in any way (except for swelling the coffers of the advertising industry).

So, I postulated, why not simply form the state cola factory number one to pool the resources of Coca-Cola, Pepsi and others to make all the cola and use the previously wasted advertising budgets to fund new hospitals (state hospital number one), new schools (state school number one) and other worthy enterprises.

I know I will be accused of brain-washing young, easily impressed children, but, in my defence I can only say that all these newly recruited socialists, after reading Animal Farm and seeing how socialism might work in practice, were soon un-brainwashed. Indeed a plea that what we need is more public-spirited pigs fell on stony ground and deaf ears.

It is amazing to hear people, who ought to know better (like say Trumpie, or Bo-Jo) railing against socialism. They happily practise it whenever it suits their purposes.

"Neither Biden nor Trump are socialists in this robust sense. However, in common parlance, socialism has come to mean an expansive economic role for the government via federal spending on the one hand, and industry mandates and regulations on the other. By this definition, Cato Institute's Scott Lincicome tells me, both candidates are socialists, just different versions.

Neither has any compunctions about using massive deficit-spending to boost economic growth. Neither is averse to picking economic winners and losers by helping industries they favor and crippling those they don't via regulations and mandates. Trump, Lincicome notes, has been quite adept at using Uncle Sam to slam industries that hurt his America First agenda — and boost those that help it. Biden, meanwhile, is a typical Democrat who wants to use Big Government to tax rich companies and individuals and pursue a redistributive liberal agenda.

In an interview that aired on Wednesday, Former US President Donald Trump said Boris Johnson had become increasingly socialist, adding that he was "not sure that people are loving it." Mr Trump was mainly referring to Mr Johnson's environmental policies. This comes just a month after world leaders met in Glasgow as part of a last-ditch effort to keep the target of limiting global warming to 1.5C alive."

There are many more examples. Just open your eyes and look for them.

Most of us are living in what is best described as democratic-socialist countries and are governed in that way.

It’s only the pejorations of dodgy leaders that make is so tragic