ROAD RAGE AND THE PERILS OF DRIVING IN THE BIG CITY

I used to think that New Orleans had the worst driver in the United States. I had driven all over the east coast in cities like Charlotte, North Carolina and Atlanta Georgia and still couldn’t comfortably compare them to New Orleans. People in New Orleans were unbelievably aggressive. They would pull right out in front of you and dare you to run into them. People would scream and holler at you from behind the safety of their car windows, flipping you the bird and all kind of crazy antics for something as simple as not moving over and letting them get around you. You had to constantly be on guard for some idiot who might have had a fight with his wife that morning and is looking for someone to pick a fight with. You never knew when some big redneck was going to jump out of his car and run right up to your window screaming at you and trying to get you out of your car. Some people don’t seem to have any problem resorting to violence these days. You see evidence of it all of the time if you just pay attention to the evening news.

I guess road rage is a product of the fast paced life that we find ourselves wrapped up in as we go through our everyday existence. Everyone seems to be in an incredible hurry to get to wherever they are going. It’s easy to get caught up in this type of behavior if you aren’t constantly on guard. I have to fight the urge to get upset constantly while driving around the city at all hours of the day in the process of doing the things that my company sees fit to pay me a very handsome salary for.

I moved to Houston a couple of years ago and quickly came to realize that New Orleans is not necessarily the league leader for road rage and aggressive driving. Houston is full of the most aggressive drivers that I have ever witnessed in my entire 50 years on the face of this planet. You have to be somewhat aggressive yourself in order to keep from getting completely run off of the road around here. There are supposedly around 6 million people living in and around Houston, which makes it either the 3rd or 4th largest city in the United States. One of the major differences that I can see between here and New Orleans is people’s reluctance to get out of their vehicles around here. I can only attribute this behavior to the fact that Texans seem to have an affinity for firearms and their right to use them. There have been several instances where people have walked away scott free after blowing someone away claiming that they were trying to “car-jack” them, or take their vehicle by force. Aside from that, people are constantly cutting you off in traffic and most seem to have developed a love affair with their horn (which I have a real problem with).

I also ride a motorcycle, which brings up an entirely different set of problems. Texas is one of the few states that still allows bikers to ride without a helmet, which I understand to a point. There are pro’s and con’s when it comes to the many discussions about motorcycle safety and wearing a helmet. Suffice it to say that I am one of the people who likes to ride without one and do so as often as I can. They claim that if you have a direct impact to the head at more than 30 miles per hour, the helmet won’t save you and you definitely are more aware of your surroundings when you are not wearing one.

This brings me to the incident that happened to me today that sparked this little tirade. I was riding on a beltline street that encircles one of the more popular shopping malls west of Houston going about 30 miles per hour when an older couple on a Ford Expedition pulled out of a side street coming right through a stop sign in front of me. I grabbed both the front and back brakes locking up both the front and rear wheels which caused me to go into a slide. I had no other choice but to lay the bike down on it’s left side and it immediately flipped back over onto the right side throwing me right up next to the side of the offending party’s vehicle.

The bike only had a few dings because it was for the most part protected by the engine guard that comes on the front of the frame of most Harley Davidson cruisers. I think the guard is scraped and bent a little on the right side, but otherwise seems to be intact. I, on the other hand have a sore knee and a sore back, which I can assure you will be quite worse by tomorrow.

The problem is that most people will stop at a red light or stop sign, turn and look right at you and pull out like they don’t even see you. Most of the time you as a rider can read the road ahead and anticipate when someone is likely to do something like that, but there are times when you simply can’t do anything about it. Fortunately for me, I didn’t land on my head…..this time, and no, I wasn’t wearing a helmet.

Being a motorcycle enthusiast and living in the Houston area, (believe me, there are many) you tend to try to stay outside of the beltway and in the suburban or further out in the country areas, mainly because of the dense concentration of traffic as you get closer to Houston proper. This is a common rule-of-thumb for most of the guys that I ride with.

I belong to an industry specific motorcycle club in the Houston area. We have regular meetings and a fairly large membership. The club usually breaks up into smaller groups as certain members develop friendships among themselves. We have a core group of 6 to 8 members who ride together fairly often and usually stay well west of town where the traffic is light and the roads are curvy and more fun to ride on. As far as I can remember, there were only a few close calls, but no one has actually had to lay their bike down or has had anything that you could categorize as an “accident”. This was only the second time in my life that I have ever laid a motorcycle down to avoid a serious accident and fortunately, both times I was traveling at a manageable speed. I have owned more than a few bikes over the years and consider myself a very good rider.

No one is immune to something out of the ordinary happening to them. You can do everything right and still have something bad happen to you. If I could suggest something to young and inexperienced riders it would be to get some motorcycle rider training before you put yourselves at the mercy of those aggressive drivers out there and never take anything for granted, because just when you think that everything is going right, something could jump up and bite you in the ass.

And maybe we should think about wearing a helmet…………………
Naaahhhh.. Not me.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GOOD OLD FASHIONED LOYALTY..?

Loyalty is a virtue that people admire. Everyone looks at guys like Carl Yazstremsik, Brett Farve and Archie Manning with admiration thinking, These guys are among the greatest representatives of their chose professions and could have gone on to other organizations to make considerably more money, but they were loyal to their fans and their respective teams. We admire that in a person, don’t we? I know I do.

As much as we would like to think that such loyalty is rewarded, unfortunately, in this day and time, it rarely ever is. The days of working for “Greyhound” for 30 years and getting awards up to and including a handsome retirement package with a pension for the rest of your life have pretty much gone by the wayside. The best that you can hope for in these modern times is a company that will match some of the money that you put into their 401K program, unless you are one of the fortunate people who is able to leverage your way into a top level management position with an iron clad golden parachute contract.

Unfortunately most companies have their eyes firmly fixed on the “bottom line”, and regardless of how loyal you have been or how hard you have worked for the company, if cutbacks are necessary and you are expendable in their eyes, there is a good chance that you could unceremoniously get kicked in the ass on your way out the door.

One of my most vivid memories was in a 1972 news conference watching Archie Manning openly weeping after being informed that his beloved New Orleans Saints had traded him in mid season to the Houston Oilers after eleven years of breaking his back trying to make a winner out of a club that obviously had no intentions of trying to build one. Archie played a few more years before obscurely retiring in the 1984 season with the Minnesota Vikings.

The point is that Archie, who was probably the most gifted quarterback of his time, if not all time and would have been content to finish out his career with a worthless, piece of crap team because he was LOYAL.

I’ve seen many instances where a team or company fired or traded away someone who was very loyal only to find that they had made a mistake when that person landed on his feet somewhere else and made it his life’s mission to “stick it” up the offending party’s ass. This is the risk that companies take when they let personal feelings and emotions cause them to make decisions where a little level-headed logic and compassion might have helped them to make a better decision.

Unfortunately for Archie, the Saints waited until he was beat to hell from all of the abuse that he had to endure playing behind a weak offensive line, past his prime and was unable to come back and bite them in the ass before they made their move. I can tell you that many fans, including myself were very upset at the Saints organization for doing what they did to Archie and some still hold a grudge to this day.

On a better note, recent events will attest to the fact that Archie had the last laugh when he was able to dip into the family gene pool and sire two of the greatest quarterbacks of all time to come back and embarrass the Saints organization as often as possible. Both have gone on to lead their respective teams to NFL Superbowl wins.

I can envision Archie sitting in his recliner watching each of his sons play in his media room with his oversized high definition flat screen television set on split-screen, smoking a big Cuban cigar and sipping on an expensive single-malt scotch, all alone, being the unassuming person that he is with a content, satisfied grin on his face.

REFLECTIONS ON LIFE

It's all an illusion... A smokescreen... It has taken me 50 years to come to the conclusion that none of this really means much of anything.
This entire thing that we call "life" is nothing but a struggle to get from one day to the next. Some of us are motivated to try to excel at one thing or another, while others seem to be content with a lifetime of mediocrity.
The funny thing is that regardless of how hard you try, there are always hardships and disapointments. Some are able to rise above them, while others tend to let them beat them down and cause them to lose their will to win.
The old saying, "Whatever doesn't kill you can only make you stronger" only applies to some, while others seem to just lay down and become one of the people that we pass on the street and look at with distain.
I'm not at all tying to blow my own horn here; however, I feel that if anyone has a reason to fall by the wayside and become a card carying member of the "Slacker" community, it should be me. For some reason, every time that I get knocked down a notch on the ladder of life, I tend to take it as a personal challenge to make the offending party pay for the knock. For the most part, i have been successfull in those endeavors. It does give you a certain feeling of accomplishment or sattisfaction to look the offending party in the eyes after you have proven that they made a mistake by trying to take advantage of you.
For some reason, I tend to try to be one of the "nice guys" and, I am assuming that it is based on something in my childhood upbringing (Although I can't imagine where it comes from), I always try to live by the old "Golden Rule" and treat others the way that I would like to be treated in a simular position.
Trust me, this isn't always the propper behavior, especially in a professional or work environment. It is human nature and very instinctual for a lot of people to take kindness as a weakness. Most people are looking for an opportunity to better their station in life and usually don't have a problem with taking advantage of someone else in order to make that happen. Who better to take advantage of than the guy who always has a smile on his face, is very well mannered and is always considerate of others?
After having to rebuild my life several times after one personal tragedy after another, I have come to the realization that I am a 50 year old man who has very few real friends, even though I have always been loyal to those who have been loyal to me. I have also realized that I will be working until I die because I have so many mouths to feed and so many people who depend on me.
As I reflect on my life up to this point, I realize that each negative thing that I have had to deal with has made me stronger, or at least more savy and aware of what is going on around me. I'm happy with my life. I can't say that I wouldn't like to have been more succesfull, even though I make a great living and my family lives very comfortably. I haven't always done the things and worked in a field that has made me extremely happy or made me anxious to get out of bed in the morning, but I have evolved in my business life to a point where I am reasonably succesfull and don't have to physically work hard to feed my family.
Sure I would love to be totally financially independent and never have to wory about how I am going to feed my family tomorrow, next week or even next year, but what is the challenge in that?

SECRETS OF SUCCESS or HOW TO DO EVERYTHING WRONG AND STILL GET THE MONEY

Do you enjoy what you do for a living? Statistically speaking, you probably don’t. An extremely high percentage of people have resigned themselves to a career of doing something that doesn’t make them happy, but affords them a comfortable existence, or at least puts food on the table.

Most of us, while in the process of becoming adults have dreams of becoming something spectacular, maybe a baseball player, a rock star or, something more conservative, possibly a doctor or a lawyer; however, most are not afforded the opportunity to dedicate the time required to rise to the top of the food chain in these particular fields of endeavor. We may have come from poor, unsuccessful or uneducated families who could not afford to provide us with the higher education required to give us the exposure to elite sports or the academics required to become a doctor or a lawyer.

Regardless of what a person does for a living, there is no reason not to aspire to something better. You are never too old to try to improve yourself and make your life better. There are many instances where people have gone back to school and acquired college degrees at advanced and sometimes even very advanced ages.

I grew up in a town that by all appearances looks like a small, clean, conservative town full of happy middle-class people who are all happy being mildly successful in their stress fee, slow paced country existence; however, appearances can be deceiving. Upon further examination, and armed with the knowledge of the inner workings of the community and an personal relationship with many of it’s long-term residents, it becomes readily evident that there are deep seeded issues that can only be attributed to al lack of family values, a complete absence of motivation for ones self or their children, or the prevalence of the drug culture among the current generation.

Don’t get me wrong, there were drugs in my day also. Maybe not the designer drugs that are available today, but most of the kids that I went to high school with at least experimented, however briefly, with marijuana. There were your usual number of alcoholics and even a few “town drunks” who you could always depend on to stir up their own brand of trouble in the community. What we didn’t have were the crack smoking, crystal methamphetamine using, heroin banging knuckleheads who would steal their grandmother’s last twenty dollar bill just to get high type of people. If you are too naïve to believe that this type of person exists, go home and set up you TEVOE to record a couple of episodes of “Intervention”. After you have seen a couple of these, you eyes should open up to some of the problems that most of rural America is facing, not to mention some of the more grossly overpopulated areas of the country.

Every time that I make a trip back home, I stand in amazement at the number of people who I have known for most of my life who have no motivation to make anything out of themselves. They work irregularly at mundane construction jobs, seemingly just to earn enough of a paycheck to go out and drink or get high all weekend, then on Monday morning they grudgingly start the process all over again. Most of these guys are intelligent enough to make improvements in their lives, but seem to have no motivation to do so.

I am the father of 6 children, all of who have spent at least a portion of their lives in that community. I have been blessed with 6 very intelligent children who have the ability to be successful in any field of endeavor that they may choose; however, I constantly worry about their willingness to do so based on the influence of all of the people around them, including the people that they consider their friends.

I have always struggled, even with my limited education to improve my life by hard work, self education and a constant effort to improve my skills as a person for no other reason than to give my family the opportunity to see how the other half lives and to motivate them to strive to make a better life for themselves. One of my main priorities was to move my family out of the poison environment that is the town where I grew up; although, no matter how far I move them away, the place seems to magnetically draw them back toward it with an ever increasing pull. It seems that all I can do is to continuously try to convince them of the things that are best for them and hopefully, time permitting, they will come to the realization that “old dad” knew what he was talking about after all, and hopefully this will happen before it is too late and something happens that cannot be fixed.

Do I enjoy what I do for a living? For the most part, yes, I do; although it hasn’t come without a price. I didn’t start out being able to make a great living without having to physically work and sweat exposed to the wrath of mother nature. I spent many years working impossible hours, spending weeks and sometimes months away from my family, all the while taking whatever punishment that nature could hand out, whether it be freezing in the winter without any way of getting in out of it or standing out in the searing heat with no shelter to keep the blazing sun off of you, all the while knowing that regardless of the amount of freezing rain that was being dumped on you, you knew that you had to stay there and get the work done or the oil company that you were out there working for would have you replaced in a heartbeat with someone who would.

Most people would grudgingly continue to do this type of work for their entire lives, and don’t get me wrong, it paid very well. I spent the time reading an average of 3 to 4 books per week while others would waste their spare time watching TV, which was one of the few things that you could do on an offshore platform when you weren’t working other than eat and sleep. I concentrated on Non-Fiction, Biography and Autobiography, as well as an occasional “self-help” or educational book, all the while with the thought in the back of my head that the only way that I would be able to advance in my field was through education and self improvement. I knew that I would not be able to have the advantages of formal higher education and would probably never possess a college degree. Hell, I am the guy who will never be able to retire because I have too many mouths to feed.

I am a firm believer that a formal education is not always a good gage of intelligence. I once knew a self made millionaire who grew up as one of 12 children to a cotton farmer who would rather use his kids for farm hands than give them the advantage of even the most basic education. This man had more common sense than most and was very intelligent in his own right, but he had to rely on others who he trusted for even the smallest details of running his company. He had built his company through his reputation for hard work and integrity and grew to be one of the most respected members of his community.

Education makes life easier for people. It opens doors that would otherwise remain firmly closed. I think that everyone should aspire to attaining a college degree, and if that is not a possibility for you, for whatever reason, there is no more noble legacy that a man can leave than the fact that he did everything in his power to see that his children were considerate of others, honest, educated and successful.