Waterfoul

 

  This week Michael Phelps jumped into a pool In Rio and shattered records that have stood for millennia, and became one of the most decorated athletes in Olympic history.  Hell, it's easy to see how this happened.  The man has a wingspan like an albatross.  To put this into perspective, Phelps' outstretched arms measure six feet, four inches across.  To put THAT into perspective, 96.1% of Americans are shorter than 6',4" standing up.  If the man weren't so damn tall, I am sure his knuckles would drag on the ground behind him as he walked.  Using those meat hooks to push himself around the pool, it's easy to see how he leaves everyone in his wake.

     So it probably comes as no surprise to anyone really that Phepls has dominated his chosen sport. He is also dominating the media coverage of the Olympics.  What did surprise me, was some of the reactions that I have been reading this morning. I am suddenly seeing a lot of people questioning the "lack of ethnic diversity" in our swimming team. I have read several stories and posts from the likes of NPR and the BBC about how and why there are so few minorities in the pool.  My favorite by far was an analogy that went back to the 1920's and examined how segregation made it impossible for black children have access to public swimming pools and hence today, none of the black folks in the US know how to swim.  They even pointed out that swimming is financially out of reach of minority groups.  So there it is.  The media has managed to take one of our finest and proudest moments and turn it into a race baiting circus. Nice job.

      I want to take this opportunity to point out a few things real quick. Seventy one percent of the earths surface is covered by--water.  Access to water is not only a basic fundamental human right, it's essential to stay alive. Water is our most abundant resource on the entire planet. Almost the entirety of our population centers are built on, or near fresh water sources.  Every human being in this country has a supply of water within walking distance of where they are currently at- because if they didn't, they would die.  A pretty large portion of those people are within a short travel distance to a body of water. 

     Now for the shocker: I'm white and I know how to swim; because white privilege. NO! Bullshit!  I know how to swim because I found a place to get in the damn water and figured out how to do it.  By and large, most of the time when I am swimming, (which admittedly is not all that often) it's not in a Government sanctioned swimming pool.  Actually, the closer probability is that I am swimming in a pond or a lake or even a river. I know how to swim because I chose to learn how to do it.  It's the same reason I can walk the dog with my Yo-Yo or replace the brakes on my truck- I chose to learn how to do these things.  Now access to Yo-Yo's or brake shoes may be limited to some, but we have established that if you want to find water, you really don't have to look very far to do it. That's the way it has been done since- well since the beginning of time.

     70% of Black children and 60% of Hispanic children don't know how to swim.  Okay, well how many of them know how to send text messages or operate that X-Box or laptop? How many of these people know how to drive by 18?  All of which are easily measured as more expensive endeavors than finding a swimming hole and spending the afternoon escaping the summer heat. Hell, I am pretty sure that even paying to get into a public pool is just about one of the most affordable things you can do for an afternoon.  Swimming requires absolutely no equipment.  By my math, you don't even need a uniform to participate in swimming if you find the right location....  Which would seem to make swimming one of the most affordable sports to participate in.  Just because your parents failed to instruct you, and you never sought out information on your own, does not make your ignorance someone else's fault. I am not a racist because someone chooses the path of their own life. 

     I have another shocking revaluation for y'all too: You can't Affirmative Action your way onto the medal stand.  That's something you have to earn.  You can't demand that every trio of medal winners include a minority because that's not how it works.  Should we use Phelps' current wave of popularity to encourage participation in swimming?  YES! Absolutely! Should we use our national swimming teams success to encourage more people, including minorities to learn to swim?  Yep!   Should we do our best to provide access to facilities for children, including minorities who show promise in the sport? I totally agree with that. But I don't think we need to start breaking ground on every Martin Luther King Drive in the country for Olympic swimming facilities just because 100 years ago people were denied access to a local pool-- Not today.  There are plenty of places to go get your feet wet and plenty of folk who can show you how to wave your arms around so you don't drown.  Hell, for that matter, go look it up on youtube.  Now stop pointing your race-baiting ass finger at me, and go put on your swimming britches and get in the water.

       

Truck Driving Dad.

      Two years ago, I was a broken man.  My journalism career had dissolved and slid off into the night without a definitive whimper. My father was dying.  I was broke and I had gone into a local E-Cigarette shop where I had spent quite a bit of money to beg for a retail sales job.  So there I was, peddling electronic cigarettes, in a job that I hated, in an environment entirely unsuited for a person with ADHD. I was miserable.  I contemplated suicide regularly.  Then to add some icing to the cake, on my birthday in July, I got the call to come home at once.  My best friend died before I could get to his bedside—hours after my 44^th birthday had lapsed.  I found myself sitting in central Missouri contemplating what had gone so wrong with my life.  I wept a lot. Then, a powerful urge overcame me: RUN!  I wanted to run. I got in a car and just started driving across the Midwest in search of my Grandfathers grave so that I might pick a spot next to him to lay dad to rest.

     It was during that drive that I came to understand some things.  For the last 20 years of my fathers life, he had chosen to be a truck driver.  I had always secretly condemned him for that.  I thought he was above it.  I thought he was better than driving a damn truck.  But as I drove, it suddenly dawned on me, that the world had sank away with every mile I had put behind me.  I was feeling better.  I was overwhelmed with guilt and shame at having judged my own father for his career decision.  It slowly came to me that I wanted to know.  I had a burning desire to know what it was that he found so appealing about that job.  I knew we shared a joy of being behind the wheel.  I knew that driving jobs came with many opportunities for employment- opportunities that I desperately needed right now.  I knew what I had to do next.

     When I returned to Florida, I signed up for a driving School and got my CDL.  I have been on the road more or less since then.  I have logged nearly 200 thousand miles behind the wheel of a Semi Truck.  I wanted to take some time to share with you what I have learned in that time.  The first thing you should know is that the training period required to learn to operate these vehicles ABSOLUTELY SUCKS!  It’s intended to suck by design. You get paired up with another grown man for about 6 weeks.  You both live in a truck smaller than a jail cell. There is no privacy. You are fed information through a fire hose and expected to drink it all in. A big part of the reason for all the suck is to weed out people who wont be able to take life on the road.  If you can get through the six weeks of training, it’s like boot camp, life gets a lot better once you get your own truck.  A lot of people drop out during training.  I was blessed to have a great trainer who taught we well.  We are still friends to this day and he still gives me useful advice.

     Driving is one of the hardest and most thankless jobs you can do.  You are away from your family for weeks at a time.  You find yourself working 80 hours a week. However, because trucking is the only industry that is unregulated by the department of labor, you only get paid for a fraction of the hours that you work- usually 60-70 percent. You get dirty.  You get callouses. You destroy your clothes. You drink a lot of coffee.  You bleed. You listen to a lot of talk radio.  If you don’t have a supporting spouse like I do, you can find yourself eating a lot of gas station hot dogs-and that’s never good.  You end up spending a lot of your own time and money fixing other peoples problems and mistakes.  Because, at the end of the day, if something goes wrong with that truck out on the road- the fault ALWAYS falls on the driver. 

   But I haven't stuck this out because the the job is full suck.  I slowly found the things that my father must have fallen in love with.  The open road is still the best therapist I have ever found.  Hours of solitude can be very therapeutic.  The initial pain of leaving home to earn a paycheck was gradually replaced by learning how to fully enjoy the full attention of my wife for the 5 or 6 days a month that I got to see her. Our relationship began to improve. She enjoyed that I wasn’t home making a mess all week, and I enjoyed the time I got to spend with her when I was home.  I also began to experience something about this job that I had not felt in a good long time: Pride!  I work hard for my money.  I earn it.  I enjoy spending it. It all makes me very proud of what I do and the fact that I can do it legally and safely. Because lets face it: y’all driving around in your four wheelers are horrible drivers.  I take time to explore and enjoy the places I get to go.  I have seen some really amazing places. I have watched so many beautiful sunrises.

     I still have a hard time getting my head around the horrible reputation that truck drivers have.   I understand where it originates, but now I feel the judgement and disdain that I silently fed to my father- and I understand that too.   I need to be pointed out also that there aren’t nearly as many hookers out there running around the truck stops as people seem to believe. Hookers at truck stops really tapered off with the advent of digital currency exchange.  Drivers used to carry lots of cash for their companies.  Now days, drivers carry little or no cash- I am sure you can probably see the hooker correlation there.  Truck stops are not what they used to be, a fact that is both good and bad.  There is a perpetual shortage of parking in this country for commercial vehicles.  I have had to park in some terrible places to shut down for the night.  However, those nights were always soothed by a home cooked meal tucked in my freezer that heated up pretty well in my microwave.  I am here to tell you guys that nothing tastes better than the love your wife sprinkles in your meals for you before you leave home.

      When I started writing this blog, I was not entirely sure why I was writing it, or where I ultimately wanted to go with it.  As I sit here this morning, fathers day, fixing to head off and go drive a truck to Connecticut, I think I understand. Truck driving was one of the few things that I silently held against my father.  Now, I am following in his footsteps and I finally understand what he was thinking.  Unfortunately, he is not here for me to have that conversation with him.  So maybe it will help me feel a little better to tell y’all about it.  It probably bears noting that if you have your father around- you should have those conversations with him now.  Maybe you wont have to wonder these things after he is gone.  Besides, it IS Fathers Day- what better excuse do you need to start up a dialogue with dad?

I miss you so much daddy.  Happy Fathers Day.