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KN, p. 113 “How many tow trucks does it take?”

 

My sister, Bridget, bought her Mustang in Dallas, Texas.  V-8, 5 on the floor, leather seats, sweet car.

The dealer tried to talk her out of buying it by saying, “It doesn’t like rain or snow.”

She looked at him dead-on and said, “When does it rain or snow in north Texas?” She signed on the dotted line ten minutes later.

She loves that car. I love the sound of the engine. Everybody who rides in that car wants to see how fast it can go. (Trust me, it’s quick.) It really does not like rain or snow, because the last time she drove cross-country to visit, it got stuck in the driveway just before she was scheduled to leave…in the rain. Read the story here: http://bit.ly/LIUzQF A neighbor helped us then.

This visit, she drove Sally a lot more and had fun showing it off to some local car buffs. But, when it was time to load the bags in her dream auto and leave, the engine didn’t want to turn over. There was a heavy, rhythmic whirring sound, but it didn’t quite ‘catch.’ That seemed better than the finality of the ‘clicks’ last time, but not by much. It wasn’t raining, so the cause was a mystery – not one that I could solve.

9:35am   We called our roadside service agency.  We were assigned a reference number. The usually reliable agency was slammed with holiday calls, so we settled in for an hour-ish wait with more coffee all around.

11:15am   A man from the tow truck company called and said he was on the way and wanted to know how to get to us. His announced location was 20 minutes away and I gave him ‘can’t-get-lost’ directions.

Noon-ish  The tow truck guy showed up, but he had a wrecker, not the flatbed truck Sis needed. To our surprise, he had hooked the Mustang up before we got outside to give him the key. Even the tow truck guy saw the mistake in doing this, but muttered something about ‘the’ (translation= only) flatbed truck being needed elsewhere first. He unhooked the car as we discussed transmissions and Mustang shapes and bumpy roadways and damage to the car. Lots of grumbling on his part.

12:15pm   He called someone and requested a flatbed truck be sent to our address.

I asked, “How long will that take?”

His reply? “No more than 40 minutes – tops.”

We waved goodbye and sat down to lunch.

1:10pm   No sign of any tow trucks. I called the roadside people. The gal who answered was very sorry about the delay and said that a dispatcher would call me right back with an update about the tow truck arrival. Nobody called back.

2:05pm   No sign of any tow trucks yet.  I called the roadside peeps. B was tapping her foot, any chance of getting a couple of hours on the road before dark, long gone. The roadside gal was dismayed when I told her the story and said that a dispatcher would call me right back. I yelled, “WAIT!!!” into the phone and told her that I had been hearing that all day, that I had officially lost my patience and that I would wait on the phone until someone spoke to me who knew what was going on.

Turns out that the towing company had taken me off their list of jobs for the day, because for some reason they did not understand about the flatbed truck.

Huh?

After several apologies, the roadside people issued me a new reference number and said someone would be right out.  Sure thing. Bridget canceled her hotel reservation and went off to take a nap.

3:15pm   No tow trucks in sight. Mustang has not moved. Guess whom I called? A supervisor got on the phone, and I ran down the details. Again. She apologized for everyone’s poor performance and asked if there was anything else she could do for me. She didn’t think it was funny when I suggested that she come get the car. 

4:10pm   A frantic phone call came in from a driver of a flatbed tow truck. He said, “I just got a text from a guy who was supposed to come tow your car. He says there was a screwup with the paperwork this morning and he brought the wrong truck. But, his flatbed broke down and he can’t make it, so I’m doing it. I’m 45 minutes away, but I’ll be there.” I knew his location and thought it would take much longer, but hey, he called. I was suspicious about the ‘text,’ but hey, he called.

In the meantime, the repair shop was going to close before we could get there. They had been expecting the car all day and knew what was and was not happening, but we made arrangements to leave the Mustang in a safe location overnight.

5:05pm  The tow truck arrived. Wahoo! We made it down to the repair shop and the guy waved the $20. flatbed fee. Good thing.

5:45pm   Roadside gal called and wanted to know if everything had been handled to our satisfaction. I answered, “Well, it was a bit longer than a 45 minute wait…”

 

I think I showed great restraint. No bodies anywhere. Yet.

 

*Photo by Patti Phillips

 

 

 

 

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KN, p. 110 “Death at the Soccer Pitch”


(from the 2014 archives)

Warning: part of this post may be too intense for some readers.

In soccer, the ‘pitch’ is the field upon which the game is played. The USA, Canada, and Australia call it soccer. To most of the rest of the world, the sport is called football.

Soccer is the most popular sport in the world. Period. Second place? Cricket.

 

Over 710 million people worldwide watched the final match held in Germany in 2010. We tried to get tickets for at least one of the weeks of the month-long finals that year, but by the time we could make travel plans, we discovered that they had been sold out for over a year. This year’s finals will be held in Brazil, beginning on June 12th and ending a month later in July.



The World Cup Finals are held every four years, with over 200 teams from around the world competing for more than two years to narrow the field to the 32 teams that reach the Finals. The level of play during the competition is amazing, with headers and kicks and jaw-dropping goals that look physically impossible to make.

 

The team and fan rivalry is enthusiastic and can sometimes be intense. Sometimes, fans get so caught up in the moment that they lose all sense of reason if a call goes against their favorite player or team.


In 2013, a referee expelled a player from a game, a fight broke out and the referee in Brazil mortally stabbed the player. When friends and family of the player found out that he had died on the way to the hospital, they charged onto the field and stoned the ref to death. Then they quartered his body. They took his head and put it on a pike in the middle of the field. That’s not a typo, folks.

Just about a month ago, some fans were so annoyed by play at a match that they started tossing toilet bowls at the opposition fans. Yup, ripped out the plumbing and threw it, killing someone in the process.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-05/fan-killed-by-toilet-bowl-as-violence-hits-world-cup-host-brazil.html

 

Law enforcement agencies and fans of the sport have been working for several years to reduce the number of incidents, occasionally emptying stadiums before a match is finished so that a game can be completed without further harm coming to players or refs or the fans themselves. Serious scrutiny of various underlying causes for the riots, crowd mentality, and sometimes criminal behavior has even caused a change in how the games are played and/or policed.

I love the sport, and even played on the varsity soccer team when I was a kid, so I am not knocking the pure beauty of the game. People just get carried away from time to time, forgetting that it is in fact, just a game we play for exercise, sport and/or entertainment. Many of the top players in the world, in this pre-World Cup week, have said in interviews that they want to provide great entertainment for the fans. Of course they also want to win, but hooligans are not invited to the show.

 

We won’t be in Brazil this month, so we’ll have to be happy catching a match or two on TV. Plus, I have my ’94 World Cup t-shirt to wear whenever the USA plays.  😉

 

If you are lucky enough to watch some of the matches in person, here are some tips to remain safe and happy while you’re there. They work for any large sporting event, not just the World Cup.

  • If they are demonstrating against the World Cup, stay away from the protest.
    .
  • If you want to take pictures of people, make sure to ask first.
    .
  • Leave your valuable jewelry at home.
  • .
  • Take a taxi or walk with a group or a trusted guide.
    .
  • Do not flash around your cash, iphone, ipad and/or cameras. You can use them, but then, cover them up.
    …
  • Don’t take your valuables to the beach.
    .
  • Drink bottled water.
    ..
  • Don’t get drunk, but if you’re going out, don’t bring your credit card and smartphone with you. Take some cash, bring the address from the hotel, and a copy of your passport.
    .

Stay safe and have loads of fun watching the best soccer players in the world compete.

 

*Photos by Patti Phillips

 

 

 

 

 

 

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KN, p. 109 “Murder and Other Crimes at the Racetrack”

 

(Note: From the 2014 archives)

It’s Triple Crown season in the horseracing world.

The 140th Kentucky Derby took place on the first weekend in May, the Preakness ran May 17th and the Belmont Stakes (the last of the three races that make up the Triple Crown) will be held this coming weekend. The last horse that won the top prize in horse racing was Affirmed (in 1978) and California Chrome has a shot at the crown this time. There is a stable full of money to be won or lost – the first place purse at the Derby alone was over $1.4 million this year.

With stakes this high, tempers are bound to flare, arguments over how to train a horse to win will be frequent, and cheating at all levels in all areas of the sport has been attempted in the past. Unscrupulous trainers or desperate owners may try to dope a horse to enhance its speed or even disguise injuries with drugs so that the horse can race one last time. This is less likely to happen during the big races because of the increased scrutiny from all sides. But, to deal with any abuse of the animals or the betting system and even conditions for the jockeys themselves, each state has a Racing Commission that oversees and regulates the integrity of the sport and hands out penalties to offenders throughout the season if needed.

See www.khrc.ky.gov for information about the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission.

 

Great jockeys matched with superior horses can be a goldmine for the owner and the jockey percentage of the purse can be substantial. That winning purse at the Derby that brought the owner over a million? The winning jockey made $142,000. that day.  If jockeys finish in one of the top three spots in a big race, they receive 10% of the purse for the day – thousands in most cases. Outside the top three at a smaller track? They might get $100. for the ride. That disparity is the source of intense rivalry for the best rides.

The day after the 138th running of the Kentucky Derby (2012), a trainer’s groom was found dead behind a barn at Churchill Downs. The murder (or possibly reckless homicide) was never solved, so nobody can say for sure whether his death was related to racing or to a nasty argument over something else entirely.

Cathy Scott, a crime writer, covered the original story:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/crime/2012/05/07/murder-at-the-racetrack/

Homicide detectives followed as many leads as they could, but it’s a cold case.

People all over the world bet on the outcome of the Triple Crown. Some base their bets on the jockeys, on the stables where the horse comes from, on the horse itself, even on the conditions of the track. Me? If I watch a race on TV, I choose the horse based on its cool name or on the colors of silks the jockey wears. Not a foolproof system, but I’m not a bettor. I just like to watch the horses run.

 

Big money and fierce competition both on and off the track – what could possibly go wrong?

 


*Photos by Patti Phillips – of an unnamed, great looking horse from her files.  🙂

 

 

 

 

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