Bro Mike

It is not very often that I look back on my life with any kind of magnifying glass. I have done what I did in full acceptance of the outcome and shoulder the full responsibility of my actions. Well, except for a few occasions and I am not about to put that into print at this time. My kids are at the stage right now where they seem to be cataloging my somewhat nefarious past and hold it up to their own pristine image. Some people on the other hand look back on their life with pride, maybe because they took a walk on the edge of life and lived to talk about it. My oldest brother Michael is one of those types. Whether it was barreling down a dusty country road and sliding into a four wheel drift around a corner, or lining his water skis up to a jump a rock formation or crawling through a jungle swamp. He did it all, albeit, sometimes without thinking about it too much before hand.

Back when he was a teenager and thinking that a rural Canadian life wasn’t exciting enough, he enlisted in the American Army en route to becoming a member of the famed Green Beret. During enlistment he endured a catastrophic earthquake measuring 9.2 on the Richter scale in Alaska in 1964 and then went on to serve a number of tours in Vietnam. He seemed to come out of it all with his sense of humor intact, granted, he has a little skewered outlook on the rest of the world, but at least he is breathing. Most people who have met him have all remarked in some way or another that God must have broken the mold when He came up with Mike. In all honesty, I think God more than likely was wondering where the Hell that mold come from in the first place.

Back in the early ‘60s when my brothers and I were very young and very little, we were all a little rambunctious. In those days, cars had interiors that were the size of a suburban living room. Given such a free reign, we bounced all over the place. From the front seat over into the backseat, from side to side and even reclining quite comfortably in the rear window, curled up like a cat sleeping in the sunlight. With this backdrop, Mike set up a safety practice for us that he must have picked up somewhere. He told us that in the event of an oncoming car swerving from their lane, hitting our car head-on and allowing our untethered bodies to be catapulted through the windscreen, he would at random “test” us. When he yelled the word, “crash”, the three of us would hit the floorboards of the car and in the case of an accident, we would be saved by not flying past him and messing up the front portion of the car. It became almost a game, as it would sometimes happen a few times in the same night. One recent evening, I was reflecting on how far forward Mike’s thinking was in those days. Way before the idea of seat belts were even thought about, here was this teenager planning how to save his little brothers in the case of an accident. As I thought about this for a while, I realized that I had lived under an illusion for over 45 years. The little light bulb that lay dimmed for so long, finally turned on in my mind. I do not doubt for a second that Mike was thinking of our safety in utilizing this practice, but I think another motive might have been the germ of the idea.

Take yourself back to a summers’ evening in the late 1950's or early 1960's. There was more than likely a new Beach Boys tune playing on the radio. Mike would have his bent elbow sticking out the window, the wind trying to blow through his richly Bryclemed hair, a pack of Exports rolled up in the sleeve of his shirt. He was just a cool kid cruisin’ the country roads. Well, as cool as you can be with 3 yammering, screaming brothers slithering about the car. Not a very cool sight indeed. There in the distance, he sees a couple of cute girls from Ernestown High School walking along the highway. He knows his image is on the line. Does he want to be seen ferrying around a marauding band of younger brothers? “CRASH!!” he yells, and the heads of those uncool brothers disappear as quick as a flash and he sails by the girls with a slight nod of his head, a crooked finger pointing at them and an Elvis smirk on his lips. In hindsight, I think it was a touch of genius.

I did pick up a few life lessons from Mike over the years. The first and foremost to me was that sex, drugs and rock and roll were far more fun and far less dangerous than guns, bullets and bombs (note to my children reading this... that was a phrase popularized in the ‘70s and neither a confession nor admission of any wrong doing on my behalf). I am happy to point out that he is now come over to my point of view on this matter. The other lesson he imparted was to always check your parachute before jumping out of a plane. Just where and when I will use this last piece of advice, I don’t know. As a metaphor, it seems to fit for a good many things in life and in a practical sense, it served him well. All in all, given some of the other lessons I could have learned from him, this seems like sound advice to pass along.

Marriage Math

Wt+1= a + r1Wt + IHW(Ht) Ht+1 = b + r2Ht + IWH (W1)

I don’t know what the world is coming to, although I am sure someone, somewhere given the right amount of funding will be able to tell me. According to Professor James Murray of the University of Washington, the above formulations are the equations for the chances of a husband and wife getting a divorce. I won’t bore you with all of the variables, suffice to say the W = wife and H = husband and uses such items as time, influence, constant state of mind and the ability to change ones state of mind. Seems to me that there are a lot more elements that make up a relationship than just that. According to these experts, nothing is really left to chance. Working from the “non-linear dynamic model” branch of mathematics, everything, no matter how unseemingly unassociated, can be shown to be relative to everything else. In an example shown in the film, “A Beautiful Mind”, a mathematical equation was given to predict the path of falling leaves from a tree. For all of you who predicted the path as “generally down”, a bonus point. This “chaos” theory proposes that there is a predictability in random events. In other words, everything that will occur, has a mathematical predictability. This flies directly in the face of Benjamin Franklin, who thought that the only things that are certain in life are death and taxes. Although, if you are wealthy and influential enough, I have to concede, even the tax part is not all that certain. Death, however is still a certainty.

In the old days, marriage was something that you worked at, not worked out. Today, at least according to these people, you can sit down and work out the variables of the equation and determine what chance your marriage has to last. If you think you need a mathematical model to figure that out, you might as well not walk down the aisle. If there was ever a self-fulfilling prophecy, this one would be it.

The study conducted by Prof. Murray and his associates began 10 years ago and involved 700 couple who were married or planned on getting married. The couples chatted for 15 minutes and had everything they said or how they reacted to their mate recorded. Each of these were weighed with a positive or negative score and then the figures were plugged into the equations. The researchers claim a success rate of 94 percent of predictability. If I had only known that life could be that easy. Now, I read that a Dr. Bernard Guerney of something called the National Institute of Relationship Enhancement , has suggested that maybe governments should make this test mandatory prior to marriage. Where do they find these people? Have they ever checked their credentials? That sheepskin hanging on the wall of his office, does it say anything about the University of Crackerjack Box? I too, could easily call myself the Sitting President of the National Research Library of the Nominally Sane, Ontario Chapter. A title does not make one intelligent or important. Unless that title is “my wife”.

Now, I am not a prominent psychologist nor am I an able mathematician, but common sense needs to prevail someplace in this world. If the success of a marriage can be established by a 15 minute oral test, then maybe I should develop my own test of the durability of marriage. I would say that after many years of marriage, I do carry a little experience in all of this. Granted, the success of this marriage was not all my doing, in fact a very valid argument could be made the other way, at least according to my wife. So here are the variables for the equation for the wife, where Wt+1 = how the wife reacts to the husbands conversation, T = hours after supper that a husband comes home t = time of the month, SI = Inherited Stupidity, R = Rational Thought Index, I = Degree of Impact, V = velocity of handiest heavy object and MX = Matrix-like move Index and whereas the higher the sum total of the equation, the greatest likelihood of impending doom.

Wt+1= T(t4) + (SI - R)(IV/MX)

and for the husbands’ equation. Where Ht+1 = How the husband reacts to the wife’s conversation, b+1 = the beer factor, C = Need of Children Index, NB = New Boat Desire, F = “Fine” factor, YM = Your Mother Ratio, R = Rational Thought Index, and P = Nights on Pullout couch and again, the higher the number, the better the chances of divorce.

Ht+1(b+1) = {(C/NB) + (F4-YM) - R}P

To me, this is as valid as the original equation, at least it all makes sense to me.