Why do I get so much joy from driving?

Friday 27th

Not an easy question to answer, but I guess it’s because I get to moderate how much I think.

In my past, I have been labelled ‘a brooding Scottish dour’ (I prefer the ‘steely’ version of dour, as opposed to sulky and morose.) The reality is that in my youth, when I was labelled that, I had quiet spells where I thought a lot. Since my youth nothing has changed. I think too much.

Driving gives me the opportunity to level out how much I think.

As a teacher, it has been noted that we make 1,500 educational decisions in a day. (Go look it up.) It can lead to decision fatigue. Decisions about how to act and react. Decisions about what is best for the students - this lesson isn’t working well, how do I modify it, is it worth the effort now? Do I accept that behaviour, do I call that kid out on that now, is that the best way to approach this now, do I begin down that rabbit hole with that student at this point in time?

I also want to point out that after almost 20 years of teaching, I can unequivocally say that Term 3 of the school year is the hardest. So much pressure to get the students over the line.  It can be like herding cats. There is an expectation that we will achieve this level of success, when the teenage brains that we are working with have very different ideas.

Teacher: “Come on guys, it’s the end of Term 3 and you have to get this done!”

Narrator: ‘Little does he know; these students’ brains are in no fit state at this time of the term to get this done.”

So here I sit on the evening of the last day of the hardest term of the year, thinking about what makes me tick. There I go, thinking again.

On Sunday, I get to sit and process things, at my own speed. Without forces dominating my time and forcing me to think harder, or quicker about the cause and effect of what is happening around me. I get to debrief about the term, or the year so far. What has gone well, and what will I do differently next time. There are some pretty big changes going on at my workplace over the coming year, and so I can think about that. I can plan my time. I can think about the holidays. I can think about time with my kids. That kind of thinking can be good for my mental health.

So, what is it like driving a classic car? My car is 57 years old. It’s not perfect. If you wind the window up, there is a gap between the glass and the rubber because the mechanism is worn, so the window whistles. So, wind it down a bit and the whistling stops, but the wind noise starts. She has a 289 cubic inch engine (4.7 Litres) so when driving in the 90km/h area, she drones quite loudly through the floor. Modern cars have lots of sound proofing that means that the interior is quiet; cars that are nearly 60 years old, do not.

But does this bother me? Absolutely not. It adds to the experience. I have a new stereo put in. It can Bluetooth to my phone and play music non-stop. Quite loudly.

You have to find the things that bring you joy. Driving, for its many reasons that can annoy other people, brings me joy. And it gives me time to think.

This post is about mental health.

Saturday 7th

I have been a teacher for almost twenty years. I love my job, but it is getting harder. And part of what makes teaching hard is mental health.

There is a degree of thought out there that the modern teenager has no resilience – this may be true, but you have to think about the cause. When I went to school, there were bullies. There always have been. Teens haven’t really changed. But I knew that the person who chose to torment me, lived a long way away from me. I went to a rural school. I took the bus home, and I lived a long way out of town. And they took another bus and lived a long way in the other direction.  I knew, getting on the bus, my torment would end.

The modern teenager is not so lucky. The growth of cellphones, and social media, has meant that teens struggle to escape.

The growth of social media brought with it a plethora of issues. The very idea of social media prompts teens to seek popularity. We wanted to be popular when I was young, but our audience was just the people around us, and in a rural school, the numbers were limited.

But the modern teenagers’ audience can be exponentially larger. And they try to get in on that action. It’s what modern social media demands. It is created for a person to get ‘Likes’. Unfortunately, the larger the audience, the more possibilities there are for bullying. And now, they can’t escape. When they go home, they take their social media with them. Their bullies follow them into their bedroom; not physically of course, but the torment is still there. At home; and at any time of day.

The worse part is that bullies can now be faceless. They can hide their identity. A teenager with hundreds of followers on social media, picks up one more who has created an anonymous account for the sole reason of tormenting the teenager as much as they can.

Social media is destroying our teenagers’ resilience. All for likes.

Mental health means everything in the classroom. Teenagers’ ability to learn is dictated by their ability to concentrate, focus, and pay attention, and this is dictated by their mental health. If a teenager is strung out by the interactions that have happened to them overnight, they are not it a state to learn. Just like a stressed adult, their mind is not open to input. Teaching has always been about teaching the subject matter, the content of a curriculum set by the government, but it is also about teaching social skills, something one of my lecturers referred to as the ‘latent curriculum’. The skills needed to go out and be good citizens. As a teacher, I also have to teach my teens how to cope with the real world. We have to teach the teen strategies to settle the mind to make it ready for… whatever may come.

What is ‘Resilience’? Resilience is the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioural flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands. (www.apa.org)

When people say our young people don’t have resilience, they’re saying they don’t have the ability to adapt to challenges. Can you imagine adapting, when you think the entire world hates you. They’ve been telling you all night.

We need to worry about the mental health of our young people.  

My Dad had prostate cancer.

Sunday 1st

My Dad had prostate cancer.  

I remember that Mum and Dad had come to visit us in Nelson. I was working in the home office when Dad came in and told me that he had prostate cancer. He was probably late sixties at the time. He told me how he was to undergo treatment in Christchurch, and that they (he and Mum) would be spending their weekdays staying in Christchurch and then returning home for the weekends. Dad was a retired farmer labourer with his own land, so having the opportunity to go home and ‘get things done’ appealed to him.  

If I remember right, he told me he was categorised as T2. T1 is the prostate cancer tumour is small and almost undetectable. T2 is that it is now noticeable. T3 is it starting to escape the prostate and invade surrounding tissue, and T4 is it is invading surrounding organs. T2 seemed to be easily treated, and T3 and T4 are more difficult and invasive. Dad was to be undergoing Radium treatment for eight weeks.  

It was interesting how he approached telling me, and to be honest, he wasn’t panicked, so neither was I. Later, though, he told me how he had told some people and the moment he said ‘Cancer’, the air around him seemed to turn into a vacuum as they began to panic. I think this is why he approached it the way he did with me and maybe everyone after me. To not cause panic.  

Mum and Dad stayed in a motel funded by Daffodil House. Daffodil House was busy and full at the time, so had made a deal with a motel close by that during the week it would fill the motel with overflow from the House and during the weekend the motel would fill up with general public. Mum and Dad went to Daffodil House during the evenings for their meals and entertainment. (My Mum has a habit of walking into a room and seeing a piano and then just sitting down and playing old timey tunes that everyone knows the words to. In the eight weeks there, she probably provided half the entertainment.) If you feel the need, go support Daffodil House too. They, and The Cancer Society, need all the funding they can get! 

Dad always had a big bushy white beard. A little girl was there with her family, (maybe getting treatment, maybe visiting family) but she was all concerned that Father Christmas was there. Was he ok?  

From what I know of the treatment, for about six weeks, everything feels fine and then about three quarters of the way through, it gets rough. Dad had been pre-warned by others who had had the treatment, and they weren’t wrong. He began to struggle. The Radium treatment knocked the stuffing out of him until the treatment was over. 

The treatment ended, and things must have gone the way it was supposed to, because there was little talk of the cancer after that. The only moment that stands out in my memory was when Mum and Dad went and participated in the Relay for Life. That time, Dad wore the sash of a survivor. 

Cars, cars, cars

Friday 23rd

I love cars. I really love cars. I love that they shine, and grumble, and can go fast.

My father can take some of the blame. He always took care of his cars. They were clean, and he meticulously took care of the paintwork. He did his own mechanical work most of the time, and this led me to help, and then pursue a career in mechanics for a time.

When I was born, Dad had a Ford Mark IV Zephyr that had been bought when my older sister Jo was born. It was white. The problem with Mark IVs was that there was a dish in the intake manifold that could collect fuel if there ever happened to be a leak. When this got hot, the ensuing fire could be a disaster. So, when Mum set that one on fire (not really her fault, but she was driving it at the time, and it was a major fire), Dad bought his brother's Mark IV Zephyr. It was also white. Dad bought a fire extinguisher for this one. 

When the second Zephyr caught fire, (the fire extinguisher deployed) it was only minor damage, and the car was back on the road in no time. Ironically, Mum was driving again. Then one early morning, she drove off down the road and there were cattle out of the road. Mum hit one. Hard. The car stopped and she had to walk home for help. (And the beastie died. I remember his name was Harvey.) Dad retrieved the car and went to town to the insurance company to see if he could claim for repairs after hitting a cattle beast. The guy in the insurance company asked if Dad wanted him to send out a tow truck to pick up the car, and was shocked when Dad said that he had driven it in. It was in the car park. The damage was only a bent fender. 

After that, Dad decided that it was time to be practical and buy a later model Falcon or similar. (Yes, Dad was a Ford guy through and through.) The Zephyrs were getting older and more difficult to get parts for. My Dad was always a pragmatic sort. And then one night, when I was eleven, he got a call from his cousin who owned a garage and car yard. 

"Come on over, I have a car you want to see."

"What is it?"

"It's a Mark IV Zodiac."

"No. I'm not interested. I think the next one will be a Falcon."

"Come on. At least look at this car. It's beautiful."

So, my dad bought a Mark IV Zodiac! (pictured) And it was beautiful. Dad ran that car for a few years before he became acutely aware that it was becoming a collectable, and so he joined a club. That started trips to car shows and meets. So many cars. So many beautiful cars. So many that shone, and grumbled and went fast.

To be honest though, Dad cannot shoulder all the blame for my love of cars. He may have started it, but I was a child of the 80s and 90s I watched too much TV. I was always attracted to TV shows where the car was a character. A symbol of freedom. The General Lee from ‘The Dukes of Hazzard’, the Gran Torino from ‘Starsky and Hutch’, Kit from ‘Knight Rider’, The van from ‘The A Team’, the Trans am from ‘Smokey and the Bandit’, even the DeLorean from ‘Back to the Future’ has its place etched in my memories. And of course, as I got older, there are also the movies of the early 2000s – Eleanor from ‘Gone in 60 Seconds’ holds a special place in my heart. Due to the influences of my childhood, I could never resist a ’67 Mustang.

As I got older, life happened but the love of cars remained. I went to university. I met the woman of my dreams. We got jobs and moved in together. We married and had Mustangs as our bridal cars. Time passed. Houses, mortgages, kids, work.

So, imagine my joy when in early 2023 a ’67 Mustang comes up for sale in my hometown, and the seller accepts my offer below his asking price. She’s beautiful. Sleek and black. She has what someone once referred to as ‘a ten-foot paintjob.’ She’s not perfect and when you get close, you can see the imperfections of a less-than-ideal paintwork. But with small boys around the house, I’m not too concerned. It probably works in my favour. One day, she’ll get a makeover. (She also has a fire extinguisher.)

But not only do I love cars, but I also enjoy driving. I have spent a stint in my life driving trucks, both at university, and a year’s leave from my current job, studying and driving. I have spent many hours on the road, either on two wheels, or on many. I live a long way from the place which I was brought up, and going home, although a trip of hours, is not a painful thing for me. (Maybe it is for the family, but not me.) I know that some people find driving a chore, a way to get from A to B and something that they must endure. But I like driving. It is not a chore. I think it’s good for my mental health. And I love driving my Mustang.

So, the stars align. On September 29^th, I get to dress up, drive my car, take care of my own mental health, and raise money for other men’s health with the Distinguished Gentlemen’s Drive. What could be better?

Getting behind the wheel for The Distinguished Gentleman's Drive

Wednesday 21st On Sunday, September 29th 2024, I'll be taking part in The Distinguished Gentleman's Drive. Together with thousands of classic car enthusiasts around the world, I will be raising funds and awareness for prostate cancer and men's mental health for the charity, Movember.

Before the dapper day, I'll be looking to raise as much as possible for the cause, to help men around the world live happier and healthier lives. With men's chances of developing prostate cancer later in life increasing, and one man dying every minute by suicide, we must do all we can to prevent more men from suffering.

This is something that affects us all and together, we can make a change. Please give what you can.