LONG IN THE CANINE

Recently I tore my hamstring playing cricket. A dance down the wicket, followed by a poorly timed air swing at the ball, which preceded a lunge back into my crease. It was this last movement, one which I had done immediately following many dances down the wicket which were followed by equally mistimed air swings, that produced a small excruciating explosion in the back of my leg.
Many commentators say that athletes tearing leg muscles look like a sniper has shot them mid-stride. I've never been shot, so it's hard to compare, however the feeling is akin to having the world's smallest hand grenade detonate inside the muscle fibres.
Strangely after the initial pain, I took a few gentle steps and, reminiscent of Rambo taking six bullets to the chest, digging them out with his hunting knife, and continuing to save the day, I signalled to my teammates that I was OK. I reached down to pick up my batting gloves, only to feel an electric shock up the left side of my arse. It was like nothing I'd felt since mispronouncing a menu item in a small room in an Amsterdam back alley.
 
A few days after the incident, with scans done, rehab started, and three day old pyjamas in desperate need of a wash, I began to realize how much fun being bored isn't. At the best of times I hate having nothing to do. This was torture. So bored was I that for some inexplicable reason I figured out how many days old I was (don't try to understand it). Then   drunk on the mathematical power of my ipad's calculator, I multiplied that number by 24, then 60, and then in a final act of sheer madness, I again multiplied the answer by another factor of 60. I AM OVER 1 BILLION SECONDS OLD.
 
This statistic is inherently pointless, however it's discovery does raise a few pertinent questions. Are these sort of exercises how accountants spend their downtime? Is my recent injury a result of a predetermined BEST BEFORE date? Am I wasting valuable seconds of my life here?
The last question raises a further question. Out of the 1,000,000,000 seconds that I have roamed the Earth, how many of those 'moments' changed the course of my life? Which 'moments' were of great significance? Which moments invoked extreme emotional responses?
 
In no particular order, here are my top moments.
 
Becoming a man
I was too busy studying and playing sport in high school to obsess about losing my virginity to the American Pie extent. It was more a spur of the moment decision. The internal dialogue of "Is this about to happen?" followed seconds later by "Yep, this is happening!" followed seconds later by "Oh yeah. That happened!" Now I'm certain the event would not have outsold 'A Night in Paris' but I'm sure Jennifer Love Hewitt won't mind me saying that it was a pleasant experience. Why would she mind? She wasn't there.
 
150 on a 70
I consider myself a conservative driver. I credit my style to one moment in 1999. I was driving the Golden Highway between Newcastle and Dubbo. Approaching Arrowfield Winery at 150 km/hr in my little red Pulsar hatch I noticed a sign blur past recommending I take the upcoming corner at 70 km/hr. Now I don't recall my life flashing before my eyes, but the hot flush through my face and neck as I slammed my foot on the brake, is scorched into my memory forever. It can be a fine line between getting home safely, and starring on the national news from inside a body bag.
 
Landslide
In the mid to late 80's, junior Coffs Harbour Indoor cricket was ruled by one unstoppable force. The WILDCATS. One Mad Monday after another all conquering season, our parents took us to Moonee Beach for a BBQ. As we explored, a few of us decided to climb a rock face near the headland. Almost at the top, a loose rock gave way in my hand. I probably slid back down the cliff only a few centimetres, but in that moment it felt like metres. I remember seeing mum, long scratches up both legs, desperate for a reassuring embrace.
 
Labour Ward
My expectation of the day my first born arrived was largely shaped by the chorus of sportsmen who declare a grand final win as the greatest day since their child was born. In reality it is one of the worst days of my life. The worst moment of Lisa's first labour experience was a soul destroying scream of pain followed by "Help me!" I couldn't. It was without rival as the worst moment of my life. An hour or two later, the arrival of Aidan, did nothing to erase the despair of that moment.
 
THAT Try
Everyone has a moment in sport that they will remember forever. For many Australians it's the Olympic feats of Cathy Freeman or Kieran Perkins. Sitting in the Newcastle Workers Club in the last Sunday in September in 1997, when Andrew Johns passed the ball to Darren Albert, the feeling of sheer joy is something that I daren't dream ever feeling again. The images on the big screen of the team celebrating. The collective breaths being held all around the auditorium. The sound of an entire city celebrating. That try may have been the moment I fell in love with the city of Newcastle.
 
Parisian Odyssey
Which moment on this eventful morning was of most significance? I have no idea. Was it the decision go jogging, leaving my backpack and map at the motel room? Perhaps the decision to alter the return route to the motel to via the Champs Ellyses instead of the streets I was familiar with? The moment of undiluted panic when I found myself running along an underground tunnel, cars whizzing past me? Asking a local for the time, misreading the watch, and realizing that in all likelihood, I was stranded in Paris with nothing but the sweat soaked shirt on my back, as the tour bus rolled along some distant freeway without me? I'm not sure which moment was more significant, but they all contributed to the most exhilaratingly terrifying jog I have ever run.
 
Orana Maul
Driving through the carpark of our local mall, I had to stop my car metres from a large young islander man and the epitome of a little old lady having a conversation in the middle of traffic. Voices began to raise. Fingers started pointing. And with a barage of indecent language it all seemed to conclude. The feisty old duck saluted the man twice her size as he stormed away. In a scene that I would later tell police would seem like special effects in a movie, the man turned, sprinted at the old lady and drove his shoulder into her frail body with such force as to send her flying metres into the side of her car, denting metal and fracturing ribs. Time stood still as I rushed to her. I don't know if I was ever in danger, but the violence reached no further height beyond that moment of madness.
 
So these are them. The seconds in time that stand amongst the past 1,000,000,000 as giants. Admittedly, my most memorable moments are not worthy of a best selling autobiography, but with two young children, I can't help think the next big one is just around the corner.
 
Until then.
 
 
 

GUARD DOGG

We all have fears. For some of us it's death. Others, public speaking. And for some strange reason there are people that have an extreme fear of spoons. And I'm not talking about the big wooden ones my mother useful beat me within an inch of my life with. I'm talking about spoons. Fear is a strange emotion, and sometimes manifests itself in strange ways. We often find phobias in others that seem ridiculous. That does not make the fear any less real or horrifying for the sufferer.
 
Personally, I have three dominant fears.
 
1. Sharks. This, for me, is a no-brainer. I am not paralyzed by this fear to the point where I will not go in the water. But would I swim in an unpatrolled beach without slower, more delicious looking bathers all around me? That would be NO.
 
2. Failure. Everything I am is a consequence of this fear. It drives me. I have accepted that if I go swimming in the ocean often enough I may get attacked by a shark, but I cannot accept failure. In all aspects of my life, be it as a father, a provider, a sportsman or academic, I have and will always strive to succeed. Not because I crave the accolades success brings. Because the thought of failing at anything seems disastrous.
 
3. Home invasion. My worst fear. The thought that somebody will enter my house while I'm asleep is with me every night. Any noise that is not immediately recognisable must be completely investigated before I could possibly attempt sleep. All doors must be checked and double checked. Cracking of the cooling colorbond roof. A stray cat setting off the front door light. The refrigerator motor kicking in. My mind tells me each time that there is someone outside my home, trying to get in. Someone who is there just as much to hurt me and my family than they are to steal from me. A pack of wolves constantly circling my flock.
 
My wife has, over the course of many years, tried to convince me otherwise. That every noise has a rational explanation. To her, my fear was as irrational as the spoon. That was until last Friday, when at 3am, someone tried to open our ensuite window. A window that had been unlocked more nights than I could count, was locked shut to keep the cold out. This, in my extreme way of thinking, may have saved my life.
 
As a result of the incident, I now have a fear much worse than before. My wife, who now suffers from a very similar phobia is no longer the voice of reason, but a sound board that echoes my fear. We are two young children on a sleepover, convincing ourselves that we just saw a ghost.
Being on-call for a busy hospital has me constantly driving to and from work in the middle of the night. I could not count the number of times I've driven to the corner of my street, praying that I don't see the flashing lights of emergency vehicles. After last weekend that fear is with me every minute I spend at work.
 
To make matters worse, working in the emergency services field, I have seen what happens to residents who confront intruders into their home. These people may enter your house looking for easy money, but they are also capable of terrible violence. And frequency is increasing. The criminal element within our communities is either getting more desperate, or less human. Stories on home invasions seem to be as regular as weather updates on the news in recent times. A man beaten to death in Wellington. A woman has her throat cut and a 5 year old girl is abducted in two separate instances in Wagga Wagga.  
Pensioners are being regularly targeted. And a Muslim man named Christian (?) is whipped with a cable for drinking a beer in Sydney's south west. All victims of home invasions.
 
 
 
So the question of what to do in the event of a home invasion now plays over and over in my head.
As of last Wednesday a Gold Coast man has been charged with manslaughter after shooting an intruder. How can a society sit in judgement of a man who defended himself from an invader? Would we as a country afford any level of courtesy to an invading army? Would our leaders suggest a peaceful resolution? I hope not. This man defended himself as effectively as he knew how. I applaud his actions. If I am ever confronted with an intruder whilst within reach of my cricket bat, I will not pause to calculate how much force will be required to immobilise them without fatally wounding them. I will swing as hard as I possibly can. I will attempt to deliver a blow that in all possibility could leave me facing jail.
I can only hope I am never faced with that situation.
 
And so, we will continue to vigilantly defend Fortress Webeck (as it is beginning to resemble) and continue to flinch at every night time sound, in the hope that our security efforts are a gross overreaction to a one-off minor incident.
 
My apologies for the seriousness of this blog. I promise the next one will be hilarious.
 
Until then.....Stay the fuck out of my house!