We've become what I feared: Fans of 'elitist' European sports

I've become what I used to ridicule and I blame Mrs. Brad.

For decades, a good chunk of our married lives has revolved around watching sports – baseball, basketball and football.

Until now. Now we've largely traded the NFL and even much of the baseball season for professional cycling and Formula 1 auto racing.

Yeah, right?

The beauty of loving multiple sports is that something is always in season – for most of my life, it was Giants, Warriors or 49ers season. It really still is.

But that's waned in recent years, with an increase in NBA fandom and a slight lessening of the others (Mrs. Brad won't watch the NFL because of the league's macho posturing and inattention to head injuries; the ascendency of the Warriors means we're focused on the NBA until mid-June, which is nearly halfway through the baseball season).

But there are newcomers in our sports world.

In the past two years, cycling races and Formula 1 moved into our sports space, making us stereotypical elitist suburban Baby Boomer sports fans. Those are the fans I secretly mocked when I was a sports editor, suggesting they considered themselves better than run-of-the-mill "regular sports fans." They liked cycling and golf and tennis and European auto racing.

Now we're among them. Kind of.

First, cycling. Mrs. Brad stumbled upon the Tour de France last year, enjoying it partly because of the slow pace of the event and the beautiful scenery (she also loved watching the "Slow TV" shows, like a 10-hour show with a camera mounted on a train traversing Norway). But she started understanding strategy and soon, she had a favorite team. She would watch the daily six-hour international broadcasts of Tour de France stages on the Peacock app and tell me about strategy and winners.

This year, she's watched several multistage races – often working or napping during the events. So I got interested. We root for the Jumbo Visma team. When Jonas Vingegaard won the Tour, our team won. When Wout van Aert won stages, our team won. When Primož Roglič dropped out, our team lost a guy.

La Vuelta, a stage race in Spain, is now at its midpoint and we're watching it. Cycling has our attention.

Second Formula 1. The attraction came about because we watched the Netflix series "Drive to Survive," which covered the past three seasons of F1 (as we fans call it). The series taught us how the races work and showed drama beyond simply who wins.

This year, we began recording each qualifying session and race (since they often begin before 5 a.m. PT). That's an hour of qualifying (ESPN also generally broadcasts three separate practice periods!) and two hours of the race. We have our favorite drivers (mine is Sergio Perez, hers is Daniel Riccardio) and we keep track of the individual and team standings. We root for the worst team in F-1 (Williams) to finish in the top 10 and finally get a point in the standings. We now are emboldened to criticize tire choices and pit strategies.

Here's the thing: The cycling races are great. So is Formula 1. I was wrong to doubt them.

But as I embrace them, I suspect my biggest fear is that admitting cycling and auto racing are cool could lead to me having to reexamine my prejudices against other sports. Is it possible that I could actually like NASCAR, professional golf and other sports that I dismiss? Even soccer?

Nah. And it's almost Warriors season, so I can go back to that.

Except for when there's a big cycling event or an F-1 race.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Left-handed obsession brings dubious payoff decades later

When I was about 13, there were a few things I wanted to be.

• The San Francisco Giants radio play-by-play announcer.
• Someone with better hair.
• A member of the Commodores.
• Left-handed.

I worked on one option a lot: Being left-handed. (Well, I also practiced doing radio play-by-play into my tape recorder during the baseball "Game of the Week," but that was only once a month or so.)

Being a lefty was cool.

Barack Obama is a lefty. So is Paul McCartney. So were Neil Armstrong and Napoleon.

But then, though, I was mostly focused on how cool left-handed athletes were.

Decades later, being a lefty is still cool, despite all the things a southpaw (there are even cool synonyms for "left-handed") will tell you make life difficult. For instance, most tools are made for right-handers. Also, our writing style means left-handers drag their hands across what they've just written, scissors are made for righties and credit cards are swiped on the right side of the machine. And don't get them started on spiral-bound notebooks.

The conclusion? Who cares, because lefties seem cool, particularly in sports: The lefty quarterback. The lefty jump shot. A left-handed pitcher.

I worked at it, teaching myself to bat left-handed in the way many in my generation did: Wiffle ball, with a light bat.

But I didn't just grab a plastic bat and hit lefty. I had a plan – one I also used while learning how to throw lefty and shoot a basketball left-handed: I watched myself in the mirror. I observed how it looked when I batted, threw or shot right-handed, then mimicked it with my left hand.

I was a weird kid.

Learning how to do things with the opposite hand is not easy. It takes repetition. But I wanted things to look the same lefty as they were when I did them right-handed.

My sister was a lefty, so we had a left-handed baseball mitt. After practicing the throwing motion over and over in front of a mirror, I went out and threw a tennis ball against a wall lefty until it felt kind of normal. Kind of normal. I had to practice.

Same with shooting a basketball. I practiced shooting lefty on our driveway hoop. Over and over.

The result? I got pretty good doing sports lefty, almost as good as I could do things right-handed. (Offsetting fact: I wasn't very good right-handed at hitting, throwing or shooting a basketball, so the bar was low.)

I extended the left-handed obsession beyond sports. I taught myself how to write lefty. I brushed my teeth lefty. I learned how to use a spoon and fork lefty.

Decades later, I benefit from that childhood obsession. I never got a whiff of announcing for the Giants, I listen to the Commodores and still have bad hair, but I can do some things lefty.

When I hurt my right shoulder a few years ago, I realized could still throw things and shoot a basketball. It was awkward, but the practice from decades earlier helped. (Offsetting fact: At my age, you're rarely asked to throw something or shoot a basketball.)

Still, my junior high obsession led to one of my greatest natural skills: I quickly identify left-handed people on movies and TV shows. I shout out, "he's a lefty!" or "she's left-handed!" to Mrs. Brad.

It's not the same as being able to throw 80 mph left-handed, but it's something.

I guess.

Reach Lefty Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

 

Editor's tips on how to avoid the process of bad word usage

I'm kind of a word snob. I don't use multisyllabic words all the time (the exception: "multisyllabic"), but I insist that some words are irritatingly unnecessary.

That makes sense, seeing that my job title in real life is "senior editor" (I suspect the "senior" part is often more applicable than "editor," but that's for another day).

Anyway, as part of my job, I frequently come across common, unnecessary words, which surprisingly irritate me.

Because you are nice and don't want to irritate me, here are five words and how not to use them.

(Side note: Don't ask me to differentiate between affect and effect. Each time they're used, I have to stop and think about it for at least 10 seconds).

1. Utilize. This word gets . . . used . . .  frequently by people who apparently are trying simply to add two syllables to the word "use." In zero cases does "utilize" mean something other than "use."  Even worse, the word "utilization" also should be replaced with use (with the hard "s" sound). Here's a tip to remember the correct way: Always use the simple word. Get it?

2. Process. Former Daily Republic reporter and colleague Ryan McCarthy was a hawk about this. Ryan claimed that the word "process" was almost always unnecessary, particularly in government writing. He would see a report that said, "the city will begin the hiring process . . . " and say "they mean the city will hire." He'd see something about "the writing process" and say, "don't they mean 'writing?'" I'd never considered that before Ryan. Now I can't forget it.

3. Signage. One of my (not) favorite dumb words since signage really just is a two-syllable word for signs. Over the past few decades, it's become commonplace for people to talk about putting up "signage" around the office or around the property, by which they mean to put up signs. This leads to the next word  . . .

4. Usage. If "signage" really means "sign," then it follows (correctly) that "usage" really means "use." Usage is the cousin to utilize! I guess there are some instances in which "usage" is correct, but for the life of me I can't figure out when. Once again, this is an example of adding a syllable to a word to make it seem more important, which is like me going by the name Bradage to seem more significant. It's just silly(age).

5. Myriad. Admittedly, this is a good word, but it should always be alone. And by that, I mean it's wrong to add "of" after it. There are myriad reasons for this – not myriad of reasons for this. Because myriad means "countless," and you wouldn't say there are countless of reasons why you do something. Right?

There are far more misused words and perhaps in the future, we can discuss them.

But let me make this much clear: While there are myriad of decision-making processes by which you can determine whether to utilize signage or usage, all of them are wrong.

Because there are myriad decisions to determine whether to use incorrect words(age).

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

 

Vin and me: The night I 'saved' legendary announcer's life

Vin Scully is likely the greatest sportscaster in history.

The longtime (67 years!) voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers died Tuesday at 94, creating an outpouring of affection from fans, broadcasters and anyone who ever heard him announce a game for the Dodgers or on national TV.

I won't make a big deal about it, but I possibly saved Scully's life 35 years ago. More on that later.

Scully's career involved describing performances by Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider and other Brooklyn Dodgers, then coming West and broadcasting the careers of every Dodger from Sandy Koufax through Clayton Kershaw. He was the national announcer for Hank Aaron's 715th homer in 1974. He was there for Bill Buckner's error in 1986 and for Kirk Gibson's homer off Dennis Eckersley in 1988.

Scully was also among the top NFL and golf announcers for decades. He was the play-by-play announcer in January 1982, when Joe Montana hit Dwight Clark with a touchdown pass to give the 49ers a 28-27 win over the Cowboys and send them to their first Super Bowl.

Scully wasn't just great, he created a generation of imitators. It was nearly impossible to listen to a baseball broadcast in the 1980s without hearing someone who sounded suspiciously like Scully. Giants current radio voice Jon Miller (another legendary announcer) does brilliant imitations of Scully, including a Japanese version.

Scully has company on the Mount Rushmore of greatest baseball announces (I'd definitely include Al Michaels–the Giants play-by-play announcer while I was in junior high–and Bob Uecker, who has been broadcasting Milwaukee Brewers games for 51 years), but Scully's combination of storytelling, warmth and basic human decency is hard to surpass.

And I arguably saved his life one summer night in the late 1980s.

I was a young sports writer, covering a Giants-Dodgers game at Candlestick Park. Twice a week in those days, I would drive from Fairfield to San Francisco or Oakland to cover games. One night, about 90 minutes before the game, I was returning to the press box from eating in the press cafeteria when I saw Scully walking the other way.

He noticed my press pass and acknowledged that he was a little lost in the concrete jungle of Candlestick.

"Saaaaaaay," he said in that drawn-out Scully voice, "Could you tell me where the dining room is?"

What? I felt like I was listening to Scully describe Steve Garvey or Ron Cey hitting a homer to beat my childhood Giants. But I also felt like I was listening to him describe Joe Montana hitting Dwight Clark with that famous pass. Vin Scully was talking to me!

Finally, I snapped out of my reverie.

"It's back there. Just around that corner," I said, pointing.

"Thanks," he said. (Actually, it was more like, "Thaaaaaaaanks.")

And he was gone, presumably to eat.

Over the years, I've considered what might have happened had I not given Scully that information. Perhaps he would have gotten lost and never found the cafeteria. He might have fainted from weakness in a bleak corner of Candlestick Park (there were plenty) and never been found.

It's not unreasonable to consider that had I not pointed out how to get to the press cafeteria to Vin Scully, he would have died that night. We wouldn't have heard his call of Kirk Gibson's homer. Dodgers fans would have lost 25-plus years of Scully calling games on radio and TV.

America lost a treasure Tuesday, but had I not heroically  intervened when a stranger asked me how to get to a cafeteria, America could have lost that treasure 30-plus years ago.

I'm glad I could help, to which American should say, "Thaaaaaaanks."

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

American vehicles changing the meaning of 'old car'

If you're an average American, you drive a 2010 model car.

Well, that's not absolutely true. The average American car is 12.2 years old (meaning it's a 2009.8  model), but if you're in an average American family, you probably have two cars – one that was produced before 2010, one after. They average 12.2 years old.

That's the rather stunning data from S&P Global Mobility. American cars are an average of 12.2 years old!

This is the fifth straight year that American cars reached a new record for average age. Cars are two months older than they were a year ago (and who wouldn't want to be only two months older than they were a year ago?).

This is the continuation of a long-term trend. Back in the 1970s (the furthest back I could find reliable data for the average age of cars), our cars then were much, much, much newer. The average automobile in 1970 was 5.6 years old. By 1980, the average was 6.6,  by 1990, it was 7.6 and by 2000 it was 9.0 years old.

Now the average is 12.2.

Really, the trend makes sense. Because despite what typical car guys say, the average car in 2022 is much more durable than one from 1970. Or 1980.

Our cars last longer because they're designed to last longer.

The Stanhopes are, in this respect, at least, typical Americans. Mrs. Brad and I each have a vehicle. They're the same make and model, although different eras of the cars.

I drive a 2005 Toyota Prius with more than 200,000 miles on it. It's old. There are new rattles. I suspect the mysterious parts that make it a "hybrid" will start falling off soon. The radio only picks up episodes of "The Lone Ranger" and the back seat is filled with "I Like Ike" posters. It has a rumble seat (whatever that is).

Mrs. Brad drives the newer car, which still seems space-age to me. It has dozens of gauges and buttons and knobs (really very few knobs, but I needed a third thing). It has a backup camera! It has cruise control that can measure how far the vehicle is behind other cars!

Her car is  10 years old, so none of those things are really new to a normal person. But to someone who drives a car with a rumble seat (whatever that is), it's miraculous.

So our cars are made better and last longer than they were 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 years ago.

When we think of the glory days of American cars (I'll pick 1970, although I suspect most car guys would set that date a few years earlier), we think that old cars were better built for less money. Well, the average new car in 1970 cost about $3,500 and lasted 5.6 years. Adjusted for inflation, that's $26,300 in 2022 dollars. According to the Kelly Blue Book people, the average new car in 2022 cost about $46,000 (yikes!).

So modern cars last twice as long (or more), but cost twice as much. In terms of per-year expense, it's stayed pretty stable.

Kind of like the rumble seat (whatever that is) in my Prius.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

 

 

Coffee is a miraculous life extender, even if you use sweetener

Coffee makes you live forever!

That was a (semi-) logical reaction to a study out of England, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine (slogan: Don't forget the second "n" in the first word of our title!) that concluded that moderate consumption of coffee — either with or without sugar — was associated with decreased mortality.

Put simply: People who drink coffee live longer than those (losers) who don't.

Great news, right?

Well, maybe. Because I don't drink coffee black and I don't drink coffee with sugar.

I drink coffee with artificial sweetener and that wasn't determined to be life-extending.

The study determined that of the slightly more than 170,000 people followed for over a decade, those who consumed moderate amounts of coffee (for my purposes, I'll define "moderate" as two or three cups a day. Maybe four. Or five in a bad day. But rarely six, although maybe sometimes. But hardly ever seven.) died at a lower rate of common causes when the data was adjusted for lifestyle, sociodemographic and clinical factors.

Yes. Coffee is the anti-cigarette.

While anyone who smokes is more likely to die of virtually every cause (including catching your body on fire while trying to light a cigarette while weaving in and out of traffic), the study indicates that moderate consumption of coffee with or without sugar makes you less likely to die of everything (including the aforementioned body-on-fire scenario, since you'd likely have coffee with you to put out the inferno).

However, as mentioned earlier, it isn't so clear for those of us who use artificial sweeteners. According to the study's authors, "the association between artificially sweetened coffee and mortality was less consistent." Their conclusion was that it was difficult to know whether artificially sweetened coffee corresponded with longer life.

Come on, man!

Many of us who drink coffee with artificial sweeteners have no other choice. I'm a Type 1 diabetic (something I've bored long-time readers with over the decades), so my choice for coffee is to drink it black (or only with cream) or with sweetener. Since the only people I know who drink black coffee are cops on TV shows and people born before 1930, it's really a choice between drinking coffee with sweetener or not drinking coffee.

Is that really a choice? Again, come on, man!

I'm going to go ahead and take it on faith that it's likely that coffee makes you live longer even if it includes artificial sweeteners.

I say that because that would be good news for me because if I had to stop drinking coffee (and believe me, if I had to drink it black, I would quit), I would likely die sooner.

If for no other reason, because I might take up smoking. And how long would it be before I'd catch my body on fire while trying to light a cigarette while weaving in and out of traffic, without a coffee to douse the flame? Not very long.

Here's the bottom line: Drinking coffee extends your life, because even in the worst-case scenario, it can work as a fire retardant.

Coffee: The wonder drug.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

When a dumb joke in a column prompted a picket line against me

My best journalism story is of a picket line.

Nearly 30 years ago, dozens of members of the Fairfield High School Scarlett Brigade Marching Band protested me outside the Daily Republic building. With signs.

It was 1993, weeks before my second (and final) child was born. I learned there was a potential problem when I got call before heading into the newsroom to start my evening shift. I was told that I might want to come in a back way. The editor had heard from the Vallejo Times-Herald that the high school band was going to picket against me. It could be ugly.

What. Had. I. Done?

That's was my first thought: Me? Really?

A day or so earlier, it had been brought to my attention that some people in the band were mad at me because of a satirical column I'd written in the "Best of Solano" special section put out by the paper. The annual publication celebrated things and places that Daily Republic readers voted as their favorites. Best hamburger. Best park. Best winery. Best local sports team. Best shoe store.

Best local band.

My column was an attempt to add some levity by mocking some of the strange votes. For instance, The Liquor Barn got votes as best winery. A convenience store got votes for best sushi. And for best local band? Well, I stepped in it, unthinkingly.

I don't remember who won, but I'm forever scarred by the fact that I chose to make fun of two recipients of votes – thinking of how different they were: "The Scarlett Brigade Marching Band and Crotch Rot tied for third as best band," I wrote. "Shouldn't their votes be combined? Isn't Crotch Rot the nickname of the Scarlett Brigade brass section?"

Hah hah hah.

Ooops.

I wrote the column in February and probably published two dozen sports columns between then and when the column was published. The students in the band were livid, inspired by the band director. Someone made a copy of that paragraph and passed it around, fanning the flames.

Anyway, I arrived at work on the day in question and things were fine. Nothing going on.

At around 4:30 p.m., chattering started. Then others from the newspaper building came into the newsroom, giggling. "They're out there. They're protesting."

Sigh.

I got up from DOING MY JOB and walked over to the window. A few dozen kids with signs were marching. Signs that said I was evil. At least one said "Stanhope = Crotch Rot." (Which was reasonably clever, to be fair.)

Something had to be done.

However . . . I wasn't ready to go face what I perceived as an angry mob. Didn't they know I wrote it as a joke? That I had forgotten writing it? Didn't they recognize that there were a bunch of silly one-liners in the column?

Nope.

Eventually, a group of kids came in. I tried to explain satire. They said it wasn't funny. Neither of us would give in.

Eventually, they finished up and left. The newspaper printed one of those semi-apologies where you say you're sorry someone was offended. The hard feelings from some of the kids undoubtedly persisted. I moved on and largely forgot about it, except for occasionally telling it as a great newspaper war stories to new friends and colleagues.

Recently, a friend's son–now in his late 40s–told me about being part of the band. He was uncomfortable and may have expected me to be upset at him or to have negative memories.

I didn't. I told him the truth:

"That's a great story. It makes me seem way more important than I ever was."

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Is the government hiding ET information? Survey says yes

Photo by Stephen Leonardi on Unsplash

The truth (as they said in "The X Files") is out there.

A caveat to that saying: According to about half of Americans, "out there" means "hidden in government files."

A recent survey by Morning Consult and Politico revealed that 62% of American voters believe there is extraterrestrial life. Yes, ETs. To emphasize, that's not 62% of all people, it's 62% of those who cast votes for elective office. In other words, 62% of people who not only qualify to vote, but have voted recently. 

That percentage isn't the end of the facts. Of those who believe, nearly four out of five (79%) think the government has concealed the existence of UFOs from the public. In other words, almost half of all voters (my math says 79% of 62% is 49%. If I'm wrong, don't tell me, tell my calculator) believe the government knows about extraterrestrial life and conceals it from us.

That belief is consistent across political parties, ages and gender, with one mild outlier: The older and more conservative you are, the less likely you are to believe in ETs, but by not much a lower level than the general public. (In related news, the older and more conservative you are, the more likely you are to believe that old cars were better, the NFL was better when players didn't complain about concussions and that it was better when you could go to the movies for 50 cents.)

The survey was released as Congress prepared for a late-May hearing on unidentified flying objects – a naming convention that exposes Congress as a place filled with older people. Who says UFOs anymore? UFOs were a big deal in my childhood. We now say ETs, although I'd never heard the term extraterrestrial until the movie "ET" arrived in theaters.

Back to the point. Around half of voters believe not only that extraterrestrials exist, but that the government knows about it and keeps it secret.

To be fair to the majority who believe the government is covering up proof of extraterrestrial life, they have plenty of ammunition: Decades of rumors. Area 51 in Nevada. Dozens of sci-fi movies. All those hill people who claimed to have been captured by UFOs (do ETs have a catch-and-release program?).

Meanwhile, the government hasn't exactly extinguished rumors. In 2007, the Department of Defense launched an ET-seeking initiative called the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program (AATIP), which is a poorly chosen acronym. The government could have gone with something like Mass Arial Research Tracking Interstellar Aerial Navigation (MARTIAN).

But anyway, the feds launched AATIP in 2007 and didn't acknowledge it until 2017. That's suspicious, too, right?

Perhaps the point of the survey has nothing to do with whether extraterrestrial life exists or whether the federal government knows something and is concealing it from us. Perhaps it shows how much skepticism we have about our leaders.

If they're actually humans and not ETs wearing human skin.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Is America coming apart at the seams? History gives a clue

As we approach our nation's 246th birthday, the United States feels like a difficult member of your immediate family: You know you love them, but you wish they would behave better. And you're not sure how long they'll make it.

It sometimes feels like things are coming apart. If it's not the unparalleled political hostility, it's a worldwide pandemic. If it's not arguments over a virus that killed 1 million Americans, it's a series of Supreme Court decisions that feel designed to increase the tension in the nation. Every day it's something new.

At the midpoint of 2022, are the best years of the great experiment of democracy are behind i? Are we starting a slow (or rapid) descent into strife and division? Are really the Divided States of America? Is the American dream a nightmare?

Maybe not.

Perhaps I'm overly optimistic, but if you think this is the end, realize that we can sometimes be a prisoner of the moment. We forget that things often feel like they're coming apart – until they come back together. To illustrate, think about the history of our nation, going back one generation at a time. Or at least the past few generations. Thirty years is as good a definition of "a generation" as any, so look back 30 year to 1992 and compare it to life today. Seems like things are worse now, right?

Consider the events between 1992 and 2022 that rocked our national confidence:

The Rodney King riots were in 1992. Nine years later, terrorists flew airplanes into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field in the worst terrorist attack in American history. Seven years later, we began the worst recession since the Great Depression, as the economy tanked and millions of Americans lost their homes. That was followed by the election of Donald Trump, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. Along the way, there were countless mass shootings. To many of us, each of those events felt like the end may be near.

We survived. So far.

We always seem to survive.

Go back another generation, to 1962. John F. Kennedy was in the White House and it was the era of Camelot.

Then we had the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of Kennedy, the assassinations of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy. We had 1967 and 1968, when American cities burned and antiwar protests turned ugly. We had the Vietnam War and Watergate and the inflation/stagflation of the late 1970s. Then we had the AIDs epidemic and Chernobyl and Iran-Contra.

They all felt traumatizing. But we survived. Life was better in 1992 than it was in 1962.

Go back another generation, to 1932. A simpler time, when (if we believe the movies), families were closer and values were shared.

Except it was the height of the Great Depression and unemployment was 24.9%. Over the next three decades America endured the attack on Pearl Harbor and World War II. The Korean War followed seven years later. The Red Scare made Americans distrust anyone who was different. The fight for Civil Rights amped up because we treated people of color atrociously and many political leaders in the South were their worst selves. Kids practiced hiding under their desks in case of nuclear war.

We survived. Life was better in 1962 than in 1932.

Are we coming apart at the seams? It sure feels like it at times. But maybe a healthy perspective is that this is American life. We fight – with one side usually seeming absurd within a generation. We suffer from economic problems or viruses or social distrust.

We survive.

If history is a guide, things in 2052 will feel like they're coming apart. We will suffer through some issues that are unimaginable now. Hopefully, we survive.

Happy birthday, America. You could do a lot better, but I am still (somewhat) hopeful for the future.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Fortunately, life doesn't meet expectations provided by childhood TV shows

It's a writer's cliché to address things that, in our childhood, seemed like they would happen by now: Flying cars. Colonization of the moon. Robot servants.

Those are disappointments (particularly the robots), but let's discuss another series of things that might have surprised us: Confusing events that happened so frequently on TV shows that they seemed a lock to happen to us as adults.

These three things were on TV so often during my childhood that at least I presumed they would happen to me:

Discovering a new student at my school who looks just like me, but wears glasses.

Here's the common plot: A "new student" appears at school who looks exactly like one of the main characters, except for the glasses (or if the character wore glasses, the "new kid" doesn't). This invariably leads to hijinks where the regular character is blamed for something he or she didn't do or the main character gets away with something that was blamed on the "new kid." At age 10, I would said there was a 70% chance that a surprising "twin" would enroll in my junior high or high school. Apparently, that doesn't happen often.

Suffering as someone uses a voodoo doll.

Voodoo was a strangely common theme on TV shows several decades ago – or at least the TV-show version of voodoo, which involved someone making a doll that somewhat resembles another person, then making the doll do crazy things that then happen to the person. Childhood Brad expected to have at least one experience where I couldn't control my limbs or when I inexplicably fell down as my arch enemy twirled a doll version of me. Apparently (fortunately), it doesn't work.

Accidentally bidding on something at an auction.

My childhood experience (on TV) convinced me that every adult ultimately winds up at an auction where expensive pieces of art or museum-level artifacts are being sold to the highest bidder. These auctions are populated by snooty people, many of them with British accents, who use slight nods to make a bid. An unintended twitch or a scratch would be seen as a bid. So was a slight uplift of an arm. At  these auctions, everyone except the TV character was able to control their itching and body movement. Invariably, the main character (who never had money) ended up accidentally winning the auction, putting them in the undesirable spot of having to talk their way out of it. Young Brad was convinced he'd attend an auction and accidentally buy something. Young Brad wasn't confident he'd be able to talk his way out of it. Turns out I've never been to an auction and I've never heard of someone accidentally winning an auction.

I guess TV shows don't accurately reflect real life. Although I'll avoid high-priced auctions, just in case.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.