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Club of America
By RonMann,
Rjmann@yahoo.com
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Never one to shy away from controversy, I thought I’d venture into an area this month which undoubtedly will put my likeability quotient at significant risk. Those of you who’ve read my musings over the years are well aware that my finest blather has tended to select a particular theme to improvise upon. This tactic has produced a cornucopia of inconsequential riffs on a variety of societal ills ranging from tofu, a personal favorite for ranking on, to Prozac, something that alternately makes me laugh, cry or wonder where the hell all my serotonin got off to. I’ve tackled religion, crossword puzzles, poetry, you name it, if I haven’t yet touched on a topic, say, the Knight’s Templar, flatulence or the search for dark matter, rest assured, I will sooner or later. And while I’ve generally avoided politics or sexuality, I’ve danced around those subjects as well. But this month, I’m in no mood to dance and as I’ve rather lost the edginess to my writings of late, I’ve decided to sharpen up the razor. Saturday last, tired, spent from a hot day on the tarmac, I found myself gulping some Bass, that refreshing bubbly brown liquid meal in O’Hanlon’s pub. Being quite the convenient spot for washing down the dust of the day, having been serendipitously located in downtown Ayer less than a single lap from Devens, its hardly surprising that after an autocross there’s usually a couple of dozen participants hanging around post competition. Besides, we’re always encouraging people in the drivers meeting to patronize the local merchants as it fosters good will with the community. And as I’m always willing to give of my time for the betterment PCA, I can usually be counted on to pull up a stool and knock back a beer or two with some of my fellow cone slayers. Although I’m about as Irish as a vindaloo, it shouldn’t come as too much of a shock that I have a long and storied history with green beer and pubs, both of which figure prominently in numerous epics I could relate, primarily as the backdrop for the typical style of adversity which tends to follow me around. This particular circumstance, however, was a rather a departure from the norm in that I happened to be surrounded by four rather attractive women. More astonishing was the fact that at that particular instant, I was the utter focus of their attention. Now, probably for much of the male audience, assuming you guys actually read this tripe, this is the sort of situation that you’d likely not mind tackling. If so, feel free to send me your cell number, I’ll ring you up in the unlikely eventuality that it happens again. Why the need for 911? Well for one thing, I’ve never had any sense when it comes to the so-called fairer sex, although what’s at all more egalitarian about those blessed with Dos Equis as opposed to those of us sporting Y chromosomes, I have yet to discern. And, of course, certainly those of you sufficiently cursed in this life as to have actually witness me in the flesh have surely recognized by now that although I was the certain object of their desire, the circumstances could hardly be desirable. There was I, surrounded, slumped half dead in a heap on the bar, elbows cemented firmly to the mahogany courtesy of a previous patron’s sticky mishap, head in hands, pooped from the days activity, ready to call it a month, only to hear the words, “you’d better write something about Cara this month.” It should be stated categorically before we venture any further that I’m a contrarian’s contrarian. The New Jersey Board of Psychiatric Review once nominated my parents for an honorarium in recognition of contributions made ‘in elevating reverse psychology from the muck of popular culture and lifting it into the realm of truly refined scientific theory’. And yet, despite all this inbred will to annoy and contradict the desires and viewpoints of others, as many of my on track comrades will attest, I’m just not all that quick. My failure to grasp the obvious danger I had inadvertently wandered into, while understandable for one as socially naïve as myself, was largely inexcusable as far as my detractors were concerned. “Huh?” “You’ve got to write an article about Cara this month.” “Uh…yeah, well I’m not getting you here… maybe you’re confusing me with some one else.” “Loooook,” another said, “Cara took fastest time of day, right? She TOOK FTD! You have to write about that! A GIRL TOOK FTD!” “Yeah, so?” I suppose it needs to be explained that I was raised in a family that had absolutely no notions or awareness of race, gender or any other distinguishing marks that might be used to categorize the person or persons we happened to come in contact with. Generally, to differentiate between one human or another we typically just used their names, like Fred or Barney, Wilma or Betty. One name I’ll never forget is that of Sharon Oakes, but I’ve forgotten that of her brother. I’ll never forget Sharon because back in the second grade she would kick my ass in virtually any sport I had the misfortune to get involved in when she was in the vicinity. She could run faster, jump higher, was more coordinated and to top it all off, she was a helluva lot better looking and far more popular than me. My first paying gig as a musician at age ten was working for a woman. I was the lead guitarist for Linda Queen and her High Society. Linda, as you might imagine was a girl and happened to be black. I fell in love with her sister. She was a girl too. In my first professional job in academia as an Assistant Professor of Theory and Composition, I served at the behest of a female who was Dean of the College and my first real boss upon entering adulthood. After leaving the teaching profession and throughout my ensuing career in technology, I’ve been surrounded by women; in my last group, we males were in the minority. Up until recently I reported to a Director who is, that’s right, you got it, a woman. She’s now a VP. I was then and still am today, a Senior Staff Engineer. When I wanted a co-driver to help improve my times at AXing, I took on Linda Kogan, who undoubtedly is a blood relative of Ms. Oakes, as she too was perfectly capable of kicking my butt at will. Yeah, yeah, and more attractive and popular as well. Sheesh, will it ever end? So what have I learned from all this? We’ll for one thing, in my experience, women can be just as friendly, evil, egotistical, insane, shy, worldly, talented, pushy, enlightened, closed minded, lazy, artistic or imbecilic as any man I ever met. Type A, B, C, D personalities… hell, they’ve got the whole alphabet covered just as well as the opposition. And what all these experiences and observations have suggested to me over the years is that while there are certainly some interesting differences between the sexes, it’s really never about which row or column you happen to fall into when the measurements are taken, its about who you are as a person. Obvious. Right? So, I don’t see Cara as a woman. I see a fellow competitor and one who’s made a tremendous amount of progress in the last year or so. One who’s toiled as hard as anyone and probably the only other person I’ve met who’s equally tenacious is Charley Stromeyer, whose weekend whereabouts are absolutely certain to me between the hours of 7AM and 4PM once AX session at Devens has begun. Hard work and commitment is something that pays dividends, and it knows no gender. Nevertheless, there was one thing that I found highly ironic about this conversation and it has forced me to recognize that perhaps there was some worth to the demands that they were making. What struck me was their jubilation and automatic response that they too had achieved a personal victory out on the Deven’s battlefield. And yet, there was a complete and utter lack of recognition that there was literally nothing blocking their desire to shout this triumph from within the pages of the Nor’easter other than one of them stepping up to write their own personal account of the days events and how much it meant to them. Why on earth would any of them possibly want to rely on me to do so? Well, perhaps its because despite my belief that these women are completely empowered to chart and record their own destiny and history, maybe some invisible, ever present barrier I’ve failed to experience is still blocking their will to do so. So I have an apparently radical view that I’ll state right now (what else is new). I believe that the mark of a truly enlightened society isn’t whether its based on socialism, democracy or capitalism. Rather it’s how willing it is to celebrate the good works of all its’ members, how inclusive it is regardless of the obvious superficial differences and most importantly, how much of a meritocracy it is. One of the foremost advantages of residing within the borders of our homeland is that although we might still suffer the past, borne upon the ancient sins of slavery, we never have had to suffer a classic European aristocracy, nor a rigidly institutionalized social order like those found in the east. That Beethoven once quipped to the a member of the Teutonic royalty, ‘what you are is by right of birth, whereas I am self made.” would never had needed to be uttered in this country. Regardless of the true level of isms still churning about us here at the dawn of the 21st century, the scoring sheets for a club race, a rally or an autocross, the core activities of this club, say nothing about the creed, color or sex of the winner, they only proclaim their victory. Perhaps other sports, clubs or institutions emphasize gender differences, but ours do not. Any barriers here are in no way real, they are indeed invisible and imagined. This isn’t to say that some people, and I say people for I’m certain that there are both women and men that share this view, will reject these words as foolish. For them it’s obvious that men are superior at this or women certainly make superior that’s. They will try to resist the notions of freedom of action and in the extreme even attempt to act in opposition to it. So what. I refuse to suffer such pettiness and I certainly won’t allow it to change the fact that I take each individual as they come, for whom they are, not what they are. The words competitor, victor, winner, participant, autocrosser, driver have absolutely no gender attached to them in English. And while I still am glad to be largely oblivious to the importance of the message that this quartet was so highly desirous of delivering, I have, in my own way delivered it. If indeed there is something special about this, if we are to have a better world, there really shouldn’t be. It should be for all, as it is for me commonplace, a non-event for anyone other than Cara. There’s only one way to make that happen ladies, and that’s to simply get out there and go do it. You have your inspiration, its up to you to make it unnecessary in future. As I close, I’m reminded of another woman of the distant tearful past of my youth. The two of us were sitting at a table quietly in the back room of a bar in Sea Bright, NJ. In the corner, a neglected TV was whiling away the time tuned to the Miss America pageant, which was taking place on the similar stretch of beach some seventy miles to south. In a fit of pique over a rather foolish comment I uttered in passing about the worth of such frivolity, my companion poured her entire draught over my head. Stunned by her vengeful beauty, I completely ignored the act and continued our conversation as though nothing had gone amiss. It’s one of the most perfect tragically hip moments I’ve ever experienced, and one that I’ll always wonder fondly about. Feel free to reenact that event at O’Hanlons next month, just so long as you at least give an autocross a try first. Until then, I wish you peace. |
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