Secrets – Don't Tell Anyone BUT …

What is it in human nature that seems to cause so many of us to treat a “secret” like some kind of trading chip  - an international currency which will be accepted anywhere and can be instantly traded for more of the same?  

Whenever someone begins a conversation with the likes of “Can you keep a secret?” I have some immediate thoughts - negative thoughts. "Yes, I can keep a secret but obviously you can’t, so I will never divulge any to you." There is also the classic “I’m not supposed to tell anyone but …” and I think "So why are you?" In each case a trust is being broken if they tell me. The loose jaws really come out of the woodwork in a corporate environment, especially when the boss passes on something in confidence.

I loathe this. Is it just me or does anyone out there agree? I think along the following lines:
  

When someone trusts me well enough to tell me something about themselves or about some thought or concern they have, it is a compliment. This person sees me as a true friend. If they ask me to keep it to myself I do. To do otherwise is to betray the confidence placed in me. I admit that sometimes it is difficult, but for me it is a matter of pride. Unfortunately, most other people do not seem to agree. 

I have a friend who once passed on something that he was not meant to and I called him on it. He laughed and justified his actions by saying that if the source really wanted to keep it a secret, then they wouldn't or shouldn't have told him in the first place. Maybe he was right.

I suppose the only true secret is the one that never leaves the cranium. If you pass on a confidence - note the word I am using -  to a trusted friend - great!  That is one of the benefits of true friends. They are hard to find. Afterwards you have the choice of telling someone else but they do not. If a group of people all agree that something which is about to be spoken or has been spoken is to be kept strictly among the members of the group then that qualifies as a secret as well. No member however should decide independently to tell someone outside the group. 

When someone at the office seems to know just about everything before anyone else hears it they like to call it “networking.” Developing the biggest network often becomes a game practiced by both sexes. What they do not seem to realize is that some people (me for sure) conclude that the inventory of confidential information they have in their brains might have been ill gotten. People won’t continue to “network” confidential things if they receive nothing in return and It is very likely that the collector gave up something for the information in question. 

With the internet and Social Networking today it is easy to collect and dispense as much public information as desired and to be the first. Many well-known TV and Radio personalities make a career of it. But to me secrets conveyed directly to me are and will remain sacred.

Naturally all of this is just between us.

The Brewster

Monsters - of the Hose Variety I Have Known

I've been Hosed

I enjoy mechanical challenges and trying to solve them. I still dream about the million dollar invention. Here is one which I have not yet resolved. There are gadgets which claim to solve this problem but from my observations, none have been successful. 

Before proceeding, you should know that I have a Ph.D. in Hose-Coiling through a Plant Watering Scholarship from a well-known American university. My peers call me "Dr. Hoser" but The Brewster is preferred.

Try as I might, it is impossible to coil a long garden hose without producing knots which I would be unable to tie if my life depended on it. I gave up on cheap plastic hoses long ago. When it is cold outside they might as well be made of metal. Nothing like a good, expensive, pliable, rubber! Perhaps the Durex company should get into garden hoses.

One of my longest hoses is kept in the garage. When I am putting it away I am more meticulous than when I fold my clothes.


First, I lay out its full length in my driveway so that it drains. For those of you without a doctorate it is critical that the driveway slants away from the garage. This was actually a major element in my thesis. Next I stand on the high end and I pull the entire thing towards me by one arm's length to form a small loop on the ground. It can’t be too wide - just enough to eventually hang on that useless winding gizmo I bought - more on that later.

Hoses have a mind of their own. Funny, people say that about me. With each pull, I have to twist the coil with my wrist so that it will lie flat. It always flops one way or the other during this critical stage resembling some landed large-mouthed bass. The next few feet of hose will then twist clockwise or counter-clockwise in a corkscrew manner. The direction of twist is never the same and I don’t know why. The tension in the remainder of the hose is then almost as high as the tension in me.

I have this repeat vision that some day my lady will come out to the driveway only to find me strangled by the sudden unleashing of all of that power – like a tow truck cable snapping. The coiled part suddenly unwinds and loops around my neck choking me instantly. What a way to go. Imagine the headlines - “Man dies from hose- cause of death old rubber”. At other times I rest one foot on it like a great African safari hunter. I digress. After this careful process is finished and I have a relatively neat and now defeated hose at my feet, I hang it on that contraption on the wall mentioned earlier.

This also requires great care. I have often had the last loop fling itself off in one final death struggle like Glenn Close rising from the tub at the end of Fatal Attraction. It can be devastating if the metal nozzle is still attached and within proximity of a car. Bye, Bye paint job.

OK - now it is hung. The real mystery is why, after all of this, it gets so tangled the next time I use it. I also addressed this in my thesis which I believe guaranteed my pass.

I lay it down about 10 feet from the faucet with the female end on top (I always liked that anyway.)  That is the end that goes on to the faucet. Use your imagination if you are not familiar with these mechanical "male" and "female" references. Then I uncoil enough to walk the female part to the tap on the wall connecting it as tightly as I can. So far, so good. Next I do what I think is very clever. My Professor agreed. I flip the coil over so that the male end is on top. Again - not a bad choice.

In theory, I should now be able to pull the damn thing out to its full length with no problem. I take off running. BAM! I get stopped in my tracks and jerked backwards almost wrenching off my arm. I can’t look back during this dash because I might hit a tree. I did once so maybe that is why I write this stuff. I cautiously backtrack fearing strangulation again and there it is - a mangled, tangled mess of hose. In order to untangle it, by some unwritten law of nature it always requires retrieval of the far end to feed back through the tangle. 

PLEASE. Someone tell me I’m not alone. Can’t anyone invent a hose that does not tangle? I have bought them with this claim but to no avail. I see new ones every year. Personally I would rather receive Emails offering to keep my hose straight than the ones I already receive claiming to lengthen it.

Now about that hose coiler - you know the kind? You attach the water supply to one side of it and the hose to the other side. In theory you can crank it in or out without shutting off the water. Great idea! Try as I did however, I could never get the hose clamp tight enough on the supply end to prevent it from pushing itself off the connection under pressure and flooding my garage, usually without my knowledge. (OK. I am omitting the part about me not shutting off the tap.) 

I think local utility companies designed these. It increases water bills. That elegant “coiler shutteroffer thing” which was someone’s personal invention is now just a passive hose hanger on the wall albeit a very impressive one. It is like buying a mannequin to hang a tie. I hope you went broke whoever you are.

Surely firefighters have mastered a solution to this? Now there is a thought. Why don’t firefighters go into the hose coiling consulting business? They could make a fortune. On the other hand, maybe all I have to do is buy a used fire truck to park in my driveway which would take all of my hoses. Surely I would get a break on the house insurance? I can just hear the reaction of my wife and my neighbours!  

That's a wrap.

The Brewster

MYTH: Prison and Corporal Punishment Don't Deter Crime

Punishment Does Deter Crime

If I had 10 bucks for each time I heard that punishment - spanking; shame; corporal; prison; and yes capital - do not work because they do not deter errant behaviour I would be much richer.

I believe this is bunk. There are usually statistics and "studies" cited to substantiate this old argument but we all know that we can find statistics to back any statement. So I won't but I will leave it up to you to find your own if you agree with the following. Personally I don't need statistics - life experience is good enough.

I also believe that the points I am about to make are fundamental everywhere - here in Canada where we don't really have a prison mentality and in other countries where they do.

Every year a group of guys I know who are already south of the 50th parallel of life get together for a round of golf late in the summer. We all attended the same public school - now demolished - or one of 2 or 3 high schools in our region. Some of our homes were a mile or two apart but we now consider ourselves former neighbours. One of the youngest built the golf course. We were not all friends back then because 2+ years of age difference when you are in primary school seem huge at the time but at this age we are now just one generation.

After commiserating over the game with a couple of beers, talk often gets around to the good old days. A favourite is what ever happened to ...? Those years - the '50s and '60s - had real life Fonzie's and tough guys who would bully or fight and yes, commit crimes. Some of them did die in violent circumstances or have spent time in the slammer.

We all lived with the threat of getting the strap at school or at home or both; sometimes being handled forcefully by teachers; going without our supper; or being sent to our rooms.  We all agree that those things did not deter those same guys from repeat behaviour. In fact getting the strap for some was cool.

So the main point of all of this is that in many cases - hard core criminals; murderers; rapists; burglars; fraud artists etc. - jail time will probably not work. They will often repeat their crimes.  However they represent only a very small group compared to the population at large - the REST of us.

The threat of punishment back then and even now did and still does deter that larger group. It certainly did me and from our discussions my colleagues are largely free from criminal records and do not want to spend the rest of their lives as Big Bubba's shower mate. We don't want to lose our right to drive or have to pay ridiculous insurance premiums. Our relatively normal lives mean too much to us.

Unfortunately over the decades many of those disincentives have been taken away by some people with good intentions. Look what has happened through those same decades.

We used to walk to and from school with no fear. We played outside at night. Our parents were comfortable with that. If you ticked off one of those tough guys you might get bruised but they did not pull out a gun and kill you. There were some gangs like those in West Side Story where real knife fights occurred but guns were seldom used. However none of us felt the absolute need to be in a gang just to survive.

Today all of those things do happen. Young kids do carry weapons and don't think twice about using them. Parents sue teachers for any physical contact and kids sue their parents for the same thing or even less. Some young girls go to school looking like five dollar hookers and guys dress just as badly. Sadly, today the parents blame the schools for not keeping their kids safe.

Surely there is a co-relationship here. As punishment disappeared, kids' behaviours degraded and then they carried those standards into parenthood as the norm.

To those who are against any form of physical punishment I believe that I and all of those golfing colleagues are proof that things were not so bad. In fact it DID work on all of us. I don't recall any teacher being charged for abuse of kids and if they were guilty of same, then if anything the courts back then were much tougher on them. The same applied to abusive parents.

So go for it web crawlers. Let's see some statistics for two things:

1. Increases in types of crime over the last 50 years or AND ...
2. The percentage that these offenders represent of the total population

I am convinced that even with today's more lenient courts, the disincentive for the larger group still works. So yes - build more prisons. When I am really angry the threat will keep me from lashing out. When I am in need of a lot of cash, I won't be taking my chances with bank robbery or burglary.

Surely that goes for most of you also. If not let us hear your counter argument.

The Brewster