It was the night of the 15th October, 1987. Winds gusting up to 100 mph hit the south of England, the Channel Islands and Northern France. For the British Isles, this was unprecedented in recent decades, and devastating. 15 trillion trees were destroyed. Lives and livelihoods were lost. The Channel Islands, where I was living at the time, was spectacularly affected.
In Jersey, the night started with very strong gusts, which was not unusual for that time of year. I went to work at the theatre as normal; it happened to be at the bottom of a long hill, highly sheltered from the violent winds that night.
I left the theatre about 1am as normal, and drove up the hill to the main road, during which I noticed a lot of small branches on the road, but thought nothing of it. Until I turned onto the main road. There, in front of me, was the huge trunk of a tree, completely blocking the road. I reversed back to the telephone box I recalled passing a few moments earlier. I phoned my wife to say I would be late home. She reminded me that our 10-year-old son was out camping with the scouts that night in flimsy wooden chalets in a remote part of the island.
It was the last call I would make that night. Moments later, our home phone-line was ripped apart. This was years before the advent of mobile phones. It also took me two hours to make the 2.5-mile journey home.
Once home, panic ensued. Roof tiles were being torn away, and we had no idea whether our son was safe or not. We had no means of communication, and the storm outside was getting even worse.
After a sleepless night, we still had no idea whether our son had perished in the hurricane force winds. Around midday, we managed to establish that an acquaintance of ours still had a working phone and had managed to find out that our boy and his group were indeed safe. Just. But no idea how they were going to be rescued – maybe an airlift would be needed.
The rest of the story in inconsequential. Our son survived – luckily as it turned out – but the knowledge that he was safe remains the greatest news I have had in my 72 years to date.
The best news I’ve ever had
I think I’ve had so much great news in my life I have nothing to complain about. Yet, my complaint is to choose between them.
Probably, the best news was information that I had passed the TOEFL test in April 1993.
TOEFL stands for the Test of English as Foreign Language. My grade was 513 meaning that I passed it as I had to achieve 500 or more. This, in turn, meant that I was going to spend an academic year in the United States as a foreign exchange student.
I was eighteen at the time, a sophomore at a college. It was a different time from now in Russia, so my university was participating in the American Collegiate Consortium program, an academic exchange program with the United States. As a good student in general, and a good English student, I was selected to try the test.
Maybe it was a coincidence, or not, but since November 1992 I was preparing for the test. Even without knowing that my college was part of the program, I just knew that passing TOEFL is the key to study in America.
Was it written in the stars? Or did I just want to go to America badly?
So, I had two books and two VHS tapes in the set to prepare for TOEFL.
When I was passing the test, based on the multiple-choice approach (Reading – Grammar – Listening) I think I kind of lost concentration in the middle of it, then went back.
Anyway, when I went home, I was sure I hadn’t passed it. I felt like I just fucked up the chance of my life. I took the Dire Straits On Every Street LP – it was fresh at the time – and listened to it, completely out of balance. Depressed. It was March 1993.
Then, all of a sudden, in two weeks I was informed by my faculty that I had passed TOEFL and would go to the United States in the middle of August. For a year.
For me, in Moscow of 1993, it was like going to Mars!
Before that, I had never left my country. So going to America was my first foreign travel.
My first visit in America was the time to remember, a lifetime experience. New York, Vermont, Texas – life’s too short not to live as a Texan; my switch to journalism thanks to Dr. Loyal Gould, a prominent former UPI journalist. Getting deep into American life, beyond campus, too. An American girlfriend. It was heck of an experience!
I returned home in May 1994 a completely different person.
So, among those great memories, I will keep this news – the best I’ve ever had:
April 1993. Moscow. Sergey, congrats, you passed the test!
The best news I ever had.
Sometimes these things write themselves. Want to talk about anything current? Space, international relations, I can bang em’ out all day. Well, that’s not quite right, I don’t really follow movie stars, do you?
So, I had to think long and hard about the best news I ever had. We decided the cliché stuff like the birth of a healthy child was out, so I’m really having to dig down.
This morning, I finally settled on when the family got a dog. I was a young boy and we got a toy collie named Peppy. This dog was crazy smart… easily the smartest dog I have ever had. Every boy should grow up with a dog. He was the best friend that never left my side.
Of course, I could bore you with a dozen stories of our times together but I’ll pass. I hope you also had a dog while growing up. Dogs teach us about the important lessons: life, loyalty, friendship, love, and at the end, loss. Your dog doesn’t care what the other kids think.
If more people would apply the Scientific Method, even loosely, to the crap they eat on Facebook, this world would be a far better place. However, there is one place where these scientists fail miserably: animal emotions. The word is anthropomorphism, which is assigning human emotions to animals. Dogs absolutely do feel many of the same emotions we do. I don’t think all emotions but they clearly experience the basic ones.