Author’s Note: The written version is below and a fun read but if I had a choice I would listen to the audio version every time (click above). This is one of those stories best heard. I hope you enjoy it.

It’s January and that means it’s awards season. Now don’t get me wrong I have never won an award nor do I think I will in the time I have remaining and I don’t harbour any ambitions, nor resentment in that regard. That said, I do have a bucket list. I mean who among us doesn’t have a bucket list and if I am to be perfectly honest, I do wish I could win at least one award for my writing before, well you know.

So being somewhat impatient in matters of wish fulfillment I have decided to take this matter into my own hands and hand out an award to myself. It was a somewhat daunting task. Being an unbiased adjudicator is difficult at the best of times, being an unbiased adjudicator of my own writing well that is quite frankly self indulgent nonsense of the highest order. Which brings me to my happy place.

I have reread each of my fifty-two blog posts from 2023 and decided to nominate the story I wrote after a remarkable confrontation with an Old Man in a parking lot in Nanaimo BC. It was Old Man a Mano v Old Man a Mano, a rather limp exchange between two old fools if I might say but one to which I was clearly fully committed. I called it ‘Good Tony Bad Tony’ and it was for me My Favourite Blog of 2024. I wrote this ‘award winning piece’ the same afternoon that it happened, very much ‘hot of the press’ one might say and thereby ensuring the temporal accuracy of my recollection. It began this way:

I’m 73 and I can safely say I have never picked a fight, a physical fight.

Of course I’ve been in many arguments some of which I provoked and goodness knows as a criminal lawyer I was up to my neck in courtroom ‘fights’ but I have never picked a fight, as in a physical fight, a confrontation.

I was sent off to boarding school at the ripe old age of 10 and there I had my share of fistfights and then again later at public school I was challenged to a fight many times. I always hated it.

“Sure, I’ll be there” I would say, wanting for all the world not to be there. I mean who would want to be ‘there’ where I was going to show up and have my ass handed to me by someone much better at fighting than I was. But off I would go right after the school bell rang the condemned ‘man’ that I was.

Don’t get me wrong I am not some paragon of non confrontational virtue, it is just that I don’t fight. I rarely even beep my horn when I’m driving, perhaps three times in the last twenty years. All that notwithstanding I can say that while I have been in many fights I have never picked one.

Well I used to be able to say that.

Here’s the thing. I have four children and I have taught them all not to fight unless there is absolutely no other choice and only then if they’re being attacked. That was particularly important to me when it came to my two sons. Both Jono and Toby played sports at a high level. Jono played junior hockey and Toby played rugby to a national level. Neither sport is for the faint of heart and in every game, physical confrontation exists on a knifes edge. Even then in the face of direct orders from coaches I taught my sons that they must decide for themselves and that if they were to fight, it was because they were being attacked by another player.

So you can see at least anecdotally, this is a value I have tried to live by and which I have tried to teach my children. All of which is to set the scene for a stunning display of distemper and confrontation I recently witnessed. Mine.

I was out with my wife Mac, running some errands. As usual I was in the company of my two constant companions. We all have them. Mine are called Good Tony and Bad Tony. They perch on my shoulders, one on either side. Bear with me here, the cheese is not sliding off the toast. Not yet at least.

So Mac was at an appointment and I was waiting in a mall parking lot to hear from her when she was done. After twenty minutes or so she messaged that she was done. I started the car backed. out of my stall and drove slowly through the parking lot to the exit. Just up ahead I could see a vehicle backing out, noting that it was a beautiful and brand new blue Lincoln. I’m a hundred feet away at this point and have the right of way to the reversing car, at least as I understand the rules of the road. And he kept coming. And coming. Realizing that the driver was oblivious to my oncoming car and calculating that I was now three seconds from a T boning, I beeped my horn. Now I’ll give you it was not a ‘hi there, I’m over here’ quiet, polite beep. Nope, this was a loud abrasive get your attention ‘hey stupid, you’re about to hit me’ beep. And only the fourth such beep in twenty years. It worked. The Lincoln stopped on a dime and I drove slowly past. Even Good Tony was okay with what I had done. Bad Tony was all over it giving me serious props.

“Niiiice! Good job Tony. See doesn’t that feel good. You should do it more often.”

Anyway, accident averted and I was on my way.

“ASSHOLE!”

My ‘life is good’ contentment was shattered. I looked to the source of the distemper and realized it came from the distorted, angry red face of the driver of the Lincoln and furthermore it was me he was calling an ‘ASSHOLE’. Good Tony and Bad Tony both started yapping at me, at the same time, one in either ear.

“Just keep driving Tony. He’s just an angry old man. Go on, keep moving”

I’ve always found Good Tony comforting. Even his voice is comforting. More than that Good Tony has kept me clear of hundreds of confrontations over the years. I trust his counsel.

“Don’t listen to him! He’s always the same. Oooohhhh! Avoid a fight Tony. Move on Tony. Don’t stand up for yourself Tony. Be humiliated Tony. Again.”

I needed to make a decision and this contested cacophony of conflict was not helpful. I was getting rattled.

“It’s okay Tony” Good Tony’s soothing advice was so welcome, “He’s just an angry old man. Just do the right thing. You always do.”

“Yeah! Just do the right thing. You always do.” It was Bad Tony. Same words but a different tone of voice.

But Good Tony was right. Time to move on and put this all behind me. I could tell Mac the whole story.

As I put the car in ‘park’ and opened my door Bad Tony was gleeful.

“That’s right Tony. I am so proud of you. Go on give it to the old bugger. Who does he think he’s playing with.!”

I walked behind my car and locked eyes with the driver of the Lincoln. He was old. Which is one of the more ironic things I have ever written because I am old as well. So old. Good Tony was aghast.

“What are you thinking. Stop yourself. What has gotten into you.”

I was at the drivers side door of the brand new Lincoln.

“Listen Old Man.” It was Ironic Tony “You don’t know the rules of the road.”

“Tony! Stop yourself now. This is not going to end well.”

“You shut up Good Tony. This guy deserves it.” It was Bad Tony, loving every minute of this parking lot kerfuffle.

By now I we had drawn a crowd and a line of cars wanting to get by. For the moment though this was good spectator sport so no one complained. It was just two old man squaring off.

Lincoln Man redoubled and went to open the door of his car.

I went full Clint Eastwood on him, fixing him with an unblinking ‘I’m going to mess you up’ stare..

“You don’t want to do that Old Man!” I said in my most threatening seventy-three year old voice.

“Oh yeh” snarled Lincoln Man “What are you going to do about it?” as he pulled at the door handle again. I pressed in on the door again not letting him get out.

“You don’t want to know Old Man.” By my count I had called my antagonist ‘Old Man’ three times in forty-five seconds. Ironic Tony was on a roll.

“Go Ahead Make My Day!” Bad Tony was gleeful. “BEST DAY EVER” he shouted.

By now Good Tony had enough. “Stop this now Tony. You have to. leave. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

It was decision time. Stay and play this out some more or leave now. By my calculation my OldMano a OldMano moment had ended well for me and if the beeping horns of the waiting drivers was any indication it was ‘move on folks, nothing to see here’ time. I turned and walked back to my vehicle. Besides Mac was waiting. Good Tony was unusually quiet, still trying to figure out what the hell had just happened but Bad Tony was all over me.

“Nice job You were going to be a champ or a chump on that one and you are The Champ! Doesn’t that feel great. Huh? Huh?”

“Chump, if you ask me.” It was Good Tony.

As I drove up to Mac the pair of them were still going on.

“Oh shut up!”

“You shut up!”

“No, you shut up.”

“Both of you be quiet. I can’t hear my self think.”

Mac opened the door.

“Hi Tony, how was it?”

“Oh good. Not much going on over there.”

I’m 73 and I’ve picked my first fight, physical fight.