Tony Jackson Scholarship - Kellogg's Nutri-Grain Ironman New Zealand

Following is the speech I gave at the Kellogg's Nutri-Grain Ironman NZ 2014 Awards Banquet when the Tony Jackson Scholarship was announced.

Tony Jackson Scholarship

My name is Verna Cook-Jackson.  Tony Jackson was my husband.

When Janette from IM contacted me last year to moot the concept of a Tony Jackson Scholarship I couldn’t have been more supportive. 

For all the years that Ironman has been in NZ Tony would have helped many very ordinary people complete some extra ordinary feats;  while at the same time managed to achieve being a quiet extra-ordinary person himself. 

Tony competed in every single NZ Ironman since its inception in New Zealand in 1985, until last year, when he was too ill to compete – the first NZ Ironman Tony was not able to compete in. Tony passed away exactly week after last year's Ironman.

Tony was a very ordinary, a happy man;  a man who quietly managed to mentor, encourage, guide, instruct and enthuse every day, ordinary people into doing things they had thought impossible to achieve.  

Back in the 1980’s, long before Ironman, or Asics or New Balance picked up on the saying, Tony would tell people, “Nothing is impossible” but he always added  …  “... to the willing mind.”   

Tony lived his life by that motto.  And to many, competing in any triathlon let alone an Ironman seemed a formidably impossible thing to achieve.  Yet Tony would show them that, with a willing mind, it was achievable. 

Tony started and finished the first NZ Ironman triathlon in 1985 at the age of 45.  It is refreshing when one reads his old diaries and realises how different it was then – their training, their methods – they were really tough Ironmen in those days.

Tony was never a world beater – but the records do show he could turn out some good times. He qualified for Kona many times, but only went 3 times – even managing to podium place at Kona, the Mecca of international Ironman events. 

Not by planning, but more by chance, as the years passed by Tony ended up completing every single NZ Ironman – and helping others do so;  that is, until December 2007.

At Christmas 2007 Tony was diagnosed with a brain tumour.  The worst kind of brain tumour one can have.  His Christmas gift was two major brain surgery operations with the outcome of the brain specialists telling him he now had the life expectancy of 12 weeks. 

Ten weeks later, with the thought of only having about 2 more weeks to live -  and in the middle of radiotherapy and chemotherapy Tony started and finished his, and New Zealand’s,  24^th NZ Ironman. 

Months after that he had to endure a further series of invasive major brain surgery; yet, once again, Tony started and finished the 2009 NZ Ironman;  the 25^th and even managed a 2^nd place in his age group.

In the months following that year's event Tony had yet more head surgery, this time with plastic surgeons who had to remove  and lift off his entire scalp, reshape his hairline and replace the scalp – he had staples and stitches around his entire head – yet in March 2010, Tony, again, started and finished the NZ Ironman, his 26^th.

The following summer Tony was still biking, swimming and running, but in January 2011 whilst out cycling with a good Ironman training mate, training for the 2011 Ironman, he suffered a mini-stroke.  

Whilst in Accident & Emergency at Auckland hospital he became paralysed down one side of his body.  

I reflect with bemusement the looks on the medics faces when at 11 o’clock  that night, in the Accident & Emergency department,  the medics rushing into our little cubicle to find Tony attempting to lean himself onto the side of the hospital bed trying to do a Pilates routine that he thought would help to get his paralysed side working again.  

Six weeks later in March 2011, Tony started and finished his 27^th NZ Ironman.  That was his 4^th Ironman that he completed after having been given the life sentence of 12 weeks to live 4 years earlier.

Two years ago in March 2012 with his willing mind, Tony started and finished what he knew would be his last ever Ironman.  It was his, and Ironman New Zealand’s 28^th 

Throughout all of those 28 years and particularly during the last 5 years of his own trials, Tony continued to help, and advise, and mentor others who had a goal of doing an Ironman – he proved to them  –..  “..if you have a willing mind, nothing is impossible.”

So last year when Ironman was on here in Taupo Tony was unable to be here.  He was back in Auckland, very ill in hospital.  But it was a special Ironman for Tony – for our son completed his own first Ironman – for us this was achieving the almost impossible – for no one would ever have expected this son to do an Ironman – a drinker, a smoker, a nigh clubber, a recidivist electric puha smoker – even to Tony this would have seemed impossible – yet the impossible was achieved - that son did for and because of Tony - Tony had taught him - a willing mind and he could achieve.

After finishing the son returned to Tony who was by then in hospice care and he presented the medal Tony in his hospital bed during the last ever moments that Tony had been conscious.  Tony gripped the medal in his left hand – he died five days later with that medal still in his hand.  

I am damned sure he would have arrived at the Pearly Gates and convinced St Peter that he had done his 29^th Ironman.

So this scholarship that Ironman NZ has developed comes with real meaning and purpose.  Over his 28 years of Ironmanning, and throughout those last 5 Ironman years, Tony would have helped, trained, coached, mentored, inspired, assisted and guided many people to achieve not only their first Ironman, but sometimes their 2^nd, 3^rd, 6^th or 10^th Ironman.  Ordinary people, whether 20 or 70, ordinary people, who without his encouragement would never have believed in themselves that they could achieve that personal goal.  Because of him they did.

This scholarship is New Zealand Ironman's way of continuing Tony’s and their belief to each person out there -  that, like everything in life, including Ironman -  ‘Nothing is impossible to the willing mind’.

Radiating memory

My brother and his wife came to visit last night.

He's renowned for his love of conversation, and he certainly showed last evening that he has perfected it consummately for himself.  He will sit for hours and hours and slowly ponder and discuss anything, any topic, for hours and hours - oh, did I say that earlier - hours and hours.  Yes, he loves to talk, be it ponderously and slowly but always with his own deep thoughts being unhurriedly eked from his brain cells to contribute to the conversation.

It is a good thing - his long, thoughtful, slow conversational bent.  Quite different to me.

Yes, I love to converse too, with anyone at any time and will also sit and discuss topic matters for hours and hours too; but my manner of discussing is like bullets from a machine gun, it's all a constantly flowing, enthusiastic, verbal download that I eject as quickly as possible as if there is a sense of urgency to have a particular discussion or conversation detailed and over with quickly due to there being so many other thoughts or stories yet to come out.  Because I do have a lot of stories and, like my brother, enjoy nothing more than sharing stories.

Last night he was ponderously reminiscing on his working days in the automobile industry.  As a teenager he had worked through an automobile apprenticeship then moved on to working within the oil industry, with the big international oil giants.  The role he retained for decades for opposing companies was calling on mechanical workshops throughout the North Island and developing and retaining working relationships with customers.

It was while he was relaying some stories about particular clients he had that I was reminded of two separate short periods in my ever so short 37-plus years when I too had worked very actively in the automobile industry, in roles that were not dissimilar to my brother.  Indeed, it was my brother who brought up the name of a client of his who was an individual with whom I was employed for a period of time.

It is funny how life has co-incidences.  This conversation was a link of co-incidences, one that we would never have predicted.

You see, that particular client of his, the old employer of mine, died recently.  My brother was unaware of this chap's passing onto the next world so was saddened to hear the news and commented on how well he had respected him as a person.

If this man had not departed this earth I may not have then related an interesting, but most personal story I had of this man, it would not have been appropriate.  And we say we should not speak ill of the dead, this story is not speaking ill of the departed one, it is merely a little true story in my life that involved the person, others around him and myself. A story I'd kept reasonably under wraps because there was no reason to relay it, or relive it, plus I doubted others would want to know.

It was over twenty-five years ago.  On a Sunday run with friends.  Friends I had run and competed with for many years prior, male and female.  One of the chaps was always relatively quiet on the runs, allowing the rest of us to while away the miles in a flow of constant chatter about the inanities of life.  So, when this man, Don, a man I had already known and respected for ten years, ever did say something we would all stop our own conversational flow and listen because it would always be either profound, or adding value to the group.

This was in a period of time when New Zealand was going through massive political, financial and structural change.  The Rogernomics era. 

Don had his own very successful business in the automobile trade, one he had worked in all his life and inherited from his father; one that had a very busy workshop in the central city and another out in the Auckland environs.  We all knew Don as a successful businessman in his own right; he drove nice cars, had a nice home, nice family and a nice life, all due to his and his father's hard work for many decades.  He was a man we all looked up to as an example of a hard working, studious, and business minded success.

The topic of discussion among the runners on this particular day was political and the debate on the changes government was making made for some heated discourse across the running pack.  Then, quietly, Don popped in a short statement of fact which made us all mentally stop and think.  "These changes are ruining my business, ruining my health and ruining the future of all my employees, because I am going to have to lay some of them off due to business being hit by this government's policy changes."

That was probably one moment in time when the other eight in the pack did realise first hand of the real effects the new political policies were making;  here was one of us, being enormously and detrimentally affected by what many had deemed as positive changes. 

Don said no more, the run continued with debate continuing.  I sidled alongside Don and asked if he wanted to tell me exactly how his business was being affected.  He and I spent many a further mile running along, he sharing, me listening and learning.

We ran together every Thursday and Sunday and found we would drop to the back of the running pack and continue the business conversation, along with all manner of linked topics relating to the effects he was experiencing due to the political changes within the country.

He did lay staff members off, loyal ones, and was clearly cut up about having had to do so.

At that point in time I was not in paid employment.  And felt for the man and as a friend genuinely wanted to know if there was anyway any of us could help.  I had no idea how but when friends are having difficult times it is nature that wants you to offer a hand, any hand, in anyway if there were ways we could help.

"No," Don said, "What I really need but now can't afford is a sales person going out there to all my clients, those who don't use me now and those that do and drum up business." 

Well.  He didn't expect the response.  "I'll do that for you," says I, she who knew absolutely zero about his particular trade or product, but did know how to be a salesperson.  "I'll come work for you - and I'll just work certain hours and you can pay me by the hour."

So there began my official role as a sales representative, selling an expensive motor product I had no clue about, to tradespeople throughout the entire Auckland area and environs.

                       

I would head into the office three days a week, jump into his business car and head out to a particular area in Auckland, be it Henderson, Albany, Manukau - one particular area each day.

Hot in my hands would be a list of the clients who still used him as a supplier, plus a list of those he suspected still used him but were also now using other suppliers; plus a list of those old clients who he found no longer brought from him.  Then the list of businesses who had never used him as their supplier but who he had always wanted to have as a customer.

Each day I would return to the office, his wife (who did the accounts), himself and his foreman would be waiting for me enthusiastically wanting to know how I had gone?  Who had I seen?  Who had I spoken to?  What were their reactions?  Did I think they'd give the company their business? 

Most of the time I had no idea.  All I was doing was calling, visiting, chatting, reminding them of the company I worked for.  I wasn't selling.  I was merely putting a company face out there that they could relate to.

Weeks went by, I would go into the office in the city each Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday - have discussions with him and his long-term loyal foreman, and sometimes his wife, about the clients on the list for the day, then jump in the car and head out to the wild, automobile tradies.

Don was meticulous with his paper work. Was an unusual man in his trade as he had computer systems installed with programmes that could download facts and statistics on his business sales and purchases with the touch of the keyboard.  His fellow competitors and clients were nowhere near as forward thinking or up to speed as him.

So at about week six or seven when I arrived at the workshop-office for my Tuesday start and his foreman came out to greet me with a smile greater than any Cheshire cat I felt a sense of huge relief when he told me the news.

He and his boss, Don, had spent the weekend together in the office going over the most recent reports their computer system had spat out.  It seems the computer spreadsheet had shown a dramatic increase in business sales for the previous month.  Indeed, the graph the foreman showed me was well beyond a gentle slop upward, it was quite a pointed peak in their monthly sales in comparison to the many months previous.

Don was a dour man, who rarely showed changes in expression, so when I walked into the office all bubbling at the news I still expected a reasonably saturnine response.  But there he was, grinning from ear to ear.  He was a happy man.  I had not seen him smile for a long time. 

He said he and his foreman had worked together over the weekend going over all the previous four weeks figures manually as there had been some doubt as to whether the computer spreadsheets were correct - maybe some inputting errors had caused a false report of positive sales increases.  But both manual and computer sales reports came to the same result.  It had been the best month on record for the previous year.

Nothing better than positive factual results to make a sales person happy - but just seeing him and his foreman, and their workers happier and positive with the results made my day.

Off I skipped, to do yet another day's cruising around the mucky, smelling, mechanical workshops of Auckland.

From then on Don would download weekly sales reports from his computer and analyse them with previous months data.  Each week I would go in and the mood and mode of the general workshop and office became lighter, happier, more positive.

Business had bettered so well that by month four Don was contacting one of the employees he had laid off, asking for him to come back.

As a segway, this was in the days when insurance companies did not have 'preferred suppliers'.  Indeed, we had never heard of that concept in any business at that time. 

During some of Don, my and the foreman's weekly update chats Don had expressed how it had always been his business dream to somehow link in and form relationships with insurance companies to further his business interests, but had not known how.  He always attended trade conferences, business luncheons and connectivity meetings but admitted to not having the nous or ability to approach companies along the lines of building a working relationship.  Besides, at that time insurance companies were purposefully doing the opposite, not allowing fraternising between them and trades people, it was not policy to have favoured suppliers and were studious about ensuring no employees were seen to do so.

I could not fathom the lack of common sense as to why insurance businesses would be resisting attempts by suppliers to work with them, or why they would not want to build worthwhile relationships with suppliers - or why Don had not pursued that avenue earlier.   

So one day I picked up the phone and telephoned State Insurance.  After verbal manipulation with the various individuals I was put through to was eventually talking to a person who politely listened to what I had to say then said, "Come and meet me, I'd like to talk."  

Somewhat agog, I was there within the next 24 hours.

It is fair to say that my timing was co-incidentally impeccable.

A long meeting with this most corporate man, in a most corporate office in Shortland Street had me exit the building with a fist punching 'Yes!' 

      

                        

That company was the first of all insurance companies to implement 'Preferred Supplier' policy.  The timing of my phone call just happened to be when they had already determined the preferred supplier road would be implemented and I happened to be the co-incidental phone call, and the first of now thousands of preferred suppliers in the insurance business.

By month seven Don's little, previously dying, business was on the up and up.  He was now faced with the dilemma of not being able to source enough product from his European suppliers in the time frames required.

Both his workshops were busy and incorporating overtime for the men.  The two men he had laid off had returned and were whistling while they worked.  The foreman was particularly happy with me as he said the difference between pre-my working time there and the present was immense - happy boss, happy foreman, happy staff, happy customers.

Indeed, each Tuesday when I arrived for my next week of working I would enter the office to a smiling, happy boss.  Each day as I returned to the office both he and foreman would wait for me to ask who I had seen that day, what the responses were, did I think my visit would pay off.

Of course there were the odd failure, but the successes were greater, business was greater.

Then there came that Tuesday.

I walked into the office.  There was a heavy, dense thickness of atmosphere.  I can feel and smell it now, all these years later. 

Sitting in the office was the foreman, the wife and Don.  I could barely breathe from the acridity of the air.  I stood a moment, surveying the office - she was with head down writing on something, the foreman looked up at me with a face that pre-warned 'trouble', Don was seated with his back to me, bent over the computer keyboard, typing something.  

There were no smiles, no greeting - just motionless, stifling oppression.

"What's up?" says I, most gingerly. "Shall I leave?"  Thinking I must have walked into a heated argument with the three of them.

"No, don't leave," says the wife.   The foreman gets up from his seat, walks past me and leaves and closes the door firmly behind him.  A signal for me to be staying in there.

Wife looks up from her paperwork, pen in hand, "Are you having an affair with my husband?"

I look at her, startled, mouth open.  I turn and look at Don who is still sitting with his back to me, bent over his keyboard.

"What!" I exclaimed. 

"Are you having an affair with Don?"

I looked back to Don, my face of astonishment.  He sits up, spins around on his office chair and says, "Norma thinks we are having an affair."

"What!" I repeat.  Astounded as to what was said, what was happening, and was it real.

"Norma, you are kidding me, aren't you?"

"No, I'm not," she repeated.  "And I want to know now, are you having an affair with Don."

"Of course not," says I, "it's the last thing I've been doing."

I remember so very vividly wanting to say, "No, you stupid woman.  Of all the men I would want to have an affair with your husband would be the last.  He would have to be in the category of most unsexy men I know!"  But I couldn't.  I didn't.  I should have.

What I also wanted to say was, "Blimey, I've been busy."  Because at the time the relationship with Tony and I had only just begun.  We had been 

clandestinely meeting and doing our utmost to not make it public that we were doing so.  My life was already complicated and Tony's involvement at that time only made it all the more so.  Hence, throwing in another lover?  That would have taken of woman of great skill, endurance and fortitude - particularly having yet another affair with one that wasn't the least bit physically appealing.

I stood there.  My stomach had churned.  I instantly felt ill.  I wanted to vomit.  I was incredulous at what was being asked.

Don looked at me and shrugged.  "I told her she was being stupid, but she wouldn't believe me."

I looked at her, "What on earth makes you think that?"

"I've been watching you and watching Don. He comes home from work nowadays really happy.  All he can do is talk about you.  It's beyond the joke how much he talks about you.  So something's up.

"Maurice, your foreman goes home happy too," I said, "as do all your men out there, am I having an affair with all of them?!"

"Don't be stupid," she says, "but it's clear something is up because Don has changed a lot ever since you got here."

I turned on my heels.

I walked out through that door.

I never walked back in.

A woman needs a man. Or is it, a fish needs a bicycle? Or maybe it's a man on a bicycle is a fish...??

I always thought it was a stupid feminist one liner.  

Even in my most heady feminist days of attending university courses on Woman & Gender Studies, Feminism in the 21st Century, Gender & Sexual Equality - yes I really did attend such courses in my youthful, enthusiastic, 'young woman' days; but back then when so immersed in taking a self-righteous, feminine empowerment stand I never really believed or was stricken with the desire of discarding the opposite sex just to prove my ability of self-sustainment.

Yes, I knew I could;  but why would I want to? There were too many benefits in having them around.  But would never confess that to my study mates.

 

The fish/bicycle witicism was used so often in those heady wave of feminist days ...  'A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle'.

I can't remember who was credited for coming out with the statement.  Gloria Steinman?  Florynce Kennedy?  Germain Greer?  Anyone know?

There was the other phrase that was quoted at the same time, 'Why did God make Adam before Eve?  Because he needed a rough draft before making the final copy.'  

These phrases, or witticisms were celebrated as a great one liners to let men know how superfluous they really were in a woman's life and to remind them that a woman could live her life perfectly well without a man, and how men should remember that, at all times.  

Yeah, well, that may be the case for many a woman - but for one who is still living the void of having lost a great man, my own special guppy who could really ride a bicycle, at this very moment in time, this Sunday evening of 14 January 2018, those sayings are pure platitudinous. 

At this moment in time I am feeling anything but feminist;  I am unashamedly weak, vulnerable and pathetic, and wishing I had my man back, well, any man back, to look to, to lean on and be all the more pathetic with.

I am exhausted.  Dead tired.  Stuffed.  Knackered. Worn out. Weary.  Drained.  Ready to drop. Wasted. Sapped.

I sit here on couch, feet up on footstool, bowl of unhealthy crisps on one side of me (which will no doubt end up being my unsustainable evening repast), a glass of Rose on the other (to hydrate whilst dehydrating me), and don't think I'll move until I wake up in this same spot sometime early tomorrow morning.

Yes, I know, some will say, 'But you've just had a couple of glorious weeks holiday - in the summer sun, in the North, and far North - you've been carefree, time free, commitment free, people free. You've had wonderful days exploring new places, new faces; yet reliving and revisiting all your old and favourite places, the sun, the sunrises, the sunsets, the sunny days at the beaches, in the forests, on the coast. And now you say you're exhausted!?  And need a man!?'

Yes, yes, yes.  I have weakened.  I confess to being vulnerable right at this moment.  I certainly have had a couple of wonderful weeks away, with some amazing and incredibly memorable times both with friends and on my own in my own time, at leisure, without .... needing a man.

But then today I returned home, to my charming retreat in Taupo. The home that I love more and more the longer I live here.  And it was the coming home that made me realise - I need a man!

Because.

Because it's the arrival, the actual returning home, after two weeks away that has proven most laborious, burdensome, onerous and exhausting.

Pulling into my driveway had me sigh, face reality and recall how bloody useful Mr J was in times like this; how nothing was a bother to him, how physical work and working together at whatever needed doing was fun for him.  More specifically, how well he worked to make my load lighter.  

But, he's ain't here, hasn't been for five years and in that five years I've striven on, on my own, determined to not have anyone think I could not possibly survive without a man.  Or determined to tell myself, I need a man as a fish needs a bicycle.

Until today, I think, I succeeded.  

But now I slouch here as a total failure.  

No longer staunch.  For this moment I feel the useless one.  Today I thought, I need a man. Why?

Why do I need a man?  

I need as man because:

-  Yes, I've had 2 weeks holiday.

-  But, I've come back home and have to:

                - unload bikes off the car and store away.

                - unhook bike racks and store away

                - unload everything in the car, which includes,

                                - cases, boxes, bags, chilly bins, back packs, cartons of left over foods, clothes, cat, cat gear... all taking a myriad of time and steps from car to in house, up the stairs, in that room, in this room, in kitchen, in the laundry, in the garage or in the yard.

- Then I have to empty out all the above and put all of the above away.

- Then sort and wash what needs washing.

- Then clean, vacuum, wash the now filthy, weather grimed car.

- Then there is the now overgrown and ghastly stalky long lawns, that I have to mow, trim and edge, because there is no one else to do them.

- Then the gardens have gone berserk, so I have to get around to:

                - chopping back and pruning the now overgrown shrubs, trees, grapevine - hours of labouring work.

- Then the weeding.

- Then there is all the debris of dead leaves and branches and weeds that have collected all over the yard for the past two weeks of weathering - and the piles in front of the back door, the front door, the side door, the other side door... the garage door... the shed ... the carport

- Then inside the house have to clean up the debris and stains of previous stalked, killed and munched tweety birds that one's own cat decided to catch, bring inside and deposit for me prior to my going on holiday  .... Mr J was so good at taking on that particular task...

- Then I have to clean up the dead bugs that always seem to collect inside the house when it has been left empty for a couple of weeks; earwigs, crickets, moths, grasshoppers, ants, midges, spiders and those other things that look scarily like upturned cockroaches !!

- Then once all that is done there is the now sad display of the 2017 Christmas tree and decorations to be disassembled, sorted and ready for packing away for the next eleven months.  But that means going out to the garage loft and pulling down all the various boxes that so much of that crap has to be returned to, then put back up into storage in the loft - just climbing up there is an effort, let alone humping and dumping the boxes up and down.

- Then after that the mail reminds me there are bills that have come in over the past 3 weeks that need attending to and paying (argh), or otherwise I shall find myself without power, or water, or whatever other essential I rely on for my daily existence.

- And I now have to chill my own wine, cook my own meal (hence the potato crisps).

- And would so dearly love to have that man on a bicycle, or any man or fish on a bicycle, rub my shoulders, caress my neck, massage my weary feet... hands, legs and whatever else one could be coerced into kneading, soothing or stroking.

It behooves me to admit - that even after five years this woman is as useless without her man as a fish is without a bicycle.   

And a fish IS useless without a bicycle, I know, because I read recently that:

1. Science has proven that climate change is harming the oceans.

2. That carbon-dioxide-caused climate change is partly the result of too many gas guzzling motor cars and trucks.

3. Fish live in the ocean.

4. Bicycles emit no carbon-dioxide.

5. Therefore:  more bikes and less cars would be good for fish.

6.  Therefore - FISH REALLY DO NEED BICYCLES!

And today I could have done with a man!

Tomorrow I will repent.