Patted down, checked for weapons, put in the back seat of a Ohio State Patrol police car and taken away…

I regret to inform you that I was involved in an incident on Sunday with the Ohio State Patrol in Youngstown, Ohio. I ended up being bent over the hood of the patrol car, patted down for weapons, placed in the back seat of the patrol car and taken away. I figured that since many of my readers are from Ohio they might read about this in the papers before I had a chance to tell you might side of the story.

Additionally in this message, I will follow up on several recent topics that I’ve shared in the past.

Success stories from my recommendation to upgrade to a free iPhone 12

2020 presidential polling….the current poll results both national and state by state

My newest highly recommended podcast

How did I end up in the back of an Ohio State Patrol police car? The explanation is pretty simple actually. While driving down Interstate 80 at 80 miles an hour in Youngstown, Ohio my Toyota Camry rental car laid an egg. All of a sudden it would only go about 25 miles an hour. The car’s dash told me there was an electronic problem with the engine. I immediately pulled from the fast lane into the median to keep from getting run over. I had driven nearly 4 hours and was only 45 miles from this afternoon‘s race track visit. Now I was out of commission. Just to be clear I was now stopped 30 feet or more to the left of the fast lane. Had I pulled off to the right shoulder of the slow lane (which I couldn’t drive to anyway) I would have been probably 5-8 feet from passing traffic.

I called National Car Rental. That call took 40 minutes. During the course of my conversation, I saw a car in my rearview mirror approaching at 80 MPH. Did this driver think I was part of the highway traffic even though I was parked? Nope. He was simply passing a huge 18-wheel long-haul truck who was driving in the fast lane. In order to make that pass, this mental giant driving his passenger car overtook the truck by using the left shoulder of the highway. Yep. At 80+ he scooted between the truck in the fast lane and me parked on the shoulder of the fast lane. What were the chances? Is this the way I was going out?

Now my car would be towed to some unknown location. Where? I didn’t care! I had a choice from this point. I could try to walk across several lanes of traffic, carrying two pieces of luggage, with big trucks bearing down at high speeds to get to the other side of the highway where I might be able to get a ride… or I could simply call 911 and have a cop come and help me. I like cops so I went with that choice.

In about 15 minutes a state trooper came up behind my car with lights flashing. He seemed a bit tentative. Who was I? What was I up to? I was tentative as well. I don’t have this experience every day.

He insisted that for both, “my safety and his safety” that he pat me down for weapons. This had to look like a bad situation with me bent over the hood of the car being “checked for weapons” to passersby. I was OK with that. I didn’t know those folks! The only open seat in the patrol car for me was in the backseat just like I’ve seen so many people on “COPS” do. With me in the back seat like a common criminal off we went.

The trooper had been a state patrolman for seven years. He seemed a little tentative with my “story” of how I was in California and had been just passing through his state of Ohio. As we rode along for a few minutes he continued to ask me questions. It almost seemed as if he were interrogating me. I chose my answers carefully. It did seem as if the officer was trying to “trip me up”. Maybe I have been watching too many TV police dramas.

The trooper took me to a hotel where National Car Rental had arranged for an Uber ride for me from Youngstown to Pittsburgh which was about an hour’s drive. The elderly hotel clerk (maybe younger than me) didn’t seem too pleased that an intruder (yes, that was me) had arrived into her hotel lobby via a state police car and was asking to hang out in her lobby (while she watched the Bengals game) to wait for my ride.

Soon the Uber driver arrived. She was driving a somewhat downscale SUV. My driver had a million slice of life stories to share during our one-hour drive. You should know that when I meet people I love asking them questions about themselves. I encounter way to many people who will never think to ask me a question. I don’t find those folks very interesting. When I meet someone for five minutes or an hour you can bet I will leave the conversation knowing a lot more about them than they do me.

My driver was a recently divorced woman with two kids and an ex-husband who had already remarried. I started off our conversation, we had an hour to talk, with a simple question, “How’s COVID been treating you?” In answer to that, she told me that back in April a friend had visited her home. Then two days later that woman, in her 60s, was dead from the coronavirus. My driver’s female roommate recommended that she not continue being an Uber driver. That advice stuck until two weeks ago. Now my driver, who I will call “Jane” because that’s not her real name was back behind the steering wheel. With her chilling COVID-19 story and the fact that we would be in the close confines of her car and that we were not wearing masks I asked that we wear our masks. Her response, in a nice way, was “Are you kidding”? I assured her I was not kidding and the rest of the ride we continued to converse with masks.

By the way, I am a strong supporter of wearing masks inside, practicing social distancing and washing my hands. Unlike many reading this message I have decided to try to live a “normal life” while practicing the COVID protocols. However, my idea of living a “normal life” is not the same as others during COVID or not. I have taken 22 round-trip airplane trips in the last 21 weeks. Does that seem unusual during coronavirus times? Heck, that’s a pretty unusual lifestyle during normal times!

Jane and I covered a lot of conversational ground during our ride. She was anxious to get a man back in her life. She told me she was working with dating websites for singles. This was an area that I had zero experience with but it did prompt a lot of questions.

Jane told me that most guys want to “start way too fast” by asking for nude photos to see if the “relationship is worth pursuing”. Folks, I can’t make this $hit up! She went on to tell me that many people she has met this way use photos from their younger days and don’t disclose their shortcomings. They are just as likely to already be married as not. She even told me that men “really liked women with real eyebrows”. Wow. I felt I was being admitted into the inner sanctums of “girl talk”.

Then she went on to tell me about the problems she was having with her two children. Jane was from the south. Her ex-husband was from the north. She couldn’t move back to the south because her divorce agreement wouldn’t allow her to take the kids that far away from her husband.

Jane’s eighth-grade daughter has been acting up. She was not doing well in school with virtual classrooms. Her fifth-grade son had been diagnosed with autism. He had already been kicked out of school for behavioral problems. Getting him help was difficult in the beauacratic maze of public support. She wasn’t sure how she was going to pay for it all.

As we drove along I began to think. My day wasn’t going very well because my rental car had broken down which was going to delay my arrival at a stock car race. Geez. Compared to what Jane was going through I didn’t have any problems.

Yes, I believe it is true that people commonly cause their own problems. Many of those folks don’t know how to solves those problems. There are a lot of people in this country that are facing a lot of issues that they caused or their family and friends caused for them…and that they don’t know how to fix. That makes me sad.

Once at the Pittsburgh International Airport I grabbed another Toyota Camry and resumed the trip to see some exciting racing at the “Hayfield 125” racetrack in Conneaut Lake, Pennsylvania. This was all part of a good day of trackchasing fun for me!

I must tell you that when I returned my second rental car to the Detroit Metro Airport I told the manager at National about my car troubles. She was most helpful and told me she would knock $25 off the $110 cost of my two-day rental. I told her not to bother. I mentioned that I planned to call National and get them to comp the entire cost. With that, the DTW manager comped my full rental expense on the spot. At that point, I didn’t have the heart to tell her I was really going to ask for more than just my rental car expense when I called National’s offices. Now, I would have to be satisfied with free.

GET A FREE IPHONE

I recently told you how many of my readers could upgrade to a free iPhone 12. I did it. My son did it. I’ve heard back from two folks who have also had success with this offer.

This comes from a fella down in Texas.

“Randy
Just got my new iPhone 12 ordered and on the way. Got the 12 Pro with 128G for $6/mo. Pro has 6 meter water resistance and two cameras. Be here in 2-4 days!!! What a deal!!”

I also heard from this friend in Illinois.

“I did replace Marji’s 8 with a new 12 for basically free.”

I suspect there are others who also took advantage of this offer and have not taken the time to tell me of their success. If you have not acted yet there might still be time for you. I’d recommend you re-read my message on how to best take advantage of this offer.

2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION….THIS IS WHAT THE POLLS ARE SAYING

Every few days since August 3 I’ve been updating the 2020 presidential polling results. I have inputted thousands of lines of code. At my website, you will be able to see how pollsters have changed their results from early August to now. In just about a week we will find out if the pollsters got it right. What do you think? Is your guy winning or losing at this point? Just remember one thing….you need to vote. In the meantime check out what I have created. If you are an analytical person I think you will enjoy what I have shared. Here’s the link:

2020 Presidential Election….this is what the polls are saying

PODCASTS. I LOVE PODCASTS

During my travels, I drive long distances. To pass the time I listen to podcasts from my iPhone broadcast through my car’s audio system. There are a million podcasts it seems on a million subjects. They are free! I like to listen to them at my leisure. Yes, I can listen to them anytime!

I listen to these for information and entertainment. I never listen to anything for confirmation of what I already believe.

Today I am recommending the “How I Built This” podcast. These podcasts are usually about a one-hour interview with an entrepreneur who has built his or her idea from the ground up into a major success. So far I’ve listened to episodes from these founders and companies.

Chipotle: Steve Ells

Impossible Foods….makes of the Impossible burger: Pat Brown

Spanx: Sara Blakely

FUBU: Daymond John

Ben & Jerry’s: Ben Cohen & Jerry Greenfield

Dell Computers: Michael Dell

Southwest Airlines: Herb Kelleher

Men’s Warehouse: George Zimmer

Randy Lewis
San Clemente, California

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