People in the UK have names for some things that aren't the same names we call them. For instance, I guess everybody here knows that what we in the US call soccer is called football in the UK and, in fact, in the rest of the world. That's why in England they call our football, American Football. At any rate, there is another weird thing in that they call buses, like Greyhound buses, coaches. So on a Saturday afternoon, when most of the football games in the UK are played, the motorways (a motorway in the UK is an Interstate here), anyway, the motorways are filled with coaches carrying football fans to their teams away games. And these football fans are sometimes really hooligans and, after a few beers, massive fights break out between rival team fans. In fact they are so bad that some European countries won't let UK fans attend games in their country.

Speaking of football and in particularly American Football, you may know that I have 6 children, 3 boys and 3 girls and before I moved to the UK I helped manage and coach the little league football (American Football, that is) that my 3 boys played in. Well, anyway...Getting back to the story,

It was my first day in the UK. I arrived at Heathrow at 7:30 in the morning after an all night flight from Washington. I found my luggage and hired a car. (you hire cars in the UK you don't rent them.) I was driving up the motorway towards the hotel where I was staying that night, it was about 150 miles north of London, I was really excited about being in the UK. Other than going to Canada, it was the first time I had really been out of the country and I was really looking forward to spending the next 3 months there. So I was driving up the motorway and I got a little tired and decided to stop at the next service area and get a cup of coffee.

So, I pulled into the next service area and what's the first thing I saw? I saw a sign that said, NO FOOTBALL COACHES ALLOWED. I thought, How do they know? I mean, how do they know that I had coached Football? And why wasn't I allowed? I decided not to tell anyone that I was a football coach. I had my coffee and was fully expecting for someone to walk up to me, tap me on the shoulder and say, hey buddy, you need to leave because no football coaches are allowed in this service area. But that didn't happen, I had my coffee and off I went, feeling a little bit like I had beat the system. What did I know? I didn't know anything about the UK. But, I thought I had better learn quickly as I didn't want to break any of the rules. I didn't want to get thrown out of a service area or something else like that. I didn't know much about the UK. In fact, I wondered if they still had dirt floors in some places. I decided that these people were not very hospitable and I was going to go home as soon as I could.

So I finally got to the hotel, checked in and the really good looking woman that checked me in said, Mr. Morreale, would you like to be knocked up? I thought about that a minute and decided, Hey, maybe it would be worth it to stay awhile.

It was only later when I asked one of my British colleagues what was with the sign about NO FOOTBALL COACHES ALLOWED at the motorways? He explained buses and coaches and football and American Football to me. I felt extremely foolish although I never told them what I originally thought.

Keep smiling,

Richard