Ford Explorer 101

During the past two weeks, I drove a rented SUV, a LARGE, black, 2013 Ford Explorer, and returned it this morning.

It was an interesting time, and I'm going to share with you how it came to be.
Two weeks ago, while I was sitting in the line of traffic waiting for the red light to change, I was rear-ended. A total of four vehicles were involved; our van became one of the ‘fillings in the sandwich.'
I felt quite a thump, and the seatbelt and head restraint both did their jobs. No airbags were deployed. My sunglasses landed on the floor, and my iPhone was whipped out of my shirt pocket. However, to the best of my knowledge, no one was hurt.
The police responded quickly and efficiently: three officers took charge to guide us out of the traffic into a parking lot, interview us and carry out the paperwork.
About an hour later, when I drove to the collision shop, I was informed that because of a gap between the hatch door and the body of the van, it was now undriveable

Radio … and Me - 26

There are few singers and even fewer songs that can take me back to a particular spot in my off-and-on radio career.
The singer is Jo Stafford, and the SINGLE song is … to be unveiled later.

She came from the 1940s and 50s, an era with plenty of great singers: Rosemary Clooney, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Shore, Doris Day, to name but a few.
Each of these performers had her own style: Clooney 'would hit every note right in the centre,' Fitzgerald had the famous ‘scat’ element that she could bring in at any time (even when she forgot the lyrics!), Shore's style was totally ‘homespun,’ while Day's was a lot more ‘uptown.’
Jo Stafford's voice was different: more 'mysterious,' (perhaps because she sounded slightly ‘off-mic’ most of the time).
I listened to her songs -- and many other great songs -- on the radio, but was introduced to the beauty of her work during my first radio job.
I was a young news reader at CJCB in Sydney,