The Best of the Old Coot!

THE BEST OF THE

OLD COOT!

A NEW COLLECTION OF 

OLD COOT

 ESSAYS 

The Old Coot & his sister

(in their younger days)

ARTICLES Originally PUBLISHED

IN THE TIOGA COUNTY COURIER

Owego, New York

Copyright Ó 2004, Merlin William Lessler

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the author. Printed in the United States of America. For information address: Front Street Press, 351 Front St., Owego, New York 13827.

Library of Congress Cataloging-In-Publication Data

The Best of the Old Coot by

Lessler, Merlin William

FIRST EDITION

November, 2004

INDEX

 1         Invasion of the ladder people                                     1

 2         A buy of a lifetime                                                      4

 3         Multiply your answer by two                                    6

 4         I take my coffee black                                                 8

 5         I don’t get it                                                               10

 6         The big shell game                                                    12

 7         Did you see that guy’s hair                                       15

 8         Where’s the nearest body shop                               17

 9         The old coot is a poor sport                                      20

10        Old coot throws away his camera                           22

11        Old coot can’t get there from here                          25

12        Old coot thinks he’s pregnant                                 27

13        Old coot gets an early Christmas present               30

14        The dog ate my tax bill                                             33

15        The old coot takes the mail for a walk                    35

16        Old coot’s Valentine’s Day tips                               37

17        Candy tin saves old coot from cold hand               39

18        Hush! The old coot has a long distance call            41

19        Old coot finds magic on Parker Lane                     43

20        The old coot is wise to the new procedures            45

21        Old coot won’t answer the phone                            47

22        Old coot’s pants catch on fire                                  50

23        You’re fired!                                                              53

24        Old coot has a tin ear                                                55

25        Old coot learns grunt language                               57

26        Old coot doesn’t buy school board’s excuse           59

27        How lazy are we?                                                      61

28        Old coot is fenced out                                               64

29        Old coot rejects media advice                                  66

30        See what you made me do                                        68

31        Old coot says “Duh” more and more                      70

32        Squirrel teaches old coot a lesson                            73

33        Medical privacy irks the old coot                            75

34        Old coot takes a dive                                                 78

35        Old coot goes on the dole                                          80

36        It’s time to clean up our language                           82

37        Don’t put the old coot on the “no call” list             84

38        The big lie – Fast Food                                             86

INVASION OF THE LADDER PEOPLE

Published 11/27/2002

If you walk down the pleasant streets of Owego, you’ll notice a proliferation of ladders leaning against historic clapboard homes. At first blush, you might think the homeowners of our quaint village are an ambitious lot, tackling one restoration project or another on their 150 year-old houses. You’d be wrong!

I stroll through town every morning, on a meandering route to Dunkin Donuts or the Awakenings Coffee House and back home again, sipping coffee and listening to Imus on my Walkman. I do an inventory of the projects underway in the village, mostly looking for techniques to keep my 197 year-old house in good repair with minimal effort. I’ve learned that the ladders are props, a last ditch effort by the male occupants of the dwelling against which they lean to avoid a job that’s been held off for two years or more. And, husbands are not the only ones guilty of this rouse. Many home repair contractors employ the same tactic.

Husbands resort to this “ladder-lean” strategy at the end of a protracted domestic conversation that goes something like this.

(September) - “Honey, the east side of the house is starting to peel. Do you think you should paint it before it gets worse?”

“Yea, I guess. But, I don’t want to do it till spring. Why have the new paint face six months of bad weather?”

(April) – “Honey, are you going to start painting the house?”

“Yea, but it’s too damp and cold. I’ll get to it when it warms up a little.”

(May) – “ The weather looks good now honey; are you going to start painting?”

“Yea, but not till after Memorial Day.”

(June) – “Honey, Memorial Day has passed. Why don’t you get cooking?”

“ I want to wait till the kids get out of school. The school busses spew out a ton of diesel soot starting and stopping in the neighborhood; it will ruin the finish.”

July – too hot.

August – too muggy.

September – after Labor Day.

October – too cold at night; the paint won’t dry properly.

(May) – “Honey, the house is a disgrace! The paint is coming off in bushel basketsful. I’m embarrassed to go out and get the mail!”

“I’m on it babe. I just need a few weeks to figure out what supplies I’ll need to get it done. You don’t want me to do a slap-shod job do you?”

(June) – “Honey, the kids can’t play in the yard anymore and there are so many paint chips on the lawn that the dog refuses to leave the house. Are you going to paint the house or do I have to call a professional?”

“I’m starting it this weekend. Jeesh, give me a break, would you!”

On Saturday a ladder gets placed against the east side of the building. The project has officially begun, but other than setting up the ladder, no actual work has taken place. A new line of dialog begins; the ladder buys another year of inaction, two if the husband is a clever old coot.

A similar exchange takes place between homeowners and home-improvement contractors, but the game is initiated with a sign, not a ladder. The second the contractor gets the job he puts his sign in front of the house, announcing, “Another quality remodeling job by Cracker-Jack & Sons Inc.” The sign is the only activity for two months, in spite of twenty heated phone calls from the homeowner. Then, the ladder ploy is used; followed a month later by scaffolding and miscellaneous equipment. At the peak of the conflict, the contractor arranges for lumber to be delivered, usually in a manner that blocks the driveway. This trick is designed to prevent the homeowner from hiring a new contractor. It takes two letters from an attorney before a single board is cut. The job then goes forward in spurts: three days of intense activity, two weeks of no activity, sixteen angry phone calls, and a repeat of the pattern until completion.

There are many variations of this construction-delaying tactic: blue tarps on roofs, an “X” taped on a broken window, three rows of new siding installed; it’s running rampant in many towns across America. Psychologists call it “male performance deficiency syndrome.” I call it, “The Invasion of the Ladder People.” Take a walk through your town. You’ll see what I mean. 

A BUY OF A LIFETIME!

Published 12/25/2002

The other day my son was getting ready for school. He was trying to squeeze into an old pair of sneakers, but not having much luck getting his size 7 foot into his size 5 sneaker. I asked him why he was wearing those old things; he has at least three newer pairs.

“They’re my favorite. I just found them in the back of my closet while I was looking for something.”

I loosened up the laces for him, starting at the bottom, and somehow, he managed to get them on. He was smiling and happy, as though he rediscovered an old friend, which he had. We all have clothes like that. Things we just love. They feel right. They make us feel good about ourselves. Usually my wife won’t let me wear mine.

“How old are those things?” I asked him.

“Mom bought them last summer. They’re almost a year old.”

It started me thinking. “He thinks sneakers he got a year ago are old. Wait till he gets to be my age, then he’ll know what old clothes really are.” I looked down at the sweater I had on. It’s dark blue, has a yellow X across the front, red, white & blue nautical flags on each side, the word “navigator” sweeps in a white arch across the chest area and the left sleeve has yellow & red anchor on it. It’s 100% cotton. My daughter Amy bought it for herself at a Tommy Hilfiger outlet store when she was a freshman in college. She gave it too me after months of looking for it and finding it hidden in my bottom dresser drawer under three layers of sweaters and sweatshirts. That was eight years ago.

Next, I looked down at my feet. I had on a pair of “dusty bucks.” I bought them in Maine, on a trip I took, six years ago. I started to realize that all my “stuff” was ancient. “Hell, I’ve got boxer shorts older than my son.”

I’m not an old coot who wears the same thing everyday, a fashion flashback to the past. Well maybe a little, but I do buy new clothes every year. Everything I have on, as I write this, is less than six months old, except for my sneakers. They’ve become an old friend that I save for when I go for a speed walk or a run. I’ve had them for three years and I suspect they will be around for a few more. I guess, that a chronological inventory of my wardrobe would be like a walk through history.

I own a pair of LL Bean rubber boots that I bought in 1987. They get a ride on my feet when it snows and I have to shovel the driveway and sidewalk, but not more often than that. They look brand new, which they are, in old coot years, so I expect to have them as long as I live. And that’s the point. Most of what I buy will be a lifetime purchase. That thought hits me like a sledgehammer, but it’s true. I’m not outgrowing anything, though if I don’t get my willpower under control when facing a Sunday night pizza, I might need something new; something with an elastic waistband. I don’t wear anything out anymore, and a lot of stuff, like suits, ties and dress shirts, are seldom worn, so why replace them? The linen suit I bought for my daughter Wendy’s wedding nine years ago has been out of the closet on only three occasions. The tux next to it gets an airing once a year, on a cruise, though last year I left it home. All my closet “friends” are like that. They will be with me till I die, even though I expect that event to be delayed till I’m well over 100. Old coots never die. They don’t even fade away. They just hang around forever wearing 30-year-old oxford cloth button down collar shirts, pleated kakis, loafers or buck shoes, yellow rain coats, black overcoats and never a hat, having learned from, and been inspired by John F Kennedy, the first president to attend his inauguration ceremony, bareheaded.

I’d better be careful about what I buy. It’s going to last me a lifetime.

MULTIPLY YOUR ANSWER BY TWO

Published 2/19/2003

I can remember how long it took for a week to go by when I was a kid waiting for Christmas. It took a year. Today, a year goes by in what seems like a week. It’s one of the things that comes with being an old coot. This distorted sense of judgment affects everything I try to measure or estimate, not just time. I’ve learned to compensate for it by multiplying my answer by two.

We needed a new roof for the house. I figured it would be about $5,000 dollars. My wife reminded me I always lowball my estimates. She was right, so I put a figure of $10,000 in my head and then called a roofing contractor. He came in with a figure of $9,300 and got the job. Had I not multiplied my answer by two, I probably would have thought the estimate outrageous and put off getting it done for another year.

“How old is the dog?” my son asks. “Just a pup, is my first inclination, can’t be more than two or three,” I say to myself, and then remember to multiply by two. “Six,” I reply. My answers to questions of this sort are delayed like those of reporters on the other side of the world when the question asked by the evening news anchor is transmitted via satellite. They stand there with a dumb look on their face waiting to hear the question. I stand there with a dumb look on my face waiting for my brain to multiply the answer by two. That’s why old coots always look like their mind is someplace else.

I’ve found the rule keeps me looking pretty sharp with my younger friends; they haven’t figured out that their sense of time and their ability to estimate is out of adjustment.

“Remember that trip we took to Myrtle Beach to play golf three years ago?” my friend Don asks.

“I sure do, but it was five years ago,” I respond with precise accuracy.

“Really? He comes back. I would have sworn it was just a couple of years ago.”

“No, (I close the noose). It was the year you turned forty. You’re forty five now aren’t you?”

“You’re right! You’re right!”

 His multiplier isn’t 2; it’s about 1.6. It will grow to 2 in a few more years, and then I’ll let him in on the secret. My multiplier will probably be 3 by then.

The formula works with just about everything, not just how much things cost or how long ago something happened. It works when I try to figure out how long it will take to do something: paint the ceiling, run to the store to get a carton of milk, mow the lawn. It will always be twice what I think. Unfortunately, it applies to unpleasant things as well, making them twice as bad as I figured. Going to the dentist hurts twice as much as I expect. Sore muscles hurt worse and take twice as long get better than I expect. Sitting in the car waiting for my wife to come out of the store takes three times as long. Oops, maybe it’s time to change the formula!

The only situation I’ve found where the multiplier doesn’t apply is when I’m cooking. If I make spaghetti, and measure the amount of noodles I think I need, and then double it (which is another way of saying, multiply it by 2, DUH!), I always end up with twice as much as I need. So now when I cook, I don’t use the multiplier, unless we are having company and I chicken out and double the ingredients. Then I have to try to talk everyone into eating like a pig. It doesn’t work. They have their own multiplier that forces them to eat ½ of what an old coot serves.

I take my coffee black

Published 5/21/2003

I walk to town for coffee every morning. Some days I go to Dunkin Donut’s, a franchise owed by my friend Bill Nolis. Other days I go to the Awakening Coffeehouse. Bill’s coffee is my favorite, but the place is not conducive to writing. Awakenings Coffeehouse, with its comfortable couches, café tables and antique booths, is perfect for my needs, but the coffee, though excellent, scares me a little. I order regular coffee, something only old coots order; most of their customers prefer something from the eclectic selection of beverages listed on the immense wall mural menu. To give you an idea of how far out of step I am with Darcy’s typical customer (Darcy York owns the place), these are the choices listed on the wall: 9 blends of coffee, 5 herbal teas, 14 black teas, 9 green teas, 14 variations of espresso, including something called honey-almond-latte with whip cream, 27 European sodas and 14 other miscellaneous drinks, such as caramel hot cider. She also has a large selection of bottled waters.

Now, in I come, a cheapskate who orders a cup of regular coffee and hogs a table for an hour, writing and making a general mess of things. It stretches the retailer-customer relationship to the limit. I don’t care; it’s one of the benefits of being an old coot.

Now back to my story. I took a detour today after I picked up my coffee. I walked across the new Owego Bridge. It’s not quite finished and there’s an orange plastic fence blocking the way, but I crossed it anyhow. I’m just like everybody else around here, tired of waiting. I told the foreman two weeks ago I was going to do it. He just laughed. It was a day or two after I’d interviewed him for an article for the “Courier.” I had tried to get him to take a challenge from Bruce Nelson, owner of the Jailhouse Restaurant. Bruce bet that his new restaurant would open before the bridge. The foreman laughed at that too. He told me I’d get hurt if I walked across the bridge. He was wrong.

I didn’t get hurt. In fact it was one of the most pleasant walks I’ve ever taken. The darn thing is beautiful. They’re putting the finishing touches on the south end: antique metal light poles, iron fencing, granite curbs. It really looks classy. The view of the village as you come into it will knock your socks off. You’d swear you’re looking at a Norman Rockwell picture. The Court House is perfectly centered between the street light poles. It’s been a long wait and I know a lot of people wanted the old structure replaced in kind, but I think everyone will be impressed with this one. I know the Old Coot is.  

The old iron bridge is gone; it’s time to get over it, to move on. A lot of things change, just like the coffee scene. Back in the old days, “Real men drank their coffee black. Now they order honey almond latté with a dollop of whipped cream and a dash of cinnamon. I know, because I’m forced to wait patiently behind them in line.

My introduction to coffee was in my grandmother’s kitchen. I was six and forbidden to drink coffee. In the age tradition, my grandmother ignored my parent’s wishes and plied all 14 of her grandchildren with our first taste of coffee. She always had a pot going on her cast iron stove. She poured half a cup into an ironstone mug for me and then added cream while I shoveled in spoonfuls of sugar. She showed me how to pour it into the saucer to cool. Sometimes I sipped it from the saucer and sometimes she poured it back into the cup. Those memories are magic, even though I didn’t really like the taste of her coffee.

When I grew up my taste changed and I began drinking coffee. It was the adult thing to do. I had mine with cream and sugar, but when I was told, “Real men drank their coffee black,” I weaned myself from the sugar. I never could give up the cream. I guess that makes me half-a-man. Image that, an old coot and half-a man. I don’t care. I walked across the new bridge today. Did you?

I DON’T GET IT!

Published 7/02/2003

We (my wife and I) drove down Front Street Friday to cross the new bridge “legally” for the first time. I use the “We” word because that’s the way it is. My hands are on the wheel; my feet on the pedals, but she’s doing most of the driving. “Slow down! Watch out for the car coming up behind us! You can’t turn here!” I’m simply an instrument placed between her and the controls of the vehicle. It’s affected my driving skills. I get used to her advice and instruction and become less attentive to what’s going on. I’m fine when I’m alone except for hieroglyphic road signs. I just don’t get them.

When we came to the corner of Front & Court I got confused by some new signs. The uppermost information was OK: Rte 17 to the left, Rte 96 to the right and so forth, but lower down the pole was a picture of a truck with a slash through it; underneath it was an arrow pointing to the sky. I didn’t get it; when I see a traffic sign like this I never do. Should I be watching for falling trucks? Are trucks going to tip over at the corner? What’s the deal with trucks here? Two weeks ago it was a left arrow with a slash through it that messed me up. My brain told my hands it was perfectly OK to turn the wheel to the left. When I did, my wife screamed, “STOP, didn’t you see the no-left-turn sign?” I didn’t. If the sign was in English, and said, “NO LEFT TURN,” I might have.   

I do get it, eventually, but never fast enough. Maybe it’s the fault of the elementary school I went to. Cross outs were not allowed; we couldn’t put a slash through anything. If we made a mistake we had to do the whole paper over. Even erasing was frowned on. It earned us a reduced grade with a note next to the mark saying, “Minus ten points for sloppy work.” The final product was to be error free. In high school the teachers were somewhat more liberal; they tolerated cross-outs, but I did mine by covering the error with a solid rectangle of black ink; I didn’t want to reveal to the teacher how stupid a mistake I’d made.

I never use slash marks to cross something out. It’s taboo. Kids today don’t have that problem. When I look at my son’s school papers I’m not even sure what language he’s using. Words are misspelled, the paper is so thin from repeated erasures that you can see right through it; entire paragraphs are crossed out and scribbled over. At the top of this sloppy mess is the grade, next to a note from the teacher that says, “Nice job.”

Nice job? Maybe she meant to write Nice Job.

Graphic road signs began to appear in New York State in the 1960’s, when the State Commerce Department decided to be tourist friendly to French speaking vacationers from Quebec. It wasn’t a problem at first, because they only put graphics on non-critical signs, like the ones that let drivers know if food or lodging was available at the upcoming exit. A picture of a plate centered between a knife & fork, for example, was added to the standard sign; the words remained. It’s still that way for food, lodging and gas; both words and symbols are used.

Unfortunately, symbols, not words, are used on many of the signs that have life and death consequences today: No Left Turn, No Right Turn, No U-Turn, One Way, to name a few. It’s sort of the same thing on my computer. It too, is loaded with images (icons) that, “I don’t get!” It’s amazing that I was able to type this up.

Some day when I’m cruising around town, and my wife isn’t with me to interpret the signs, I’ll turn at a right arrow with a slash across it and wake up two days later in the hospital encased in a body cast, my arms and legs held up by cables. If I look down and see a smiley face on the cast someplace I’m going to scream. As soon as I get better I’ll get a pen and put a big slash right across it. Let’s see if the hospital staff gets it. Humbug! 

The big shell game

Published 7/23/03

Tioga County Legislators are considering an increase in the sales tax. It might go up by a penny; it might go up by half a penny. It doesn’t sound like much when they put it in terms of a penny, but us old coots can “do the math.” The County tax rate will go up 29% if they raise it a penny. The state is kicking up their rate as well. In fact, the state gave the idea to the County, “If they can do it why can’t we?” I just hope the County doesn’t follow the lead of the state and get into the gambling business.

New York State has become a 53,989 square mile gambling casino. “The money will go directly for education,” was the promise legislators made when they took over the number’s game from organized crime. One day gambling was immoral, illegal and bad for us. The next day, after the assembly and the governor enacted the lottery bill, it was transformed into a sacred government institution. That was over twenty years ago; the money doesn’t go to education. That promise was a big shell game using trick accounting with the state budget. The money pumps up the general fund, more commonly know as the pork barrel. Worse yet, the State numbers game has created a growing population of liars.

“How’d you do on Quick Draw tonight?” (Quick Draw is an electronic numbers game that the state operates in bars. Every four minutes a new set of numbers is selected.

“I did great, I won,” is the standard answer (lie).

The truth is the bettor hit on one game in ten tries; he spent twenty bucks and got back five. The twenty is never subtracted from the winnings to arrive at the net gain. It’s the same kind of bookkeeping that Enron used, before they collapsed. 

Everybody I know is a “winner.” It drives me crazy. When I get gas at a mini-mart I invariable get trapped in line behind a New York gambler. The place even looks like a casino. Several dozen rolls of scratch-off games dangle enticingly from reels behind and to the side of the register. Two lottery computers hog the rest of the counter. Joe “Gambler” holds a wad of betting slips. The clerk runs them through the computer to determine how much he “won.” It always seems to be twelve bucks.

“Do you want cash?” asks the cashier.

“No, I’m going to parlay it into a new car,” chuckles Joe.

“Give me six lotteries and two dailies. Box the corners, make two quick picks and play 11’s and 26’s on the rest.”

“Ok, here you go sir. That comes to twenty-four dollars.”

“Wait a minute, Joe replies, pulling a twenty from his pocket to join his twelve dollars in “winnings.” I don’t want change. Give me two “Clown” scratch-offs, two “Midnight Riders.” How much do I have left?”

“$4,” replies the clerk.

“OK, give me four birthday tickets, mine’s coming up this year.”

Finally it’s my turn; I just want to pay for gas and get back on the road, but I have to put up with addicts like “Joe” every time I enter one of these disguised betting parlors. 

I hear someone ask Joe how he did, as he heads for the door.

“Great. I won twelve bucks!”

I have to admit, I’m hooked too. I lay out five bucks on Quick Draw every few weeks. I usually lose. Unfortunately, most people I see playing the numbers are addicted big time. Watching them lose is what keeps me out of trouble. The average better in New York spends $15 a day. That’s the average. A lot of money wasted, but even worse, the gamblers put all their eggs in the “get rich quick” basket. They aren’t taking courses at night school. They aren’t learning a new trade so they can get a better job. And they certainly aren’t saving their spare change for a rainy day. They are betting their future happiness and well being on a one in a million chance to win the lottery.

The politicians have created an endless pool of gamblers to keep the pork barrel full and there is no end in sight. Millions of dollars are pumped into advertising, converting average hard working citizens into candidates for gamblers anonymous. I hope Tioga County never joins in on the big shell game. They need the cash, but we don’t need more betting parlors. I’m not sure it would get them much money anyhow. There are a lot of us old coots around here who know there isn’t a pea under any of the shells, no matter who is running the game.  

Did you see that guy’s hair?

Published 8/13/2003

“Did you see that guy’s hair?” Not a week goes by that I don’t whisper this question into my wife’s ear. It usually involves a guy wearing a bad toupee; one so awful it seems a raccoon has taken up residence on his head. It’s the only thing you see when you look at him. He could have three arms and four legs, but all you see is the rug. It flashes like a beacon, “I’M A WIG, I’M A WIG, I’M A REAL BAD WIG.” It takes superhuman restraint to not just grab it and throw it across the room.  Seinfeld called these ridiculous looking things, “Hair Hats,” on his insightful, long running sitcom. But, it’s not just hair hats that get my attention. We have a real hair problem in this country.

Politicians lead the way. There is a direct connection between a man’s balding problem and a need to garner assurance of his worth from the public, from strangers, ala the election process - the longer the comb-over the greater the need. These guys either have a sweeping hairstyle that starts behind the ear, climbs to the top of their heads and then swirls to rest in a nest that mimics a yarmulke or they have a massive, thick, fussed over, head of hair. Too much hair, or too little hair is what drives men to seek election to congress, i.e. Gary Condits with his blow-dried mane. You remember him, the guy who had an affair with an intern and then couldn’t remember anything when the police investigated her disappearance. Maybe all that blow-drying affected his memory. It sure messed up his moral integrity. Look these guys over real close when they make the rounds on the Sunday morning talk shows. You’ll see what I mean. Most of them have a “hair situation.”

The Hollywood set is even worse. The young guys have a “tussled” look. They use it to portray an image of zero vanity. “Look at me. I don’t even bother to comb my hair!” Their credibility ebbs when you see the exact same, messed up look every time they appear on the screen. You soon realize that somebody, probably a personal stylist, arranges the tangles to capture the perfect, “I just got out of bed,” look. The older guys, Ted Dansen and Burt Reynolds to name two, backed off the comb-over and bought wigs, but not cheap, hair hat varieties. Their wigs look more natural than the real thing. My hat is off to them for being persistent enough to get it right. I wonder why Donald Trump doesn’t do the same. His forehead comb-over is among the worst I’ve ever seen. He doesn’t just parade around in private he flaunts it on my TV screen, doing ads for Burger King. And, that’s another thing. Why does the richest guy in New Jersey need to work part time, peddling hamburgers? for spending money?

 

I salute the guys who take it all off, who drop the comb-over and go au-naturel from the neck up. Mayor Guliani, for one. Now that he’s stopped gluing his sideburns to the top of his head, he looks great. I bet his vote tally will go up if he runs for office again, especially if it’s against a “hair hat.”   

Some people claim this hair thing started in the 60’s when it was the “crew cuts” versus the “long hairs,” the responsible citizens versus the anything goes hippies. Forty years later the symbolism is reversed. Now the longer haired, male members of society are the conservative crowd, and the crew cut/shaved heads are the anything goes crowd. But, it didn’t start in the 1960’s; it’s been going on forever. I’m sure the first caveman politician had a comb-over; his probably started on his back and wound to the top of his head. And, look at the founders of our country. They pranced around in powdered wigs, debating the fine points of the constitution. I’m afraid our fate will forever be in the hands of leaders with comb-overs, hair hats, puffy bouffants and other hair situations. If you want to spot an up-and-comer, don’t look to his record, look to his hairline.

WHERE’S THE NEAREST BODY SHOP?

Published 10/01/2003

I’m jealous of my 13 year-old son. There, I’ve said it; now I feel better. I first became aware of it on a trip to Myrtle Beach. We stopped at a rest area every 100 miles. That’s my limit between bathroom stops, something I attribute to the coffee I drink while driving, not my aging plumbing facilities. He only got out of the car at every other stop. He has a 200-mile bladder. We went into the men’s room together; he left in eight seconds, washed his hands, used the electric blow dryer (which we all know takes forever), went back to the car to get some money, came back to the rest area and bought a soda, picked up a state map, went back to the car to check the tire pressure, cleaned out the garbage and then came back into the men’s room and asked,

“Ready to go, Dad?”

“Just a minute son, I’ll be right with you, “ was my reply, though a lie.

Finally, we walked back to the car. That’s when it dawned on me that I was jealous of my own son. He has a body that functions at 100%, I don’t. Little by little, over the next few days I couldn’t help but notice how much better his body functioned than mine.

We played a little basketball, not, one-on-one, just a simple game of HORSE. He’s an ace shooter, but I can usually beat him with weird shots I perfected many decades ago. My favorite is a backwards, set-shot. I once could face away from the net, bend backwards far enough to eyeball the rim, and shoot; swish! I no longer can bend back far enough to see the rim; now the shot is based on memory, not aim, and it shows. It only goes in every four tries. I also used had a nice half-court jump shot that was good for giving an “H” or an “O” to any opponent. Not any more. My jumping ability has ebbed to a level where I have trouble getting in the air high enough to clear the layer of paint that marks the foul line, which is about where I now shoot my jump shot from; my arm strength is no longer sufficient to propel the ball from half court. I desperately need some new trick shots. I’m getting tired of losing.

And it’s not just my bladder, arm muscles and flexibility that are deteriorating; my whole darn body is falling apart. And I take care of it. I swim twice a week, speed walk, jog and take long bike rides. I walk to town and back several times a day. But still, it’s slipping away. In my head, I’m eighteen, but only in my head. The rest of the vehicle is heading for the scrap heap. Having a twelve-year-old around to compare things to makes it much worse.

For example – When my son gets a cold he goes off to school without a care in the world. He wouldn’t think of staying home. When he gets back, he doesn’t rest up on the couch or go to his room; he heads outside to shoot baskets, or down the street to play a game of pick-up football. I, on the other hand, drag myself around the drug store purchasing armloads of miracle drugs, hoping against hope that one of them will work. Then I head for the recliner, wallowing in discomfort, and I suppose, self-pity, begging for the cold hand of death to relieve me of my agony. In comes my son.

“Dad, wanna take a walk around the block before dinner?”

“Sure,” I respond, thinking I will have a captive audience to tell how bad I feel.

There are other subtle differences that are more noticeable with him around to compare to. When he cuts his hand, it heals in a day or two. I still have a scab three weeks later. When I get up at six in the morning I desperately need a pre-lunch nap. We can only get him to bed at gunpoint. Sleep to me is a friend, to him, a mortal enemy. Even a suntan affects me differently. His is gone after two weeks of fall weather. He has a skin replacement system that works. My tan is still around in January. Half of the time when I go to the YMCA, one of the guys in the locker room asks me if I’ve been to Florida recently. “Yes,” I lie.

We usually have pizza for dinner on Sunday. My wife will eat a slice; my son will limit himself to two. He has too large an array of high quality snacks lined up for Sunday night to let pizza interfere with his feast. That leaves me with three-quarters of a large pie. I once could limit myself to two slices, but for some reason my pizza willpower has gone the way of the rest of my physical attributes, to heck in a hand basket. I have one slice - then another - then one more - then half of another – “Oh what the heck, I’ll eat the rest; no sense in throwing it out. But that’s not the end of it. The mass settles into a huge bowling ball sized lump with six kicking legs in my belly; it thrashes around in there for the rest of the night. I always end up in agony, inhaling Rolaids and moaning like a cow that hasn’t been milked for two days. I go to bed promising myself to never, ever, do that again, knowing full well, that next Sunday night, I’ll be right back at it. 

All my friends are facing the same thing, but they’re getting new parts. They have bulging disks yanked from between lumbar vertebrae, new knee and hip joints installed, roto-rooters run through the arteries in their hearts, tummy tucks, face lifts, hair transplants and lipo-suction. Here I sit trying to fight nature on my own.

“Oh the heck with it. Where’s the nearest body shop?”    

  

The Old Coot is a Poor Sport

Published 11/05/2003

I went to the movies the other night. No, not at the movie theatre; I went to the middle school auditorium. It’s something you have to do if your kid wants to play sports. The auditorium wasn’t full, but almost. I sat next to a guy who claimed to have seen the film (video, actually) twelve times. “Wow, I thought. This must be good!” It wasn’t. The athletic director introduced it after welcoming us to the meeting. It’s mandatory for the kids and highly recommended for the parents. The lights dimmed and three TV screens filled with the identical image, a nerdy guy in a corduroy jacket, a brown plaid shirt and a black and green striped tie. He explained the deal to us, gave us the facts on sports. “Your son or daughter may be injured playing sports. We do the best we can, buy the recommended safety gear, but your kid may get injured, could even die, although that is rare.” I was surprised. I had no idea a kid running full speed with a football could get hurt when he crashed head on into a player coming from the opposite direction.

He went on to tell us that each sport had rules, that the kids should follow the rules if he/she wanted to be successful. Again, I was flabbergasted. I had no idea; no wonder I kept fouling out when I played basketball in 7^th grade. If only this guy was around back then.

He wrapped up his comments by telling us how to behave at an athletic contest, “Never yell at the officials, or tell them that they’ve made a mistake. They do the best they can; it’s a hard job; they will make a miscall now and then.” I looked around the room. I recognized a lot of the parents. I’d seen them at little league, soccer, basketball and lacrosse games for years. We all yell at the officials. We never thought it was a bad thing. We were just helping them out, making sure they got it right the next time. I guess they’re on their own now.

He instructed us not to yell at the players on our team or the opponent’s team. Now I knew I was in trouble. I always yell at the kids, just like the rest of the parents. He told us it wasn’t good for their self-esteem. “They are trying their best.” No they’re not; that’s why we yell at them. He said we shouldn’t yell at the coaches either. (I guess they have self esteem issues too) I’m guilty of this. I yell at the coach when he keeps most of the team on the bench while the “A” team plays the whole game. They end up exhausted, blow the lead and lose then in the last few minutes. I yell at him when he makes a mistake I think he’d want to know about, like sending in six kids to start a basketball game or forgetting to have a goalie in a soccer match. Now what am I going to do? I know deep down he needs my help. 

The meeting ended after we signed a log proving we’d seen the movie. We had to promise to read through three stacks of rules, regulations and school policies and return a fistful of signed documents attesting to the fact that we understood what we read and would obey the rules. The athletic director said that every school system in the state holds this meeting three times a year, at the start of each sporting season. I assume he meant that the parent of every athlete in the state was dragged into the school to be grilled about this “theoretical” world of sports where the players follow the rules and the parents sit in the bleachers complementing the officials on a fine job. I guess they have no choice. Professional athletes and coaches don’t provide a good example for kids. They yell, fight and dispute every call that goes against them. They spit, swear and never accept blame. But I’m concerned that if the kids don’t learn in the same environment they’ll never get a chance to play professional sports. It’s why I’m going to see if my wife will sign the papers. Then I can be the “designated” yeller. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it.    

Old coot throws away his camera

Published 12/03/2003

Thanksgiving has come and gone. It’s a great holiday; you don’t have to buy anything, it’s Ok to eat yourself into a coma and you are allowed to stagger into the living room after dinner and plop down in front of the TV to watch football in spite of having a house full of company. The only problem with Thanksgiving is the pictures. People like to capture holidays on film. That’s when the trouble begins.

There was a time when family picture collections would fit in a single album. You can see samples of these treasures at antique shops and flea markets. Today’s families take more pictures on a weekend than our ancestors took in an entire generation. They arrive home from vacations and holidays with actual pictures, thanks to the one-hour photo centers all over the place. They never experience the joy of finding a 5-year-old roll of undeveloped film and the thrill of discovering what’s on it. Today’s couples order double sets of prints; one for the official collection and one to take on the road, to show to their unfortunate friends and relatives. My favorite one is the picture of two feet. It seems to come in every roll, shot while the photographer was checking the camera.

Pictures used to be a treasure, a moment in time captured forever. Today, they are a nuisance, not only to the family who has to stage and pose for every event on their vacation, holiday or birthday celebration, but to the rest of us, who are subjected to mandatory “ooh and aah” sessions when cornered and handed a stack of 3 by 5 glossies. Oh what a nightmare!

Blame it on George Eastman who invented the Kodak “Brownie,” an inexpensive and easy to use camera. The family album began to plump after that, but still managed to hold a generation of memories between two covers. Along came Edwin Herbert Land with a new invention, the Polaroid Camera, instant pictures. The die was cast. Western civilization started to bury itself in a sea of celluloid. Sociologists claim that pictures are taking over all unused storage space in American homes and are the primary reason for the proliferation of self-storage yards going up all over the country. Psychologists insist that the excessive picture taking in our society is a reaction to high stress in people’s lives. It drives them to capture their fleeting moments of fun on film, lest they slip away, unnoticed. I don’t know what the cause is. I just know I spend a lot of time avoiding people who approach me with a wad of pictures in their hand.   

It’s not just amateur photographers who are out of hand; professionals are even worse. Been to a wedding lately? The reception starts three hours after the wedding ends. Guests are forced to kill time between the two events. Why? So photographers can take “candid” shots of the wedding, reenacting each ritual, without the nuisance of the invited guests. The “second” wedding takes longer than the original ceremony. Then the wedding party is whisked away to the bride’s house, the park where the couple first met, the restaurant where “he” proposed, to record those events as well, in still life and video. The bride & groom aren’t in charge, the parents paying the bills aren’t in charge, the photographer rules the day. As I sit at the reception, watching the happy couple reenact the cutting of the cake, their first dance as a married couple, the garter & bouquet throwing ritual, I’m not focused on their happy day, I’m trying to figure out how to never, ever, get invited to their house and be subjected to a six-hour photo review session of an event I saw first hand. 

PC’s and digital cameras are delivering the deathblow. They’ve tripled the proliferation of pictures. I’ve thrown my camera away, my camcorder too. It’s a rare picture that comes with the smudge of my thumbprint in the upper right corner. I stopped the madness when our family album became a ten-volume set, not counting the unsorted pictures that fill two drawers in the file cabinet.

I’ve also discovered that looking back at images of myself is a painful experience. There I am on page 23 of volume II, a thirty-two-year-old father pushing a four-year-old on a swing. This person’s bladder is strong, it can last the night, his knees don’t creak and his legs can hold up for a 5-mile jog. His hair is thick and shinny, his eyes focus on the printed page without need of direct sunlight or 10-foot arms. I hate looking at that guy. He deserted me years ago, why would I want to see a picture of him?      

Old Coot can’t get there from here!

Published 12/10/2003

If you walk around the village like I do, you know that a lot of people stop and ask directions. Somehow, we’ve hidden our main attractions. Many of them ask for help getting to the high school. It’s the biggest complex in town, but the hardest to find. I tell them to take Route 96 to the second or third street after the railroad overpass, take a left and then look for it on the right. I can never remember the street name. “It’s just past that house with junk all over the front yard. You can’t miss it,” I say. The same shortcoming applies to knowing right from left. “Did I tell that guy to turn right or left at the third street after the railroad bridge,” is the question that haunts me as he pulls away from the curb?  When a car stops and asks how to get to the middle school I really go nuts. There is no way to explain to a stranger how to get there. I lie; I tell them we don’t have a middle school, or I look at them in puzzlement and reply, “No speaka de Englise.” I often do the same thing when they ask about the Little League field and the swimming pool.

I really got thrown for a loop the other day. I was on Main Street in front of the Chemung Canal Trust Company. A car pulled over and asked me how to get to Tommy O’Hara’s Restaurant. This was an easy one; it was two doors from where I stood. “Right there,” I said, and pointed to the restaurant sign.

“No, No, the guy in the car responded. I know where it is, but how do I get to the parking lot in back so I can park the car?”

“Turn here,” I responded, pointing to the alleyway between the bank and the building next to Tom’s. It was then that I noticed the two brand new  “Do Not Enter” signs, guarding the driveway like sentries at a military base. I turned back to the driver and said, “No speak de Englise,” and quickly moved down the street.

Later in the day I returned to the scene of the crime. I needed to figure out how to get to Tommy’s restaurant. I never know when I’ll be overcome with an urge for one of his fantastic white pizzas with onions and sausage. I started my investigation at the bank. I knew they were installing a set of drive-up windows. I’d assumed that cars would come in from Main Street, circle into the teller windows and then exit back onto Main, but I was wrong. The lane was restricted to a single width and designated an exit. I circled the block to a driveway next to the VFW, but that’s private. I turned onto Church and came to another driveway, but it’s an exit; you can’t go in that way. When I reached the driveway on Temple Street between the police station and John’s Fine Foods I found an answer to the dilemma, a large sign that said “Fanny C. Hyde Parking lot” with an “enter here” arrow. I didn’t know the parking lot had a name until that moment. This is the approved entrance to the parking lot behind O’Hara’s Restaurant.

I turned onto North Street to finish my circle of the block. I observed two more entrances to the parking lot: the first is the driveway to John’s parking lot; the second is an alleyway to the now closed Lynn’s Drugstore’s, drive in window. It’s too narrow for today’s SUV’s and is blocked by an angry mob of pigeons.

I stopped to see Tommy O’Hara as I finished my walk around the block, to ask him what he thought of the new ingress and egress pattern (one way in, three ways out). I was also hoping he might have a leftover slice of white pizza. He listened to me for a minute, reached down into the sink and started washing a glass and looked me straight in the eye and said, “No speaka de Englise.”

The old coot thinks he’s pregnant!

Published 12/17/2003

I went to the doctor the other day. It was time for my bi-annual check-up. Some people go every year; I go every other year. It’s just too much work to go more often than that. It used to be simple; you’d call the receptionist and make an appointment. Now, when you call the office, you get an electronic receptionist who makes you push so many different phone buttons that your fingers become too sore to make it through the on your first try: “Do you want a prescription renewed? Do you want to change a scheduled appointment? Do you want to leave a message for the doctor? Are you having chest pains?” - on, and on, and on, it goes.  You have to endure a litany of queries before you are told which button to push to talk to a real person. The system works; half the time I hang up. 

Anyhow, I finally did secure an appointment and ended up in a huge waiting room that served an army of physicians: pediatricians, gynecologists, and internal medicine specialists. I sat down on a plastic sofa and picked up a November 1999 issue of “Newsweek.” I started reading an interesting article about the upcoming presidential election between Gore and Bush. A young woman plopped down next to me. She landed with a thud and then released a sigh so loud I thought a hot air balloon had collapsed in the room. I looked over at her and asked, “What’s the matter?”

“What’s the matter? You want to know what’s the matter! Take a good look at me. I look like a snake that’s swallowed a beach ball. I’m pregnant, overdue and exasperated; that’s what’s the matter!”

I knew I’d stepped into it, but I kept on anyhow, “I know you feel bad, but it will be over soon.”

“I know it will,” she replied, a little less frazzled than when she first sat down. “But, a person shouldn’t have to go through this.”

She described how bad things were, how hard it was to get up from the couch; she has to turn around and push up off the back of the sofa and stagger to her feet. I could sympathize with her. It’s exactly how I get up when my back is hurting, which is most of the time.

She said she couldn’t go anyplace without stopping at a rest room; the baby was pushing into her bladder with such force that it barely holds anything. I could dig it! I have the same problem. I know where every bathroom is within a 100-mile radius of my house. I’ve created a rating system for stores by how close their restrooms are to the front door: “10” for Wal-Mart, where it’s in the main lobby, “2” for Home Depot, where it’s way in the back. I’ve been thinking of publishing a set of maps for old coots. They’d be exactly like Rand McNally’s except they would show where all the restrooms are located.

I’d opened Pandora’s box in the waiting room; she went on and on with how bad it was.

She can’t sleep through the night. Me neither.

She can’t turn over in bed. I last did it a few years ago, but I don’t even try anymore.

She’s so fat that none of her clothes fit. Mine don’t either. I’ve switched to the – “don’t tuck in the shirt look.”

It’s almost impossible for her to tie her shoes. Ditto for me and I gave up socks entirely.

She craves odd combinations of food. So do I, especially pizza and ice cream.

She needs two naps a day. I have two before lunch.

The baby kicks her stomach so much that she can’t get to sleep. The same thing happens to me when I eat a deluxe pizza before bedtime.

The more she talked, the more I realized that our symptoms were exactly the same. It dawned on me with a shock, “Maybe I’m not just an old coot; maybe I’m pregnant!” I immediately got up and went home. I’m never going to the doctor’s office again.

The Old Coot gets an early Christmas present!

Published 12/23/2003

I peeked under our Christmas tree the other day and spotted a dozen gifts with my name in various form on the tags: To Dad, To Hubby, To Old Coot, etc.  I decided to check out one that was the size of a pack of cigarettes; I quit smoking twenty years ago so it intrigued me. When I picked it up to see how heavy it was or if it rattled a strange thing happened; the wrapping started to come undone. I tried to fix it, but it came all the way off. My wife should know better than to leave me home alone.

It contained a small cardboard box with a fluorescent label that said, “Cell Phone Zapper” (batteries included).  The instructions claimed it would block cell phone signals within 40 feet of the user when the zap button was pushed. I got very excited! I wrapped up the empty box and put it back under the tree; the Zapper stayed with me. I couldn’t wait to try it out. I quickly put on my coat and headed into the village.

My first stop was at the Awakenings Coffeehouse. There is usually someone in there talking on a cell phone. It doesn’t bother me except when the person is yelling or if I’m sitting, quietly relaxing in an old coot stupor and a voice out of the blue shouts out, “Hi!” I turn toward the sound and say “Hi” back, only to discover the person isn’t talking to me, but to their phone. The place was crowded with Christmas shoppers. I ordered my usual Old Coot special, a short “house” coffee for a buck and took a seat at a small table in the back. I slipped my finger on the zapper button and pushed it. A woman across the room, another at the table next to me and a guy standing at the counter all reacted in the same way; they pulled their cell phones from their ears and looked around in puzzlement. The woman next to me shouted, “Darn,” and turned to her friends to tell them her phone went dead. I was impressed! I sat quiet, with a sly grin on my face, and nursed my coffee in peace.

My next stop was at the super market. I was in the “12 items or less” line, right behind a rude, burly guy pushing a full cart of groceries. As he unloaded his purchases I hit the button on the zapper by accident. The conveyor belt that was pulling his stuff toward the checker, sputtered and then reversed direction, shoving his groceries off the counter and knocking over a rack of magazines, half of which had Saddam Hussein’s picture on the cover. When he stooped to pick up the mess I cut ahead and checked out. Wow, I was even more impressed now!

My last stop was at the pharmacy; why they still call it that I can’t figure out. It should be called the RX - Five & Dime; they only devote 10% of the store to drugs, the rest of the place is overrun with stuff you can find in any variety store at half the price. I picked up a pack of gum and went to pay for it.  The store has four check-out stations, but as is usually the case, the only clerk in sight was behind the “one-hour photo” counter, pretending to be busy. He looked up when I shoved the gum and a dollar bill under his nose. He acted put out, but finally smiled and said, “What’s up Pop?” It was then that I noticed his tongue was pierced and sported a silver stud, as were both eyebrows and his left nostril. His cell phone rang and I hit the button on my new Zapper as soon as he answered it. It went dead and then a strange look came over his face; he started to shake.

“What’s the matter,” I asked.

“I don’t know. All my piercings are vibrating and tingling. They’re driving me crazy!” Then he fled to the back of the store, unfastening and casting aside an assortment of silver and gold ornaments as he went. Another clerk appeared and checked me out.

I walked home a happy man, full of Christmas spirit. I rewrapped the perfect “Old Coot” present and slipped it under the tree, hoping my wife wouldn’t notice it had been tampered with. I felt sleepy after such an exciting afternoon and plopped down in my old coot recliner; I was off in dreamland in seconds. The next thing I knew I was being shaken by the shoulder.

“Wake up! Wake up, my son Zachary shouted. You’re having a bad dream! You keep yelling ZAP and then laughing.”

I came out of my stupor and immediately walked over to the Christmas tree. The little present was still there. Was it a dream? Was it real? I won’t find out until Christmas morning. Then I’ll finally find out if Santa is real. Merry Christmas!

The DOG ATE my TAX BILL

published 1/14/2004

“The dog ate it!” That’s what I’m going to tell the County Legislators.

It all started last week when the county tax bill came in the mail. I opened it up right away because I was curious to see how much the projected 20% increase was going to cost me, $290, as it turned out. I got a double whammy; my bill went up 20% because the County Legislators couldn’t find it in their hearts to reduce county services (many of which didn’t even exist ten years ago) and 20% because of the town of Owego reassessment, a grand total of 40%.

I put the bill in my pending file (a heap of bills impatiently waiting their turn on top of my desk) and took the envelope it came in over to the recycle bin to throw it away. A small folded piece of paper fell out. “What’s that,” I wondered? I picked it up thinking it might be a note from the Legislators, saying they were sorry about the increase, and how we might work together to stop the bleeding. 

I was wrong. There wasn’t a single word from the Legislature, even though this is the only official communication it has with taxpayers every year. No, the note that accompanied the tax bill wasn’t an apology or an explanation; it was a list of rules we MUST follow when paying the bill. It detailed 4 requirements, each with a check mark in front of it to emphasize how important it was.

#1 – Payments must have a legible postmark. (I guess they expect us to oversee the post office clerk in Syracuse who carelessly postmarks our mail)

#2 - Envelopes must be delivered by the US Postal Service, NOBODY ELSE! (Gosh, I was thinking of saving $.37 and delivering it myself, Nuts!)

#3 - If you use a check writing service you should be aware they may be slow (pay late) and may use a non-acceptable postmark or postal service. (Like any of us have any money left to pay for a check writing service)

#4 - The date on the check is not proof of payment. (Boy, they really do think we are stupid, don’t they)

They did a thorough job of telling us how to pay the tax bill, but they skipped the part of where we should get the money to pay the increase. Now I know why Robert Bell and the rest of the fed up taxpayers are going to reenact the Boston Tea Party and throw their tax bills into the Susquehanna River. I think I’ll wander down to the new bridge in Owego on the scheduled day of protest, Saturday, January 17^th at noon, and see how it goes. Maybe I’ll throw my bill in too.

Then I’ll tell the tax collector the dog ate it

The Old Coot takes the mail for a walk.

Published 1/07/2004

I took the mail for a walk the other day. I slipped three envelopes into my coat pocket and headed out the door to town. My first stop was at the Awakening's Coffeehouse. It's a great place to start the day, to get the pulse of the village.

I wasn't exactly asked to leave, but I could tell by the look the waitress gave me that hogging a booth for an hour while nursing a dollar's worth of coffee was pushing my welcome to the limit, especially with a line of customers from the counter to the front door. I took the hint and moved on; the mail in my pocket was a dim memory.

I walked along Front Street past the new bridge to Dunkin Donuts. I wonder how many years it will be before we stop calling it the “new bridge.” I was hoping I'd bump into Bill Nolis, the owner. He's usually all ramped up about something or other and his enthusiasm is contagious. I needed some of it to recharge my batteries. It works even better than the caffeine that comes in his coffee. He wasn’t around so I picked up a large coffee-to-go, and left. I passed by the Viet Nam Memorial in front of the Court House like I do most mornings. Sixteen local boys lost their lives in that war. I didn't know any of them, having grown up elsewhere, but I memorized their names a few years back. I thought it was the least I could do. It could have been me; I had a one-A classification in the 1960’s, but lucked out and didn't get drafted. Anyhow, I've come to know these guys in a way, just by reciting their names every time I pass by, and then looking at the monument to check my memory.

Thank you:      Anthony Battista Jr,  Wayne Carlson,

 Duane Carter, Michael Chamberlain,                        Gary Faucett,  James Nulton,  Donald Penny,

Merritt Murray,  Anthony Revak, Duane Romeo,   Donald Rummel, Donald Spicer, Gregory Stiger,

John Wurtenberg, James Zimmer &

                         James Moore Jr.

We’ll be forever grateful for your sacrifice and bravery. 

I arrived home 20 minutes later with a writing ides clinging precariously to the edge of my taxed memory system. I needed to jot it down fast, before it escaped. As I hung up my coat I noticed the letters in my pocket. My wife yelled in from the other room, "Did you mail the bills?"

"No," I replied (out loud), and then quietly, so she couldn't hear. "I took them for a walk instead." 

Old Coot’s, Valentine’s Day tips!

Published 2/11/2004

It’s Valentine’s Day again, a dangerous time for men. It’s more than just another opportunity to prove we are terrible gift givers; it’s the “final exam” in relationship building. The airwaves are full of suggestions: flowers, candy, fine dining for two, or, how about naming a star after her? You can give the gift of “forever,” according to the International Star Registry Company, just cough up $54 and send it to them as soon as possible. You’ll receive a sky chart that shows the location of her star and a certificate suitable for framing. 

Sounds good? Be careful, you now have your foot in quicksand and the alligators are licking their chops. I’ve made every mistake possible for Valentine’s Day. I can save you from the same fate if you’ll just follow these Old Coot tips on valentine gifts.

* Don’t buy anything with a handle or an electric cord.

* Don’t get anything for the kitchen.

* Never get a present for her car, even if the windshield washer fluid has hearts on the bottle; don’t do it. .

* No gift certificates and definitely, no cash. (What are you, her uncle?)

* Forget about buying clothes; they won’t fit. In case you haven’t noticed, women never buy anything without trying it on. Ladies sizes don’t mean a thing. If your gift is too big or too small you are in trouble. She’ll interpret it as a statement about her weight. There is absolutely no chance of picking something that will fit and also make her feel good about herself. And, please, don’t get caught up in the hype of Victoria’s Secret ads and buy something romantic and sexy. She’ll just want to know what the sales clerk looked like and how much of a fool you made of yourself picking it out.

Last, but not least, do not name a star for her. It will only establish, for all time, your enormous gullibility. Do you want her to refer to you as the guy who dished out $54 for something akin to a pet rock? I know it sounds impressive when the ad says that naming a star after her is a gift that will lasts forever, especially since it will be registered with the US Copyright Office,” but it’s a lie. The naming is not official; the copyright office only registers the exclusive right of the Company to make copies of their list (in book form). Copyright = the right to copy, DUH! I’m not saying the book of names won’t be a best seller. I’m certain it will, but only to telemarketing companies. They’ll pay a lot of money for a list of easy marks, guys so desperate to come up with a gift that they’ll throw away $54 on a cheap certificate and an undecipherable sky chart. 

So what should you buy? Don’t ask me; I just know what “not” to buy. Maybe you can do what you did in high school when you “forgot” to study for the big exam, pretend you have the flu, spend the day in bed. That’s what I’m doing. In fact, I think my forehead is starting to get a little warm right now.

candy tin saves Old Coot from cold hand

PUBLISHED 3/10/2004

I froze my hand putting gas in the car the other day. I guess I shouldn’t complain; I love self-service. I hated the old days when it took forever to get gas, when you had to wait your turn while an attendant named, Slowpoke, Turtle or Snail, filled the tank of the car in front of you, checked the oil level & tire pressure, washed the windows and then sauntered back to the office to make change. When my turn would finally come, I’d hop out of the car and start pumping gas before the attendant could get there. Sometimes he’d let me continue, but most times he’d take the pump from my hand and say, “I’ll take care of that, sir! Company regulations, you know.”

No, I shouldn’t complain, but I’m going to anyhow, because “somebody” is to blame for my frozen hand, actually, a whole bunch of somebody’s, the politicians in Albany who labor endlessly to protect us from ourselves. They’ve strapped us in seat belts, slapped motorcycle helmets on our heads, took away our burn barrels and yanked cigarettes out of our mouths as we quietly sat sipping beer in the local tavern minding our own business (the old coot doesn’t smoke, but he resents being told he can’t). Their handiwork is everywhere, including the place I buy gas for my car.

In most states you can put the nozzle in your tank, click it on “automatic’ and go about your business: washing grime off your windows or checking the washer fluid. I don’t do that; I just stand around with my hands in my pockets gawking at the exotic automobiles, being the car nut that I am. You can’t do it in New York; it’s forbidden by section 2206.7.6.1 of the State Fire Code. (I waited for 2 months to get that information from Senator Libous, but he never responded. Bob Warner sent me a reply in 1 day. I can’t blame Libous; he hates it when he gets a letter from the Old Coot).

After my frozen hand thawed I began to watch the “people” in the gas station, not the cars. They weren’t standing near their gas tanks squeezing the handle on the filler nozzle. They were walking around clearing snow off their windshields, kicking ice blocks from underneath their wheel wells and visiting with each other. “How are they doing that,” I wondered?

I hung around to check it out, staying for more than an hour, drinking coffee, taking notes and chatting with drivers. They’d figured out a way to beat the system. I was impressed with the wide range of solutions my fellow civil dissidents had come up with. I watched as they jammed tennis balls, baseballs, apples, ice scrapers, cell phones, tape measurers, wallets, soda cans and Altoid tins into the handle of the gas pump to keep it pumping while their hands stayed warm. Altoid tins seem to be the device of choice; they outscored all other devices three to one during my one-hour survey. I think it’s because of their square shape; it doesn’t slip out like a tennis ball or an apple.  

Some people confessed that they’d overfilled their tank once or twice and spilled gas on the ground when they weren’t paying close attention. That won’t happen with the automatic handles that our state officials forbid us to use. It’s kind of ironic that New York’s rigid regulations make our gas stations more dangerous than in other states. If you’re worried that the politicians will catch us violating the fire code, don’t.  When did you ever see a state senator or assemblyman filling his or her gas tank? Their staff members or chauffeurs do it. When I finished my survey I went inside the gas station and bought a tin of Altoids. I’m never going to freeze my hand again!

HUSH! old coot has a long distance call!

Published 3/17/2004

I remember when a long distance phone call was something special, when the person answering the phone trembled as the telephone operator said she had Mrs. X on the line from Long-distance-ville," and then shouted, "Hush," to anyone within earshot, backing it up with, "It's long distance!" If my mother answered the phone she didn't yell hush, she yelled for us kids to, "Shut-up," and then told us to run and tell our father we had a long distance call. This was a family affair.

People didn't make very many long distance calls when the Old Coot was a kid. They only called when the message was too urgent to wait for the US Mail. The entire household shifted into an agitated state as word of a long distance call spread through the house. It usually meant something bad: Aunt Millie had a stroke, Uncle Harold was run over by a car or Cousin Pete had been thrown in the slammer. Adrenalin shot all over the place.

My father's sister, Arletta, was the source of many of our long distance calls. My mother complained that Arletta would put her in an early grave; she'd call to just say hello to my father; it didn’t have to be an emergency. All her “long distance” adrenalin was short-circuited, like driving at 30 mph in a car and speeding up to 100 mph only to slam on the brakes. 

It was such a big deal in those days that kids bragged to each other whenever their family had a long distance call. Sometimes I'd run out the door before the phone conversation began, to tell the neighbor kids my aunt was on the line, calling from Connecticut! "Wow," they'd exclaim, as I hustled back inside, full of pride.

Long distance was expensive and it was rare; it was an event. It also was something to be avoided. You didn't call unless you absolutely had to. And, people used the system to beat the system. College kids placed long distance collect calls to their parents when they got back to school. The operator would inform their mom or dad, or whoever answered the phone, that she had a collect call for Betty Co-ed. The parent would tell the operator that Betty wasn't there and hang up, pleased to know that Betty had made it back to school and had placed a fake call to let them know she’d arrived safely. Some families used a series of codes to communicate over AT&T's long lines for free: a call for "Will B Town" meant you were coming home, a call for "John Cold-Better," meant you were sick, but doing OK and a call for "Mike Needum" meant you better come and help quick.

It won't be long before the term "long distance call" leaves our vocabulary entirely. It's become a thing of the past, inconsequential. Just the other day I was on the phone working out a computer problem on a toll free help line. I asked the woman helping me where she was located. “Bombay, India” she answered, nonchalantly. 

Last month, February 12^th, to be exact, I was sitting on a bench at the Oakdale Mall. A kid next to me was chatting loudly on his cell phone; he was on a three-way call; one friend was on a beach in California, the other was at a car lot in New Jersey trying to buy a car. All three were helping with the decision. As I sat there eavesdropping my cell phone rang. I only use it for emergencies. I grabbed the kid by the shoulder and yelled, "Shut-up! I've got a long distance call!"

He put his phone down, more in shock than in compliance with my startled request. My son-in-law was on the line. My daughter just had a baby, her first and my fifth grandchild. I finished the call; as I got up to leave I heard the kid tell his two friends that an old coot on the bench next to him just had a grandkid.

Happy Birthday to my new grandson -  Wylie Cooper.

Old Coot finds magic on Parker Lane

Published 3/24/2004

I love Parker Lane. It's the smallest street in Owego, only one block long and barely wide enough for a compact car. It runs from Main Street (across from Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church) to Front Street. I swear it’s a magic portal to the past. When I step off the sidewalk on Front Street and enter Parker, in defiance of the do-not-enter sign, I feel a time shift take place. I go in this direction, not because it’s the best way to view the scenery; it isn’t, but because I’m an old coot and old coots always look for ways to defy the rules, especially traffic signs, even if we’re just traveling on foot. The sign says, "Do Not Enter," and in we go! It's why we jaywalk, cross against a red light and touch anything with a wet paint sign on it.  

Parker Lane wasn’t always blessed with such a melodic name. In the early 1800’s it was called Camp Alley. The Camp family owned the property that surrounded it and had a lot to do with Owego’s early history. Henry Camp owned the corner lot at Main St. where he operated a foundry until it burned in 1836. He moved the operation to Front Street, across from the Parkview Inn. This foundry produced engines and machinery that were used in the local steamboats that hauled goods up and down the Susquehanna. It too, caught fire and burned to the ground; this disaster destroyed all the houses on both sides of Front Street from the bridge to the alley. Much of Owego’s history has been shaped by fire. Unfortunately it’s a force still at work.  

Nathan Camp, Henry’s uncle, owned the parcel of land that abuts the alley on the west. He too, had an impact on the shaping of Owego, but all his contributions were positive.  He started the first village library, in 1813, and was one of the founders of the Ithaca - Owego Turnpike Company, an endeavor that helped expand trade in the village. He sold this lot in 1829 to Harmon Pumpelly, who built an impressive brick mansion; it still graces the site today. Harmon lived in the house for twelve years and then sold it to his brother Charles Pumpelly. Charles died in 1855 and the property went to his daughter Stella and her husband John M. Parker. The street was renamed in Parker’s honor after his death in 1873. He was a 2-term congressman and then a Supreme Court Justice. 

When I walk down the lane I swear I see the shadowy figure of Justice Parker striding from his back door to an awaiting carriage, especially in the early morning hours when the area is wrapped in a swirl of fog. I’ve convinced myself I also see the outline of horses munching hay in the backyard and foundry workers shuffling along the alley with tin lunch buckets clutched in their hands; even the smell of coal smoke from ancient chimneys seems to hang in the air.   

It only takes a minute to walk down Parker Lane, but a minute in a time warp seems more like an hour. You emerge relaxed, calm and ready for the rigors of the 21st century. It's the best stress medicine around. A final irony greets you as you exit onto Main St. The street marker for Main, the longest most active road in the village is one foot long; the marker for Parker Lane, the shortest and least used pathway is twice as big. It may be that the hands of the sign maker were guided by a force beyond his control, a force that wanted to remind us that the lane is important too, a connection to the past. Take a minute some time and see if the magic is there for you.

The old coot is wise to the new procedures

Published 4/07/2004

I underwent a medical “procedure” at the hospital. A procedure is 3^rd on the list of invasive things they do to you in the hospital: #1 is major surgery, #2 is minor surgery. Major surgery is any operation on you; minor surgery is what they do to somebody else. A “procedure” is a close relative of major and minor surgery. It’s about as uncomfortable and painful, but insurance companies and HMO’s won’t pay to have you knocked out for it. You have to take it on the chin. The word "procedure" is used so you won't be afraid, so you'll show up.

When I was a kid my mother dragged me kicking and screaming to the doctor to have my eardrum punctured to ease the pain of an earache. I had it done so often I knew what was coming the minute we pulled up to Doctor Rosefsky’s office behind his house in Binghamton. They didn’t call it an eardrum “procedure” in those days; they told it like it was. The AMA has gotten a lot smarter since then; the PR committee settled on using the word “procedure” for the painful, uncomfortable things they do to us; it was a stroke of pure genius. I just wonder why the medical profession is the only group to do so.

IBM could have used it while they reduced their work force in Endicott over the last ten years. Who would have suspected anything bad when called to the boss's office for a "paycheck procedure”? The guy who installed a new roof on my house could have softened the blow after inspecting my roof if he said I needed a "shingle procedure" instead of a complete tear down and replacement. Even our local meteorologist would enhance his image if he'd just tell us to expect a "precipitation procedure" rather than 20 inches of snow.

The way it can be used is endless. You’re spouse’s lawyer will say you are about to undergo an unhooking procedure, not a divorce. When you reach for your wallet and discover it’s empty after a day at the mall with the kids, you can tell yourself you just underwent a wallet procedure, not that you’re broke. And, when you get robbed at gunpoint you can take solace in that you just underwent a sudden money transfer procedure, not armed robbery. 

The medical profession has always been out in front with the clever use of language. They used Latin to describe the parts of our bodies for years so we will think they are smarter than us and so we won't know what they are about to do to us. They claim it's because Roman physicians were the first to dissect and then name the components that make up human anatomy; the various bones and body mechanisms were given Latin Names. I don't buy it; I think the AMA stuck with Latin to keep us out of the loop, to keep what they are doing a secret. They did the same thing with the metric system. Even though our country measures things in pounds, ounces, quarts, gallons, feet and inches our physicians discuss things in grams, cc's and centimeters. It's why it takes so long to get a medical degree, four years to learn the medical stuff and four years to learn Latin and the metric system.

The next time my doctor tries to talk me into undergoing a "procedure" I'm going to make him say it in English. I can't wait to hear what a gastrointestinal procedure sounds like when he does. "Well, you old coot, he'll say, I want you to report to the outpatient clinic and undergo a stick-a-tube-down-your-throat-while-you-gag-scream-and-kick-so-we-can-look-at-your-stomache-with-a-fiberoptic-camera-and-then-you-won't-be-able-to-swallow-for-a-week “procedure.” I'll let him stick the word procedure on the end as long as the preceding words are understandable. I just hope the editor reviewing this article can survive the, "You must be kidding; why must I undergo this, “stupid-Old-Coot-rambling procedure."

Old Coot won’t answer the phone!

Published 5/12/2004

There are two kinds of people in the world, two distinct personality types. Social scientists have given the two a lot of different names over the years: passive – aggressive, right brained – left brained, Type A – Type B. A hot book on the market today tries to make the case that the different personality types fall along gender lines, as in “Men Are From Mars; Women Are From Venus, but the author got it wrong. It’s not that simple. This isn’t a man – woman thing

I've discovered a new way that this phenomenon has exhibited itself in our highly technological society. I call it the answering machine people versus the cell phone people phenomena. Answering machine people hate to talk on the phone; cell phone people love it, and they'd like it even better if there was some way they could be directly connected to the brain of the person they’re talking to. Then they could share every fleeting thought, cortex to cortex. On the other hand, answering machine people are so bad they don't even want to take a call from the guy at Readers Digest telling them they won $1 million.

I'm an answering machine person. I feel like I'm at an AA meeting, admitting (confessing to) my problem as I write this sentence, but it’s true. In an ideal world, answering machine people (AMP’s) would never talk directly to anyone. We’d be happy with a communication system where we leave a message on your machine, you leave a reply on ours, and so on. Eventually we'll get our points across. We AMP’s need to think about what someone said for a little while before we answer; we need to figure out the best way to respond. We tell ourselves it's because we're diplomatic, but deep down we know that's only partly true. Deep down we know we do it to avoid blurting out something stupid. It all started in 1^st grade, when the teacher called on us in class and our school mates erupted in laughter at the dumb answers we came up with. 

Cell phone people (CPP) are open and up front. They don't want to think about their response. They just want to say it and see what the other person comes back with. CPP’s and AMP’s should not get married. In fact there should be a screening question on the marriage application that prevents legal unions of this sort. Unfortunately, CPP’s are only attracted to AMP’s and vice versa. AMP’s can fake it during courtship, can carry a cell phone and be at the beck & call of their prospective mate, but little clues begin to surface as the relationship matures. The AMP’s start to miss calls, to turn off their phones. They claim, "I was out of range, my battery ran down, or it slid out of my pocket and was on the seat of the car. That's phase #1. Phase #2 begins when the phone is discarded entirely and the cell phone person is forced to leave a message every time they call.

You might guess that most men are answering machine people and most women are cell phone people, but that's not the case. CPP’s and AMP’s are equally split across the sexes. In fact, the best story I heard at one of the monthly AMP meetings came from a woman in Vestal who is an AMP addict. I won't reveal her name; let's just call her Connie.

Connie is a busy mother and wife with a demanding job; she’s on the go 24/7. She leaves messages all over the place; she’s in and out of contact with a sizable network. Connie came home after a hectic day and played her messages. The last one on the tape was for her daughter, from a woman whose voice she didn’t recognize. When her daughter came home, she and Connie listened to the message together, neither could quite make it out; the caller didn't leave a name or a number. They had no idea who it was from. Finally, the daughter pushed star – 69 on the phone and rang the caller’s number. The phone rang twice and then an answering machine kicked in. It was Connie’s machine at her office. She had made the call and left a message for her daughter and then promptly forgot all about it. That's the day Connie signed up for our monthly AMP meetings; she wants to get cured, to become a cell phone person. She is determined to prevent having her senior moments documented on answering machine tapes across the land.    

Not me; I won’t make the conversion. I have a cell phone, but I never answer it; I only use it for outgoing calls. If you want to reach me, leave a message; I’ll get back to you, to your machine, at least.

Old Coot’s Pants Catch on Fire!

Published 5/26/2004

“Liar, Liar, Pants on fire……” is the start of a timeless chant that kids yell at liars. Parents teach their children that lying is bad, one of the worst things you can do, and then lie like crazy themselves, lie to them all the time. “No I don’t,” you protest! Oh yea, what about that fat guy who keeps a list of who’s been naughty or nice and lives at the North Pole and flies around in a sled pulled by reindeer on Christmas Eve. And, how about the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, the Boogey Man, Jack Frost and the host of other invented characters used in the child rearing process, not to mention the biggest lie of all, that George Washington chopped down a tree and then confessed, “I can not tell a lie; I cut down the cherry tree.” Oh please!

We lie. And, then we lie about lying. It's a rare person who is aware that he or she lies, and rarer still is the person who admits it. I don't know why we do it; I’ll leave that to the social scientists and psychologists. It's a practice that is tightly woven into the fabric of every culture on the planet, from the well-educated and highly sophisticated societies of New York City to the primitive tribes living in remote forests exactly like their Stone Age ancestors. Lying is an inbred "human condition."

I remember my mother and father telling me when I was four and on my way into the hospital to have my tonsils out that the doctor was going to wheel me into the operating room where a nurse would open a drawer and take out a rose. When I smelled the rose I’d fall asleep and they'd take out my tonsils. I could have ice cream when it was over. There was no drawer; there was no rose, and when they strapped the ether mask to my face I knew the lie for what it was. My throat was so sore that it was a full week before I could swallow anything, let alone ice cream. A year later when they told me the dentist’s drill wouldn’t hurt I was wiser; he drilled and it killed, so I bit his hand. 

It's clear that we lie, and not just to kids. We lie to everybody, everyday. We never call it lying; we never even think of it as lying. We tell ourselves it’s a fib, a fable, a stretched truth, a tall tale, a story, practical use of tact, a kindness or when caught red handed, a “white” lie. Hollywood has built a multimillion-dollar industry on made up stories and they do it so well we forget that it's fiction (a classy lie). We think the movie stars are the people they portray. Jessica Lange was even called before a congressional committee after making a movie about losing a farm to bankruptcy. She wasn’t called as an actress; she was called as a farmer.

It is so ironic that we lie everyday and yet think the most detestable thing a person can do is to lie. If someone gets caught they are disgraced, which is why people lie even more vigorously when they are accused of being slippery with the facts. Just look at how many politicians have gone down in flames after lying about lying. Even the one who stared into the camera and wagged his finger at us as he swore to never have had relations with that woman, Miss Lowinsky. Politicians make a living with lies, not all of them, but enough to taint the whole profession. If one/one-hundredth of the promises they’ve made over the last ten years came true, we'd be living in a world free of crime, poverty and war; there’d be a chicken in every pot. We don’t suspect it’s a lie when they tell us they are working for us, for the little guy. Even when they granted themselves the best pension plan and health care system in the country and then slipped us the bill, we still voted them back into office. They look us dead in the eye and claim they want nothing for themselves, only a chance to perform a “public service.” Oh my, what a whopper that one is!

We need to face the truth, to admit we lie. I for one, plan to stop lying. I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t know if I can stop myself from saying: “No, I don’t think you’ve put on weight - Wow, I love what you’ve done with your (hair, house, office, life etc. - Yes doctor, I’ll lose 15 pounds and exercise every day - I think that outfit looks great on you - I’d love to spend Super Bowl Sunday at the mall - You better wait an hour after eating before going swimming or you’ll drown - Real men don’t cry - If you throw rice at weddings the birds will eat it and blow up – Go ahead and tell me; I won’t tell anybody else – Yes, I agree, your kid is really the cutest thing that ever lived.”

If I slip and somebody taunts me with, “Liar, Liar, pants on fire; your nose is longer than a telephone wire,” I’ll simply point out that they are the liar; my pants are not on fire and my nose is not that long, not yet anyhow.

You’re fired!

published 6/09/2004

Endicott Interconnect fired 84 workers on Friday; it was their way of kicking off the Memorial Day weekend. One of the “chosen few” was in his 20^th year at the plant. His manager called him into the office and said, “The Company needed to take action; your job was eliminated.” IBM, the company from which Endicott Interconnect was formed, used a similar script; it too, was crafted by a team of corporate wordsmiths and HR executives. The IBM masterpiece read like this, “We had resource actions; you were affected.”

Neither company told employees they were fired. When you got the ax in the old days you knew it. The boss called you in, looked you in the eye and said, “You’re fired.” Not anymore. They’ve come up with a variety of scripts to make it easier for the manager to give the ax and to confuse the discarded employee, to make him feel it isn’t his fault he no longer has a job. “It’s a resource problem.” Translation – you’re a resource we don’t want. It’s similar to when your girl or boyfriend breaks up with you and says, “It’s not you, it’s me.” I guess if it’s not your fault it doesn’t hurt, whether you’re getting fired or getting jilted. 

We should have seen this coming when companies changed the name of their Personnel Departments to Human Resources back in the 1980’s. Employees went from being people, to being a resource, not much different in the CEO’s eyes from the rest of the stuff used in the business: materials, machinery, buildings, patents, vehicles and so forth. It’s easier to eliminate a “human resource” than it is to fire a “person.”

You have to pay attention to the words of corporate executives and politicians. They are constantly inventing new ones to disguise what they are up to. It’s tough, because the new ones sound nice; it usually takes years to figure out that one of their gems means something really nasty. And when we figure it out they invent a new word. This tendency of CEO’s to fire employees to make the quarterly income statement come out better is a perfect example. First they called it “cutting back,” then it became “downsizing.” We caught on and they changed it to “right sizing.” Shareholders like that better. It’s more positive; things aren’t going down; they are becoming right. CEO’s in the old days bragged about how many employees they had; today’s crowd brags about how many they fire (right-size). 

 Some of the words, especially from politicians mean the exact opposite of what it sounds like; sometimes it means nothing at all, like the phrase, “Average American.”  Who do you think is being talked about when you hear a politician claim the average American wants this or that? Yourself? Sure you do; we all do. But he’s not talking about you or me or anybody else we know. There is no such thing as an Average American. It’s just a term the politicians use to make us think they are doing the right thing for us.  Another term you hear a lot of politicians use is “real people.” Candidates claim they are out for the real people. What else could they be for, robots?

“Customer choice” is a good one, too. It sort of like asking a guy on death row how he’d like to make his exit, gas chamber or electric chair. “Customer choice” in practice really means you take it their way or not at all.  

If you’re an old coot this can give you a real kick, especially when you turn up the sensitivity on your B.S. meter and translate a quote from a corporate or political wordsmith. It’s a blast. Sometimes I do this while my wife is fixing dinner. She’s peeling potatoes and I’m reading to her from an article in the paper, translating from corporateeze to plain English. If I do this for longer than five minutes she “right sizes” the kitchen and I find myself on the back porch explaining things to the squirrels.

Old Coot has a tin ear!

published 6/02/2004

Have you noticed that loud music has taken over? It started with the outdoor rock concerts in the seventies, most notably Woodstock. The music was so loud that kids came home stone deaf, for a day or two anyhow.  Here we are in a new century and the volume is cranked even higher. The main drag in town is a scant 30 feet from my front door. Hundreds of cars and eighteen-wheelers pass by every day. The trucks are noisy. I can hear them when I’m in the house, but the sound is usually just a low rumble. The real pain comes from a car with a cranked up stereo system when it stops for a school bus out front, one with rap music blaring through a giant set of exotic speakers powered by an amplifier with enough wattage to make the car doors vibrate in time with the music.

These rolling, rock concerts are all over the place. The sound systems cost several thousand dollars, which is ironic when you consider that most of the time they are worth more than the cars that transport them. These 4-wheel stereo sets are reproducing at an alarming rate. I hate it when I get trapped behind one at a traffic light; the blast is so loud it forces me to cover my ears and cringe. I blow my horn, but the maestro in front of me never hears it.  

Every once in a while my wife and I stop in at a local watering hole. It’s a friendly place and we really enjoy the crowd of “regulars,” but at 9pm the fun comes to an end; a band takes over. We get there early and sit at the bar solving the world’s problems and then watch a team of roadies drag in a vanload of sound equipment: speakers larger than our refrigerator, enough wire to electrify a small community, amps, pre-amps, mixers, echo chambers, drums, electric guitars and a keyboard. Things start to go sour when the engineer begins to check it out. “Testing, testing, one, two three.” He does this six times a minute, adjusting a knob after each test. The control panel is as complicated as the one NASA uses to launch a spacecraft.

Now mind you, this is a little place. You would have no trouble hearing a singer with an acoustic guitar. There are twenty bar stools, a few tables and a stand-up gentleman’s bar. The band’s equipment fills the whole back area of the establishment, a section normally occupied by a few quiet tables and a seldom-used dart board. Amplifiers aren’t needed, but at nine on the dot, the blasters are fired up.

That’s when I think about heading home. I can’t handle the volume. The place fills up with people in spite of a cover charge and limited space to sit or stand. After one last sound test the show begins. The front window vibrates, wine glasses shake & jingle, the lights in town begin to dim and the fish in the Susquehanna head for Chesapeake Bay. It’s so loud you can only talk to the person next to you and only if you cup your hands and shout directly into their ear. Drinks are ordered by sign language.

I don’t get it. Maybe, it’s because I’m an old coot, but I'm not sure. I like music. I even like loud music, but not that loud. I think the worlds’ gone deaf. It’s not just the bar scene either. Been to a wedding lately? The bride and groom can only visit with their guests when the band takes a break. It wouldn’t be so bad if I could read lips, but it’s a skill I never perfected. My wife can converse with someone across the room, without a single sound reaching her ear. My soundless communication is limited to head bobs: up and down for yes, side to side for no. People mouth words in my direction and I bob my head, having no idea what they are saying. It’s the reason I agreed to buy my daughters an old Volkswagen Beetle when they were in high school. I bobbed my head up and down when I should have bobbed it side to side. At the rate this loud music is taking over; it won’t be long before I’m totally cut off from other humans. Then, I’ll really become an old coot. 

Old Coot Learns grunt language

Published 6/16/2004

Today's kids talk a lot on the Internet using “Instant Messaging.” They've created a new form of the written language which experts claim is a threat to the future of literature. In my day these same experts predicted that comic books would cause the demise of the written word. The problem is most pronounced in high school English classes. Can you imagine grading a literature paper describing the comedy of Shakespeare as “LOL” (laugh out loud) funny or irony portrayed as J/K (just kidding). It’s no wonder that dedicated English teachers like Chris Evans at OFA are pulling their hair out.

I'll leave that challenge to Mr. Evans and his capable colleagues; I have a different problem involving teenage communication, mine is with the spoken word. I'm hard at work learning to communicate with teenage males in a language I call the “Grunt” dialect. I'm not an expert, but I can pass along a few tips to help you exchange information with male teenagers. I thought it would be a snap when my son entered the maelstrom of teenagehood, having been through the process with five daughters. I was wrong. Communication suddenly came to a halt. I thought it was my problem, something going on between my son and me, but when I looked around I discovered it’s a phenomena that affects most teenage males.

These “boys” never use a word if a grunt or a shrug will serve their purpose. "Hi kiddo, how was school today?" I ask, and get a microscopic shoulder shrug in reply. I try again, “How did you do on the English test?” He gives me an upward eye roll and then follows it up with a conversation stopper, “I-don-no!” Are you starting to see the pattern? The parent has to ask questions that can only be answered with a grunt or a shrug. If you ask an open-ended question you get a blank stare. You can see the wheels spinning, but it’s not because they’re puzzling over an answer; they’re trying to decide if they should use a whole sentence. They apparently only allow themselves 6 sentences a month with their parents. Even those, they save for important issues like asking for money or lobbying to go someplace that they know is off limits. 

If you haven't experienced the grunt syndrome and wonder what it's like, you can get an idea by handing the sports page to an adult male, give him 30 seconds to get into an article and then start asking questions. You'll get responses similar to those of grunting, shrugging male teenagers. The only difference is that the adult grunter has evolved his communication skills to an evenly spaced series of, “Uh-Huh, Yes dears.”

I'm determined to beat the system, to break through the code. The next time my son decides to use one of his 6 sentences, to ask me to take his gang to the mall, I'm going to grab the sports page and give him a dose of his own medicine. "Come on Dad; will you take us?" I'll lower the paper an inch and squint at him over the top of my glasses. I won't say anything; I'll just stare. "Come on Dad; we've got to meet “people” at the mall!" To which I'll scratch my chin and grunt a M/BE. I'll continue this pattern forcing him to use all 6 of his sentences. When they’re all used up and he can’t ask for money until next month I'll get up and head toward the car and grunt, “Lessgo!"

 

Old Coot doesn’t buy School boards excuse!

Published 6/23/2004

It's official; the new Owego Middle School won't open in September as we were promised, as recently as last month. It’s now scheduled to open on January 3rd, 2005. The reason? "A snowy winter and a rainy spring," according to school officials. This old coot knows a bogus excuse when he hears it. Come on, rain in spring, snow in winter? Do they really expect us to believe that this "UNUSUAL" weather caused the screw up? The principal never believed me when I came to school late and used the excuse that a big dog chased me and I had to go the long way, and that it ate my homework too. I'm not buying their excuse either.

I know why the project is late. It's because the school doesn't use a regular calendar. They use a calendar that has 6 school days in a week, even though the kids only go to school 5 days. It's this lack of understanding of a standard calendar system that got them messed up. When the school board discussed progress on the school with the contractor I imagine the conversation went like this. The board president asked the contractor when the building would be ready. The contractor started to respond with, "Late Octob...." when the president cut him off. "We don't go by months and days he told the contractor. I need to know on which school day it will be finished." The contractor got confused. He tried to translate to the school system calendar and blurted out, "We'll be ready on the first cycle of day 3 (which is September 3) when he meant to say the 3^rd cycle of day 1. It got into the minutes as September 3rd so the board went ahead with plans to move the kids into the new school.

When the teachers started hauling in their boxes of materials last week they noticed that the walls were not painted, the blackboards were missing and bare light bulbs were hanging from the rafters. They went to the principal and superintendent to find out what was going on. The principal keeps a list of excuses that kids use to explain why they are late. He and his boss looked it over and discovered that weather, especially snow and rain, was used more than anything. "Let's use that one," they both shouted at the same time and then jumped in the air and high-fived each other.

They may fool you with this lame brained "weather" excuse, but not this old coot. It's their 6-day a week calendar that tripped them up. I had a hard time when I was in school remembering to bring my gym clothes on Tuesday and Thursday. Kids today have to remember that they have gym on days one, three and five and then figure out what weekday it is. “Day one” this week fell on Thursday. Two weeks ago it was Wednesday. It changed because the kids didn’t have school a couple of Fridays ago. It was Superintendents in-service day or some such thing. About every three or four weeks there is no school on Friday, which is why they had to create a new schedule. The teachers and administrators have so many conferences that school lessons were getting lost in the shuffle.

I think I’ll pay my school taxes late this year. They’re due in September, the same month the new school was promised. I’ll pay them in January. I’ll tell the tax police that I sent in the check on time; it must have been held up in the mail due to the weather. After all, we did have unusual weather this fall; it was rainy and foggy!

How lazy are we?

published 7/06/2004

I opened a can of soup with an electric opener the other day. I got half way around the top when the can slipped out. This happens a lot. I think cans have smaller lips these days. Manufacturers have found a new way to cut costs. I tried again, but the electric opener wasn’t up to the job. I don’t know what kind it is; we bought it because it’s black; it matches the coffee maker and the toaster that share counter space with it. I went to the garage and grabbed a hand-powered opener from my camping gear. It opened the can in a flash. I threw it in the silverware drawer. I’m never using the electric one again.

It got me thinking, “Do we really need electric can openers? Are we so weak and lazy that we can’t even open a can?” No wonder we are turning into the “society of the obese.” We have power everything. I started to take inventory; I couldn’t believe how big the list was, the things I use power for, but could easily do by hand. It takes me 20 minutes to mow the lawn. It’s flat and compact. I could do it faster with a push mower. By the time I gas up the power one and get it started I could be finished. The only exercise I get comes from squeezing a metal rod on the handle, that stupid mechanism that will shut down the mower if I let go, like to pick up a piece of paper. It’s always a tough decision for me, “Should I pick it up and let the mower stall or should I plow ahead, blast shredded paper all over the yard and hope my wife doesn’t notice?”

It’s not just the mower; I use a gas-powered weed-whacker to trim around the trees and an electric blower to clear the clippings from the sidewalk. Not anymore; I’m getting back to nature; I’m switching to hand, foot and arm power. Now that I’m a convert, my vision is clear; I can see how little “human” power we use.

We don’t shovel snow; we blow it or plow it. We don’t pound nails; we blast them in with air guns; we use electric drivers for screws. Our offices are rife with electric staplers, pencil sharpeners and paper shredders. How hard is it to tear up a piece of paper or crank the handle on a pencil sharpener? We can’t get our butts off the couch to change the TV channel; we are totally dependent on our “remotes.” It’s a real crisis when it gets lost. The entire household shifts into a frantic search, akin to a team of Forrest Rangers looking for a child lost in the woods. Some of us have become too weak to flip a light switch; we clap our hands or yell to turn on a lamp. It’s become so arduous to pull a razor across our face we need electric powered blades. Pedal cars are headed for the Smithsonian; today’s models run on batteries.

Cars demonstrate another degree of laziness that has taken over our culture, aside from the fact that we often drive when we could walk. No, it’s much worse than that; we have: automatic transmissions, because we’re too weary to push in a clutch and move a gear shifter around, power seats, cruise control, power windows and power radio antennas. We won’t even get out to open the garage door; we insist on remote controlled, automatic door openers. And, when we drive two blocks to the store instead of walking, we can’t even muster enough strength to turn the radio knob; we push the seek button to find a new station. We don’t wash our vehicles by hand anymore; we drive them to an automatic car wash and sit listening to a CD as a swirling set of brushes handles the chore.

The other day I saw an ad on TV for a home air compressor. It showed a woman using it to blow up balloons for her daughter’s birthday party. Our lungs have become too frail to do it. But, all is not lost. The free enterprise system has responded to our deteriorating condition. We can continue to drive instead of walk, to take the elevator rather than the stairway and to sit on the couch with the remote clutched to our bosoms. The solution is to join a gym at $50 a month, tip the trainer a few bucks for customized instruction and hire a nutritionist to select delicious meals and snacks that won’t end up on our backsides. If we could find a way to pay someone to do the exercises for us we’d be ecstatic.

We may be lazy, but we sure are inventive. Wait till you see my new feeding machine; you don’t have to use your hands at all, just lean over and push the auger button on the stainless steel feed trough. Oink when you’re done; it will shut off automatically.

Old coot is fenced out

published 7/28/2004

Old coots are leery of change, even those of us who've spent our entire lives trying to create it. We've discovered that change often brings more than we bargain for, but not always. The new Owego Bridge, for instance, is a good change. It’s one year old this month and most of us still love it. It will be a while before we stop calling it the "new" bridge, which lets you know that it hasn't been totally accepted by the Owego community; it's still the new kid on the block. Eventually we'll call it by its correct name, "The Court Street Bridge," but not quite yet.

Owego has another new bridge, the Talcott Street Bridge. It's the main connection between the village and the people living on Glenmary Drive and the hills to the west. It's been a long hard summer without it, hundreds of extra miles for a lot of people. I wandered over to it the other morning to check it out, to see if it was close to being finished. I pulled up to the edge of the project on my bike at 6:30 Sunday morning. Nobody was there. Old coots do their best snooping under these conditions. The area was fenced off with a sign that said, "Pedestrians Prohibited." I could see that the deck was paved, the guardrails installed and that passage across was possible. The approaches on both ends still needed to be paved and a few other details finished, but for the most part this project is ready for the public. (I stopped by later in the week and the foreman for Bector Construction Company told me that for all practical purposes the bridge is done. Local highway crews will finish the job by repaving Talcott Street.)

The "Pedestrians Prohibited" sign acted as a magnet, drawing me closer. I was on my bike, so technically I wasn't a pedestrian. I drove around the barricade and onto the deck. It looked fine to me. I peddled across to Glenmary. It felt great. It's a nice sturdy bridge that will serve us well for a generation or two. This is another example of a good change, though the process to get there may have been a little rough, especially for families on the other side of the creek who had to go around the long way to get to town.

While I was in the area I swung by the new middle school to see how it was coming. It still has a ways to go. I passed by the new track on my way home. “I'd better give that a look,” I said to myself. It's very nice, though I liked the cinder track it replaced; it was gentle on this old joggers joints. Then I got a surprise as I did a few laps. I noticed a new page link fence around the entire athletic area, separating the stands from the football field and track. This was a change I hadn't expected, or even heard about. In addition to the track, the contractor paved the small hill area between the field and the bleachers. This is the area where all the little kids play while their parents watch the game; they roll down the hill and play king of the mountain. Now it's fenced off and hard as a rock.

And worse of all, they made the “old coot football watching area” off limits. We can no longer stand in the end zone and talk about the good old days while watching the football team create their own set of memories; it’s fenced off. This is not a good change. I'm sure the architect will defend the design: better security, better crowd management, more in keeping with the times, but heck, this is just a small town football field where families come to watch the game and let their kids play. When the season begins the fans in the first three rows will watch the action through the blur of a page link fence, the little kids will whine because there is “nothing fun to do” and old coots like me will gaze longingly at the end zone from outside the fence and whine as well. If you listen close you might hear one of us remark, “Here we go again. The school board has made another change, FOR OUR OWN GOOD.” We won’t make an official complaint because it will fall on deaf ears; the money has been spent. You also might hear a response, something like the one my son came up with he was two years old and confronted with an unwelcome change in his life, “I hope I can get USED OF IT.”

Old Coot rejects media advice

published 8/18/2004

Another medical study was released this week; it seems like a new one comes out every day; this one was on Alzheimer’s disease. It claimed Alzheimer’s can be prevented by exercise and mental activity. If we walk a mile and read the paper every day we can delay or prevent the onset of the disease, so asserted the naive reporter reading the story into the television monitor. I'm sure he hadn't given a thought to the ridiculousness of what he was saying. He went on to say that it's even better if people intensify their mental activity by doing the daily crossword puzzle, especially if they write with their “left” hand. Arguing is good for the brain too; "Use it or lose it," he said, as a wrap up to his report.

Every old coot does this stuff; we walk; we do crossword puzzles and we argue. We go even further; we don't just argue with people; we argue with the newspaper, the radio and the TV set. If you see us carrying on a conversation all by ourselves as we drive by in our four-door sedans it’s because we're arguing with, and yelling at, a newscaster on the radio.

I wonder why this “scientific” advice didn't work for Ronald Reagan? He was vigorous; he kept fit, and mental exercise? My gosh! He was the President. I'm sure his mind was stimulated every day, even if he didn't have time for the crossword puzzle. It didn't work for my mother either. I never knew a more active person. She started working as a school crossing guard when she was 65; they had to drag her off her corner when mandatory retirement set in ten years later. My grandmother was even more active, yet they both ended up with Alzheimer's. 

That’s the problem with these studies that the media airs as fact. Some researcher develops a statistical sample, creates a hypothesis and publishes it in a medical journal. The next day it's delivered to us as fact. “If we just change our ways,” we can save ourselves from: Alzheimer's, heart trouble, cancer, emphysema, strokes, you name it. We are a society that can’t accept that things just happen; it’s called life. We delude ourselves into thinking we are in control – “if we just do the right things,” we’ll be safe – we’ll live forever. Old coots know the truth, that the meaning of life is not to be found. We live, we die, and stuff happens in between – bad things happen to good people – good things happen to bad people and vice versa.

My fellow old coots and I get irked when the popular media tries to tell us how to live, how to guarantee ourselves a long life, free of illness. We don’t want their advice, “Just the news, thanks.” Years from now (or maybe next week), when I come into town with my pants on backwards and my name and address pinned to my shirt I don’t want some young smart aleck pointing to me and whispering, “It’s his own fault; he refused to do the daily crossword!”

See What You Made Me Do!

published 9/01/2004

See what you made me do! That's what my mother used to say when she spilled something in the kitchen and I was within range. "What?” I'd respond, “I didn't do anything." She'd "Harrumph" and start cleaning up the mess. I'd get lost before I “made her” do something else, and maybe get a swat for it this time.

My mother wasn't unique. Everybody tries to blame others for their mistakes. It starts when we’re infants, when our world is so focused on our mothers that we associate everything with her, the good and the bad. Gradually we grow into our own self, but it's a slow process. Its kind of fun to watch little kids struggle with the transformation. A four-year-old who bumps his head is apt to run across the room and slap his mother. "See what you made me do!" Even when we get older (and wiser) we still have to fight the impulse.

In school, a failing grade is the “teacher's” fault. “The test wasn't fair.” It had nothing to do with our failure to study. When teenagers mess up a good relationship with the opposite sex and are told at the “break-up” encounter, "It's not you; it's me;" they believe it. "Of course it's you; it couldn't possibly be me."

You reach the 1^st plateau of wisdom when you’ve figured out it's your fault when things YOU do, go bad. Some people never reach this level of maturity. They spend their entire life blaming others. They never change their approach to things. Why should they? They can just say, "See what you made me do," when they get fired, evicted, divorced or disenfranchised from their family.

You can witness this phenomena at work in all levels of society - In the store, when the manager won't make things right because “it's the policy" - The customer service clerk on the phone who agrees with you, but still won't allow the discount because the "computer" won't let him - The doctor, who apologizes for your two-hour wait by explaining that the office staff overbooked his schedule. “See what they made me do.”

The impulse to blame someone else is most noticeable in politics. It's not the County Legislator's fault that taxes have gone up 50% in the last few years; it's the State's fault. School taxes didn't go up because of anything the school board did. It’s not the state senate or assembly’s fault a budget didn’t get passed. They all point to others and yell, “See what you made us do.”

This lack of accountability goes to the highest level of our democracy. President Clinton still uses it with ease. In his best selling book he explains the Monica Lowinsky affair by blaming congress. He claims they didn’t pass his budget and caused a government shutdown. White House staff did not report to work leaving him alone in the West Wing with Monica. One thing led to another. “See what they made me do,” he explains in his memoirs. 

What’s good for the president is good for the rest of us. Why fight it? The next time you get caught in a speed trap simply look straight into the cop’s eyes when he asks for your driver’s license & registration and tell him to go around to the other side of the car and give the ticket to your mate, because, “She/he made me do it”! Let me know how that works out for you. 

Old Coot says “Duh,”  more now than ever!

Published 9/08/2004

Last December I wrote an article about the one-word term, ‘DUH’! I asserted that it was the most useful 3 letter phrase in the English language; it conveys so much with so little effort, like when a TV sports announcer tells us during the half-time break that the Giants football team will win the game if they start moving the ball and scoring points. There is no better response to stupidity of that magnitude than, “DUH!”

No other expression provides such a perfect response to the stupid, obvious and dumb things we are forced to endure.

I find myself saying DUH a lot lately. It's got me worried. I'm afraid it’s a sign that I'm transforming from an old coot to an old geezer. I've tentatively decided it isn’t so. I’m blaming it on global warming; the change in the world’s climate is causing more and more people to say dumber and dumber things, forcing me to say Duh more often.

Sometimes people say stupid things directly to me; other times I overhear their comments. In either case, no matter how hard I try to stifle my DUH reflex, it always slips out. For example, I was talking to a friend’s mother the other day; I don’t want to use his real name; let’s call him Kyle. She told me she was taking him to the dentist later in the afternoon. He's 43, married and has 3 kids, but she has to take him to the dentist. I asked why and she told me that Kyle doesn't like going to the dentist. I bit my tongue, but the DUH slipped out anyhow. That DUH said a lot. It expressed the rest of my thought without me having to say, “Poor Kyle, he hates going to the dentist; isn't that too bad. The rest of us love it. We can’t wait to feel the prick of the Novocain needle, to hear the high pitch whine of the drill, to grab the chair handles so tight our fingers go to sleep as the dentist bears down while asking us an endless series of questions to distract our attention from the ‘procedure’ we are undergoing. We especially like to spit, sputter and drool the rest of the day as the Novocain slowly dissipates. Oh yes, Kyle is quite unique; he deserves to be babied by his mother in his time of crisis, DUH!”

I've been shouting ‘DUH’ at the Awakenings Coffeehouse so often that the owner asked me to limit my patronage to 1 hour per day, and to be sure I’m out the door by 8am, before they get busy. I don’t think it’s me; I don’t think anybody could stop themselves from yelling ‘DUH’ if they overhead some of the conversations I endure. Take the things I overhead yesterday:

Woman #1 – I hate fall. It reminds me that the holidays are coming up and I dread them, especially Christmas. I do all the shopping, the wrapping, the baking and then I spend the whole day cooking, but nobody wants to eat. They order a pizza. Woman #2 - Why don't you change what you're doing and make it into a time you can enjoy. Life is too short.

My ‘DUH’ was so loud the restaurant owner heard it in the kitchen.

Merchant #1 - Business is bad; there’s no place to park in this stupid village. Merchant #2 - Isn't that your car parked in front of your shop?

Again, I couldn’t stop a ‘DUH’ from slipping out. 

Old Coot #1 – The politicians say that spending $7 billion to change the name of route 17 to 86 and removing a few intersections will make our area prosper. Old Coot #2 – Don’t hold your breath. Do you really feel they think we are that gullible?

“DUH,” I shouted as I walked toward the door, the owner holding it open and pointing to the sidewalk where she wanted me to be finish my coffee.

I asked her if she thought the state budget would be late again next year. She looked at me with a funny expression and then shouted, “Of course not, DUH,” as I beat it up the street.

Squirrel teaches Old Coot a lesson

published 9/22/2004

I didn't know squirrels could swim. I hadn't given it a lot of thought, but had anyone asked me, I would have said no. Now I know better. I was out on the river with four friends in a kayak. You can always spot me when I'm with other people on the river; I'm the slowpoke. I say I’m taking my time so I can observe the wildlife along the riverbank, but it’s really because I'm an old coot and no matter how hard I paddle I can’t keep up with the group, any group, even the AARP crowd.

Jean was in the lead kayak. She pointed to a lump in the middle of the river and shouted, "What's that?" Being the elder, and self-proclaimed wildlife expert, I took a look and chuckled, “It’s just a log.” She didn't buy it. "No, she replied. It's furry!"

"Well,” I countered, “Then it must be a muskrat.” (They're all over the place, but not usually in the middle of the river). I started paddling I was sure it was a log and wanted to be first to get to it. It wasn't a log; it wasn't a muskrat. It was a squirrel, doing the dog paddle and making good time. I reported the news and then began to follow it to see where it was going. It headed straight for shore, taking ten minutes to get there from the middle of the river. When it hit the riverbank it jumped out of the water and scampered up a tree.

I was stunned; we all were. None of us knew that squirrels could swim. We discussed why it was in the middle of the river. Did it fall out of a tree along the bank and swim in the wrong direction? Was it a teenage squirrel running away from home? Was it an old coot squirrel, banished by the clan for talking about the good old days all the time?

I thought I’d never find out why the squirrel swam across the river, but through a quirk of fate I stumbled on the answer. The mystery is solved. I was at a meeting of the Riverwalk advisory committee. A nice couple from Owego sat next to me. They have a house on the river and do a lot of kayaking. I asked them if they had been out lately. "No, we haven’t. How about you?" I told them about my squirrel experience. "In fact, I concluded, the squirrel hopped ashore near your house."

They both began to laugh. I didn't think they'd be able to stop. It was like when you laugh in church; they couldn’t get it under control. Finally they calmed down and the husband, wiping tears from his eyes, told me what was so funny. He'd been trapping squirrels and transporting them across the river. He caught nine so far this summer, but the squirrel population in his yard hadn’t changed. He’d wondered if they were coming back via the Court Street Bridge. It never crossed his mind that they might be swimming back. "The whole thing makes sense now," he exclaimed.

I learned a good lesson. Just when you think you know everything, something happens to show you how little you really do know. I didn't know squirrels could swim, did you?

medical privacy irks the Old Coot

Published 9/29/2004

I hate the medical privacy regulations. I thought I was involved in a house closing the first time I encountered the rules at my doctor’s office; I signed and initialed more forms than when my wife and I bought our house. I had to sign the same stuff all over again at the dentist, the skin specialist and the eye doctor. I probably should have taken a lawyer with me. A million trees were cut down to make the “Notice of Privacy Practices” booklet that medical providers are required by law to give to their patients. The law, “Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act” was passed in 1996, but the privacy component went into effect last year. The medical community refers to it as the HIPPA regulations. They should call it the “Hippo” regulations, an animal that closely resembles the enormity of the process.

I’m getting ready to make another doctor's appointment; first I have to psych myself up. It's something I dread, not the examination, the periphery stuff, the process I have to go through before I see the doctor. It starts with the phone book, "What number should I call?” The listing in the Yellow Pages offers 5 or 6 choices. I make my selection using the “Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Moe” method. When the call goes through an answering machine confronts me with a new dilemma, multiple choices, “What option should I pick?” I usually go with, "stay on the line," because by the time I listen to all the choices I can’t remember the one that fits my situation. This time it doesn't matter. I need to talk to a real human; it’s the only way I can make sure the doctor has the CAT scan on hand that he took of my neck last year.

The scan was taken because I'd complained of a neck ache; he ordered an X-ray and a CAT scan. An X-ray technician called two weeks after the ordeal. “The x-ray doesn't show any gross abnormalities for a person your age," she reported, in a bored monotone. "What does that mean," I asked? (I hate it when they tell you your such & such is fine, for a person your age.) "Pretend I'm 21; now tell me how bad it is," I responded, but the technician would say no more; she would only relay the doctor's message, not interpret it. "Well, what about the CAT scan," I asked. "I don't know anything about a CAT scan," she replied, just the x-ray. You'll have to call the doctor about that.

I tried; I really did, but I could never get through to him. It didn't matter anyhow; I got a 2nd opinion in the locker room at the Binghamton YMCA. I swim there a couple of times a week in an attempt to get the doctor to say, "Your heart is as strong as a person half your age.” He never does. My neck was sore all the time. I suspected a touch of arthritis, the degenerative stuff us old coots get in our vertebrae; it usually starts in our lower backs and works its way up. George, a fellow YMCA'er asked me why I only turned my head to the right to take a breath when I swam. “That will give you a chronic sore neck!” he advised. I took his advice. I changed my swimming style; the neck ache went away. George didn't charge a cent.

It’s a good thing I have George, because even when I used e-mail to get CAT scan results from the doctor I failed; the “Privacy” regulations wouldn’t allow it. The doctor’s secretary responded to let me know that they couldn’t send the results over the Internet until I came into the office and signed a form and received a pass- word. I ran into the regulations yet again at the pharmacy. I handed my prescription to the clerk and asked her to announce on the loud speaker when it was ready; “I’ll be looking around at the junk in the store.” "I'm sorry," she replied. "Someone will know that you are getting a prescription and that violates your privacy rights."

"OK," I responded. When the prescription is ready, announce that my cab is here. I'll know what you mean and my privacy won’t be violated." She refused. Poor woman; she didn't know she was dealing with an old coot. I said, "Fine," and then walked over to the pharmacist area and yelled back to druggist, asking him if my prescription was ready. I did this again in 30 seconds and then again after another half minute. He got the message. "I'll have it announced on the loud speaker when your cab arrives,” he yelled over to me, rolling his eyes and scurrying back to his elevated platform behind the counter. I call it the "Pill Hill." I can't figure out why they have to be two feet higher than the rest of us to pour pills into a bottle. Maybe it's where the expression, "getting high." comes from. It might be part of the privacy rules; it prevents anyone from looking over their shoulders. I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel more protected; I feel more in need of medical treatment, the kind where you lie on the couch and tell the doctor what’s bothering you.

Old coot takes a dive.

published 10/06/2004

We closed our pool this week. The water temperature slipped below 70 and was headed downhill fast. My wife stops going in when it drops to 80; my limit is 72. Our son will swim when it's in the 60's. If his pals are around, he’ll even go in when it’s in the 50’s. I miss the pool already. It’s kind of a magic device that tells you things about people. Their approach to the water reveals a lot about their personality. It will even tell you what they do for a living, if you know the code.

For instance, some people dive right in. They don't test the water; they don't ask, "How is it?" They walk to the edge, lean over and take the plunge. This group is primarily made up of cops, firemen and nurses. Doctors don't make the cut; they can't get in without asking questions about the temperature, the chemical composition, the depth, the texture of the bottom, etc.

People who dive in, but then break the surface in a loud scream are in sales. They have to let everyone know how it felt; they can’t help themselves.

Some people ask a lot of questions about the temperature before they go in: "Is it cold? Do you get used to it? Does it feel OK after you've been in awhile?" They can't go in until they know exactly how they might react to it. People in this group are teachers, lawyers and bank loan officers.

Another personality group enters the water in a calculated and conservative manner. They start by sticking in a toe, and then the foot. Eventually they bend over and get their hands wet and carefully splash water on their bodies. When they’ve completed their “bird bath” they’re ready to take the plunge. This group finds work as engineers or librarians, unless they go through the process with their backs to the water or with their eyes closed. Then you can find them working in administrative jobs: in schools, government bureaucracies or with accounting firms.

People who manage to keep their hair dry when they swim are in a special category altogether. They are the titans of business, the corporate “front office” crowd. They get wet, but strive to maintain a businesslike image. Dry, combed and styled hair is their substitute for the business suit.

People who stick in a toe, wave to everyone and then go back and sit in a lounge chair make up the last group that I’ve been able to identify. When they get home they tell everyone how great the water was, what fun. These people run the government; they're the politicians.

It’s sad to acknowledge that the pool season is over. I won’t be able to finish my analysis of pool personalities. Oh well, maybe next year.

Ps. In case you’re wondering how old coots enter a swimming pool, we dive right in, no matter the temperature, in fact the colder the water the quicker we get in. It’s not because we’re fearless or brave; we love the rush our systems get from the shock of lowering our body temperature so fast. It speeds up the flow of blood to our entire body. We feel like teenagers, if for only minute. It’s a nice trip down memory lane. I wish I’d taken one last dive before I fastened down the cover.

Old Coot goes on the dole

published 10/13/2004

I applied for social security the other day. It's something all old coots do. I went in person; I thought it too important to do over the phone or on the Internet. I was wrong.

It started the minute I entered the Federal building in Binghamton. You have to enter through a revolving door. I don't like these things. I always get whacked or pinched when I encounter one. This door was out of kilter; it started hard and then wouldn't stop. It threw me into the lobby, the same way that a bouncer tosses a troublemaker out the door. Two rumpled security guards met me inside. "Where are you going?" one of them asked as he helped me to my feet. "To the social security office," I replied. "You'll have a long wait," he warned. I didn't care. I'd been watching the government extract an unconscionable amount of money from my paycheck since the early 60's. I could wait a little while to start the payments going in the other direction. I was wrong.

The guard took my nap sack and put it through an X-ray machine. I wasn't worried. It only contained my writing notebook and a few pens. It passed the test and then it was my turn. I was directed through a metal detector. I made it, in spite of the small jack knife and metal glass frames in my front pocket. I entered the waiting room and settled myself into an orange vinyl chair in the corner. The room was nearly full. An elderly woman leaned over and advised me to go back and get a number. I'd walked right by the rack on the way in so I went over and got one, number 16. I didn't care that it was so high; this was an important event and I was eager for it to unfold. I didn’t mind that it might take some time.

I took out my notebook and started writing; it was my article about squirrels, the one about how they can swim. I wrote for twenty minutes, glancing at the clock and my fellow citizens who were also there to face the bureaucracy. We were a mixed bag. Some were old coots like me, anxious to sign up for our government pension. Others were young people: getting a replacement card because they'd lost theirs or applying for a death benefit for a relative who had recently passed away. We were all in the same boat; we had to wait our turn. Finally, one of the two clerks that serviced the room from behind bulletproof glass, yelled out, "Number six." Nobody moved. She shouted it out again and an old coot and his wife from the other side of the room stood up and shuffled toward the teller window.

That's when I started to have misgivings about doing this in person. "Number six, I said to myself. I've got number sixteen, ten to go and it took twenty minutes to call one number." I looked around at my surroundings. The door caught my eye first. It had a sign on it; everything in a government office has a sign of some sort on it. This one said, "Social Security - Visitors only, No Food or Beverage." They can't just identify the room and let it go at that, they have to let you know they’re in charge.

There was a video camera in the corner of the room near the ceiling. They must expect one of us to get irritated and cause an outburst. They want to get it on film to assure a successful prosecution. I looked at the wall behind me; it held an official government banner, “Social Security – Helping People Live Better for 65 Years.” Otherwise, the place was bleak: green walls, granite floors, a clock on one wall above a plastic rack of information booklets. I didn’t feel “secure,” in spite of the proclamation on the banner at my back.

Number six and his wife finally made it to the teller. “I’m here to collect my pension,” he announced. “What’s your social security number,” replied the stone-faced clerk. He didn’t get past the first three numbers – “007,” he said. Then his wife stepped in and told the clerk it was 077, not 007. That’s when I decided to pack it in. I knew I’d never get out of there. I went home and signed up on the Internet; it took twenty minutes. My big day was a flop.  

It’s time to clean up our language.

published 10/20/2004

I’m sponsoring a new law. It will mandate the removal of over-used, lame and worn out words and phrases. If they’ve been in use for over five years they have to go. It’s time to clean house; lets fill up the trash bin. 

The first one that needs to go is, “As we speak.” I’m so sick of watching some “suit” on TV say that the problem is being worked on, “As we speak.” In the first place, WE aren’t speaking, he is! We’re listening, and groaning. It’s been overdone; lets just go back to saying, “Right now.”

“Been there, done that,” is the next phrase that has got to go. Let’s “literally” put it in the trash bin and put “literally” along side it in a two for one special. We can live without them; we can simply say, “I know,” in place of, “Been there, done that.” If we feel compelled to add more feeling we can drag out its equivalent from the 60’s, “I feel your pain.” And, “literally,” well that doesn’t need a replacement. It adds nothing to a sentence; it is literally useless.

 Here are a few more gems that need disposal. 

#1 – Window of opportunity – I vote for going back to, “It’s now or never.”

#2 – Significant other – if he really is significant you’d be married to him, not struggling to find some way to describe the boob standing next to you.

#3 – Soccer Moms – Politicians in Washington invented this one. I vote to call women whose kids play soccer, mothers. If we don’t, the next thing we know we’ll have a whole new list of designations to keep track of: piano moms, football moms, video game moms, etc.

#4 – Siblings – I never knew a kid with siblings. All the ones I grew up with had brothers or sisters. It’s bad enough when you hear some professor type refer to children of the same parents as siblings, but when you start to hear kids using the term on themselves it’s time to act. Get rid of it fast!

SUV is another term invented by the politicians in Washington. They use it to pit one part of society against another: energy wasters versus the green crowd. Heck, most SUV people just buy them to get around safely in the snow. They’re not making a political statement; they’re not trying to harm the environment. Let’s go back to saying they have a car with 4-wheel drive. Now, is that so bad?

There is a disconnect between school officials and the public; a lot of it is caused by language differences. We don’t know what the school people are talking about and they think we’re stupid because we don’t get it. Interdisciplinary is one of their favorites. If they just said that the 4^th and 5^th grades will be together for a class or two, or that History and English will be taught together, then we would get it. But instead, they use, “Interdisciplinary,” and we roll our eyes and turn to each other with a look that says, “What are they talking about?” Let’s toss interdisciplinary in the trash.

My last nomination for the scrap pile is “Weapons of mass destruction. They should jail the person who came up with this one, right now, as we speak, literally put him in the hoosegow.  It’s a nuclear bomb, a nuke; we all know it can cause mass destruction. It’s so lame. If we don’t stop them, they’ll expand it. A gun will become a weapon of selective destruction, a knife will become a weapon of pointed destruction and a politician’s mouth will become a weapon of mass obstruction. Well, maybe we should keep that last one around.  

Don’t put the old coot on the “no call” list!

Published 11/03/2004

The election is over; at least I assume it is. I don't know because I'm writing this a few days beforehand. It might be like last time when the vote count went on for weeks. Anyhow, the campaigning is finished, and thank heavens! If I never see another political ad or hear a campaign promise I'll reach nirvana. In 2002 the politicians passed a campaign financing law to regulate campaigning, the McCain - Fiengold Bill. They got one provision of the law backwards, the one that prevents us from running political ads 60 days prior to the election. It's not the citizens who should be banned from the airwaves it's the politicians. They should be gagged 60 days prior to Election Day and if they have anything to say to us they should be forced to put it in writing and send it to us via snail mail or e-mail. In addition, they should be required to do their writing at a desk in a public school classroom under the watchful eye of a proctor to make sure they aren’t cheating. We don’t want to hear from a clever speechwriter or a campaign spinner. We want to know what’s on the candidate’s mind.   

This would improve the election process over the onslaught of campaign ads we are now forced to endure. Most ads violate the truth in advertising regulations, though only businesses are subject to the Regs; the politicians made themselves exempt. They do this with a lot of the laws they pass. For example, United States Congressmen can not be charged with sexual harassment by their employees. They had to exempt themselves from harassment laws; half of them would be in jail if they didn’t.

They're not subject to truth in advertising regulations so they promise us whatever they think we might swallow. It gets worse every year. This year, in addition to the usual promises of world peace and prosperity, they even went so far as to promise to cure cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injuries and a whole slew of other debilitating conditions. 

A few years ago they weren't so adventurous. They only promised to stop salesmen from calling us on the phone. They thought we were too weak and stupid to handle the gyrations of our free enterprise system; we didn't know how to say no. Of course the calls still come, in spite of the new regulations and the millions of people who signed up to be placed on a "No Call List." They should have asked an old coot for help, not some Washington DC slickmeister. An old coot could have helped the public get rid of unwelcome sales calls with out a whole new set of federal regulations. 

For example, we would have told you to tell the telemarketer to hang on a second, that you’ll be right back, when you get caught by one on the phone. Then put the receiver down and go do something. When you get back the sales rep will be gone. Most of them have a sign on their desk that says, "Time is money." They’ll try someone else. Another good one is to just say, "I'm tied up right now; Give me your home number and I'll call you back. When do you sit down to dinner"? My favorite is to fake a foreign language. "Heelooo! I canna  geet wha you talkin man; No speaka da Englash." It's the same thing you should do when people running for office ask what they can do for you. Look them dead in the eye and say, "No speaka da bull!"

THE BIG LIE – “FAST FOOD”

First Published in “The Old Coot Essays” 2001

Republished in the Courier 12/18/2002

A Few weeks ago I took three of my grandchildren, Jake –5, Hannah- 3 and Abby – 2, to MacDonald’s for lunch. It was the day Jake and Hannah’s sister Callie was born; my part in the process was to watch the kids while my daughter, Wendy, was at the hospital. I sat at the table trying to entertain the antsy threesome while Abby’s mother, Kelly (my 2^nd daughter), waited in line for a “fast food” order. It was the longest thirty minutes of my life. I like going to MacDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s and all the rest of the fast food restaurants, but I think it’s time that they admit the obvious and stop referring to themselves as “fast.” Fast applies to the service at Harris’s Diner; a small locally owned restaurant, housed in a cramped Quonset hut next to the fire station in Owego. It does not provide any customer parking, a special menu items for kid nor an indoor playground, yet it beats the pants off the international fast food chains.

I’m not a regular at Sam Harris’s diner; I only stop by every week or so for breakfast. I wander in at 6 am, though it doesn’t open until 7. The lights are down low and Sam isn’t around, but a few customers are hanging out at the counter and at tables in the back, drinking coffee, shooting the breeze and reading the paper. The coffee urns are full. The “regulars” made it. At 6:45 Sam comes in, trades insults with a few of the rabble and goes in the back room to do some prep work. I sit at the counter with a choice seat near the grill, a cup of coffee before me, having been served by one of the gracious regulars. Sam flicks on the lights and fires up the grill. He starts things in motion by piling on a mountain of home fries and a dozen strips of bacon. He knows what the regulars want. Hazel, Sam’s faithful waitress, comes in at seven on the dot, ready to wait tables and bus the dirty dishes, a tough job for a gal well past retirement age, but one she does with class and a smile.

I sit with my coffee and watch the show. I don’t think there is anything more entertaining than a good grill man, and Sam is one of the best. He’s cracking eggs with one hand, flipping pancakes with the other and discussing last night’s Yankee game with a customer across the room. More “regulars” stream in, trade insults back and forth, head for the coffee pot behind the counter and help themselves, some using their very own personalized cups stored on a shelf above the pot. Hazel glides around exchanging pleasantries and taking orders, but Sam takes mine since I’m sitting right near his work area. The average time between giving your order and getting it is less than five minutes. In my case, sitting at the counter, I get my two eggs over light, home fries, ham and toast in just three minutes. This, is fast food. Hazel drops of the check when the food is served. You never have to wait for her to get around to it like in most restaurants. A pile of bills and change lie in a heap next to the cash register. Customers settle up themselves, making change and leaving the meal ticket as they pass the register on their way out. The “regulars” even go so far as to open Sam’s cash register when they can’t make correct change from the pile of cash on the counter. It sure beats watching a corporate cloned “co-worker” at MacDonald’s scanning a computerized cash register for a picture of French fries so he can tally up your order.

Yes, I definitely think we should stop referring to purveyors of food cooked an hour earlier and kept warm, as the fast food industry. We should call them the “warmed up leftover” industry. I guess I think that because I’m just an old coot.

Origins

 I’m an old coot. I can’t escape it. It seems like only yesterday I was 17; today I’m sliding out of control toward 65. I yell at the TV, swear at the paper and growl at store clerks. Somebody’s got to point out the errors of well-intentioned social meddlers; It might as well be me. Be careful as you read these essays, you may find you agree with me and inadvertently discover an ugly truth, that you’re an old coot too.

                                                Merlin Lessler

                                                   (The Old Coot)