The Old Coot gets stuck.
Published August 3, 2011
So, there I was, in another old coot mess. It’s almost guaranteed to happen if I’m left home alone. This time, I was on the porch roof; the ladder was lying on the sidewalk; I couldn’t get down. I was up there to wash the clapboards on our 206-year-old house. I’ve convinced myself that a gentle wash with dish detergent keeps the paint fresh and helps the old siding make it through another year. Everything was going fine until I yanked the hose to stretch it around the corner to the front of the house. It looped over the ladder and sent it spinning into the bird feeder. Then, it careened into my wife’s prized flowerbed before coming to rest on the sidewalk. My first thought was, “Oh no! My wife’s not home.” (How will I get off the roof?) I quickly came to my senses. “Oh good! My wife’s not home."
Still, I was in a jam. I couldn’t get down without the ladder. I stood on the edge of the roof staring at it mournfully, wondering if I might somehow use the hose to pull it back up. Two squirrels looked up at me with smug grins on their faces. They were gorging themselves on the birdseed that spilled out of the feeder. We’ve been at war for years. I try to keep them out of the feeder. How hard can it be, a human against a squirrel? But, they always win. I could tell what they were thinking by the wide grins on their faces, “Well, old man, we’ve beaten you again!”
I’ve tried every anti-squirrel contraption made and rigged up a few on my own, but the squirrels always end up dining in luxury, while I end up paying the tab. It wouldn’t surprise me if they somehow looped the hose over the ladder causing me to pull it into the feeder. Anyhow, I was stuck. I covered up my panic by continuing on with my chore, acting as though the ladder was exactly where I wanted it. I sprayed the front of the house, dipped the brush into the suds and washed away, while furtively looking up and down the street for a knight on a white horse. He came, half an hour later, but he was on a bicycle, not a horse, Damon Tinkham, (Tinkham with an i, as he informed me after it was all over, so I could get it correct for the paper) I yelled, “Hey Damon!” He screeched to a halt nearly colliding with his son Dason who was trailing him by a few feet. He looked around but couldn’t figure out where my bleat was coming from. Why would he; I was fifteen feet in the air, hidden in a dense growth of tree limbs.
“Up here!” I yelled, finally catching his eye. I explained my dilemma. I’m not sure which pair got up off the ground from a laughing fit first, Damon and his son, or the two squirrels. Eventually, the roar subsided and Damon placed the ladder against the side of the house. I was saved! I climbed down, removed the smashed flowers, evened out the mulch and refilled the bird feeder. It was just another day in Old-Coot-ville.
The Old Coot sees the light.
Published August 10, 2011
It’s war! Right here in the Village of Owego. The big artillery came out this week. Four hundred watts of fluorescent light power. It all started weeks ago, when mama skunk took up residence under Matt’s front porch. I can’t mention his full name; the last time I did he put me on notice. He wanted cash if I wrote about his antics. It doesn’t matter anyway; he uses an alias most of the time - Captain America. So, when the aroma started waffling through his house, Captain America went into action. He slipped into his blue tights and brought out a have-a-heart trap. It worked. Five baby skunks were captured and sent to Guantanamo Bay with the rest of the terrorists. But, the problem wasn’t solved. Mama was still around and was too smart to stroll into a wire cage for a dab of peanut butter. Day after day, she left behind a little reminder that she’d found a home.
That’s when Plan B went into effect. Captain America loaded up on mothballs and scattered them under the porch. Now, his house was invaded by the delightful olfactory combination of skunk scent and mothballs. Not exactly the outcome he’d promised his wife. Then came Plan C. He hooked up an old radio, turned up the volume and placed it on top of the mothballs. The skunk loved it. Apparently she’s a fan of country music. So, Captain America tuned the radio so it only produced static. That didn’t work out so hot either. The static was intermittent. Every time someone walked by the house their presence affected the tuning and the radio started blaring pop music. Mama skunk was serenaded by Lady Gaga, and people walking by were startled by music coming out of thin air.
That’s when Plan D and E were launched, simultaneously – boards were set around the porch to block ingress and egress and bright lights were wired up. The boards were nothing more than a nuisance to Mama Skunk; she simply pushed them aside. But, the bright lights, all four hundred watts, did her in. She moved on to greener pastures. Captain America declared victory! Now, he’s got to figure out how to pay his giant-sized electric bill. It’s really building up since this tactic only works as long as the lights stay put. The minute he shuts them off, she will be right back.
If you are among the people who were startled by the glow coming from under Captain America’s porch while strolling through the village, you can relax; it isn’t an alien spacecraft hiding under his porch; it’s just the aftermath of a brutal skunk war. Eventually, the whole village will be lit this way because the skunk will move from house to house until she finds a dark place to call home. Streetlights will no longer be needed; our taxes will go down, and we’ll owe it all to Captain America and the great skunk war of 2011.
The Old Coot is a distracted driver.
Published August 17, 2011
I was riding around in my 34 year-old MG the other day. Don’t be impressed. It’s nothing special, just an old friend. I only take it out in good weather. The top goes down in May and stays down. It’s an old coot thing that often finds me racing home with a rain-splattered windshield. Needless to say, it spends a lot of time in the garage. But, the other day the sun came out and so did my British racing green MG with an old coot at the wheel. The car is a lot like me: old, quirky and slow to start. It creaks when it moves and you never know when it’s going to conk out.
It does have a serious flaw; it doesn’t have a beer can holder. That’s what people from my generation called cup holders when they first started showing up in cars. You could drive around and sip on a cold “Bud” on a hot day back then. Get caught with an open beer can today and you’re in big trouble. With the law! With society!
I only take coffee with me when I go for a ride these days, but it’s still a challenge in my old MG. I either hold it between my knees or balance it on a flat spot behind the gearshift. Neither method works very well; I’m constantly tending to it. I’m more distracted than someone sending text messages. But, I don’t have it as bad as some people. I only have a single cup to keep an eye on. I see a lot of drivers with a bigger challenge. They have plenty of cup holders for their drinks, but they don’t have a place for their super sized meal from McDonald’s, forcing them to do what I do with my coffee, juggle it around on their lap or any flat surface within reach. I’m sure you’ve seen them; their dashboards look like a buffet table at an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord. They can barely see out the window. It takes skill and agility to eat on the run. Especially, with a GPS yelling at you, a ringing cell phone, a wadded up Old Coot article on the empty seat that ticked you off and two kids in the back seat screaming because the DVD player stopped working.
It won’t be a problem for long. Several companies are working on a self-driving car. The Google Corporation is leading the way. (Yes, the same company that finds answers to all your questions on the Internet). Their test car has been spotted in the San Francisco area: sailing along the Pacific Coast Highway, weaving down Lombard Street, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge and tooling around Lake Tahoe. Some people are horrified at the prospect of driving on a road with cars piloted by computers. Not me! It’s the drivers that are texting, munching and yelling at their kids that I’m afraid of. Or, even worse, a brother old coot coming up on my bumper, waving his fist and yelling at a talk show host on his radio. If this happens to you, it won’t be me riding your bumper. I have enough trouble keeping my coffee container under control.
The great dinosaur expedition. (a 1950’s Southside adventure)
A Binghamton Press Sunday feature article – August 21, 2011
“Look! A baby dinosaur skull!” I didn’t know it when John Almy announced his discovery, but before the day was over, I’d regret ever becoming a dinosaur hunter. He was the new kid on the block. This was his first venture into the hills on the south side of Binghamton that hovered above our new, 2-block, Denton and Chadwick Road neighborhood. Woody (Sherwood Walls) and I were old pros. We’d been scouting the nearby hills for three years, ever since we’d turned five and were allowed to venture beyond the confines of the block. Our release came when we started school at Longfellow Elementary on Pennsylvania Avenue. “If we’re old enough to walk to school, we’re old enough to explore the big woods,” we argued. And much to our surprise, we were allowed to venture forth. It was the 1950’s. Kids had a lot more freedom back then.
We put aside our cap pistols and bow & arrow sets, deciding that playing cowboys & Indians was for little kids. We strapped knapsacks on our backs (brought home from WWII by our fathers and uncles), loaded them with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and chocolate chip cookies, tied canteens filled with metal tinged milk to our belts and headed for the summit of the mountain in a quest for dinosaur bones. Twenty minutes later we crashed down on the first of three seldom used roads that traversed the hillside in long switchbacks that made a gradual assent to an aging farm-estate at the top. We were exhausted. It was a steep climb by the route we took, straight up. An even steeper and longer climb lay ahead. Two sandwiches and half of our milk supply disappeared before we started climbing again.
We eventually made it to the top, making sure to stay far away from the “haunted” house. It was run down and creepy; the old guy who lived in it hated kids and would race out the door with a shotgun if he spotted you messing around. That was the rumor, anyhow. It was barely a working farm anymore. There were some fenced in pastures. But, they were overgrown and only a cow or two was in evidence. We found an area in one of the deserted pastures with a dozen or so large mounds. We were sure they contained the remains of T-rex and his smaller relatives. We crawled under a rusted bob wire fence and started digging. We used Army-issued, folding shovels, “borrowed” from my grandfather’s attic.
Nothing! That’s what two hours of hard labor got us. We did unearth some bonelike fragments but they turned out to be old tree roots. We slunk back down the hill and through the neighborhood, passing the Almy family’s brand new house. Johnny was in the front yard and asked where we’d been. “Dinosaur bone hunting,” Woody grumbled. “We didn’t find any, but we’re going again tomorrow. Wanna go with us?” So, bright and early the next morning, we set off on the hunt, 3 boys, 6 peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, a dozen chocolate chip cookies, a canteen of milk and my dog, Topper. So named, because he was the first of his six siblings to make it to the top of the basement stairs.
This time we went to the other side of the mountain, further to the west, the section that Powder House Road girds on one side and Hawthorne Road on the other. Back in those days, Hawthorne Road followed the creek all the way over the rise and connected with Powder House Road, about two miles from Vestal Ave. Now it’s only three blocks long, cut off to make way for the subdivisions that started popping up in the early sixties. We found a promising area on a level spot halfway up the hill. We split up and started searching. We’d only been at it for a few minutes when Johnny yelled out those fateful words, “Look! A baby dinosaur skull!” We circled it, and couldn’t believe our eyes. It looked exactly like the head of a miniature T-rex. Woody pushed at it with a stick and a swarm of maggots squirmed out. A horrible odor engulfed us. But we were not deterred. Johnny stuck a stick in the eye socket and we escorted the skull to the creek and plunked it down. The water washed through it, sending hundreds of maggots (and an ugly gray wad of gunk) downstream.
We looked like hunters on an African safari as Woody and Johnny shouldered a long pole with the head hanging from the center while I led the parade. Mr. Almy was in his back yard as we broke through the underbrush and marched in with our dinosaur trophy. He took one look and ordered us to drop it. Then, he rushed us over to the hose and started scrubbing us down with ice cold water and yellow laundry soap. But it was too late. We were already turning green from spending the past two hours messing around with a rotting deer skull. It took twenty-four hours for the unrelenting waves of nausea to ebb. I was one sick dinosaur hunter. My episodes of heaving and stomach cramps didn’t stop until my father got some coke syrup from the soda fountain in Armand Emma’s drug store on the corner of Vestal Ave. and South Washington Street.
We brought back out our cowboy & Indian gear, deciding it wasn’t such a “little kid” pastime after all, especially when we added BB guns and hunting knives to the mix. Even with the possibility of shooting out an eye, it was a lot safer reliving the days of the old west on South Mountain than it was hunting for dinosaur bones.
The Old Coot knows which way the wind blows.
Published August 24, 2011
I did it! I broke my record. I went one year and eleven months without going into a rant over the weather alerts on TV. My old record was one year, two months. It was the Antiques Roadshow that put me over the edge this time. The appraiser on the show was examining a Red Ryder BB gun from the 1940’s. It looked just like the one hanging in my garage that I’ve had since I was a kid. Just as he got to the good part, the thousands of dollars I could get for it, he was drowned out by a horrible squawk, followed by a robotic voice warning of a thunderstorm headed our way. Not a tornado! Not a hurricane! Not a tsunami! But, a common, garden-variety thunderstorm.
Now I’ll never know if my Red Ryder will put me on easy street. More than likely, it will get me thrown in jail because I feel like charging into the US Weather Service headquarters and shooting up the place with it. Chicken Little (my name for the US Weather Service) is in control of the airwaves, and the sky is falling in their world. It started innocently enough, like most bureaucratic programs do, with the introduction of the Emergency Broadcasting System in 1963. It gave the president the power to interrupt TV and radio broadcasts in case of war, threat of war or a grave national crisis. Then the bureaucrats got involved and expanded it to cover weather hazards and civil emergencies. The name of the system was changed in 1997 to the Emergency Alert System. Several agencies fought for control and it ended up in the hands of three of them: FEMA, the Federal Communication Commission and the National Weather Service. It’s a horrible way to run things, by committee. It’s as bad as trying to get three old coots to decide where to go for the early bird special.
The power to control TV has proved too much for the Weather service; they treat every anomaly as an emergency and come marching across our screens, a white knight on a horse to the rescue. The slightest hot spell, cold snap, snow fall or thunder rumble is enough to get them going. And, they treat us as though we are too stupid to know what to do. Too stupid to come in out of the rain.
“What’s the big deal,” you ask. “They are just trying to keep us safe.” It is a big deal. Giving them control of TV and radio was just the beginning. The next step is underway in the Washington D.C. and New York City areas. They have gained control of the cell phone systems there and plan to expand across the country over the next several years. The big three wireless networks handed over the reins without a peep. Even if Chicken Little starts out by just warning of tornados and violent weather, she will eventually alert us to everyday things. - “Put on your sun screen!” – “Watch those calories!” – “Don’t Jay-walk.” It will turn us into Pavlov dogs, cowering in fear every time we hear that awful squawk. Chicken Little is getting louder!
Old Coot’s speak clearly.
Published August 31, 2011
I’m just plain stupid! The longer I’m around the more evident it becomes. The latest proof came in the form of a notice from the organization that manages my retirement fund. It started with a promise of understandability – PLAIN LANGUAGE - The Summary of Material Modifications (SMM) plan is a “PLAIN LANGUAGE” document that describes the plan amendment(s) to the Plan and provides the accompanying change(s) to the Summary Plan Description (“SPD”). I read it three times and finally got it, sort of. I then plowed into the actual document, proving once again just how stupid I am.
I flunked out on the first sentence – The Plan will not pay shutdown or other unpredictable contingent benefits, if any are provided, if the Plan’s Adjusted Funding Target Attainment Percentage (“AFTAP”) is (i) less than 60%, or (ii) would be less than 60%…… That’s where I quit, not even half way through the first sentence in the first paragraph with 11 more paragraphs to go. If this was the plain language version I can’t imagine what the fancy language version would be. I don’t know why I’m surprised. The plain language law that was passed by congress in 1980, forcing government agencies and businesses to provide information to consumers in plain language was itself unreadable, and hundreds of pages long.
They should have gone about it in another way – mandated that all government and business communications be written in old coot language. Take, for example, the plain language document explaining the changes in my retirement funding. If it was put in old coot language it would simply have said – “This info is something we’re forced to send you; we’re going to mess with your retirement fund and there is nothing you can do about it!” Sincerely yours …….
Life would be so much easier with things written in old coot language. And not just communications from business and government agencies. It would be great if the politicians were forced to have their words converted to “old coot language” too. How about the ever-favorite statement from politicians – “The American people want bla bla bla.” It’s never what the American people want; it’s what the politician wants. They’ve used that phrase lately to claim we want higher taxes and less benefits. Why would anyone in their right mind want to give that crowd more money to squander; yet you hear them say it’s what the American people want all the time. The old coot language would never let that phrase pass through the filter. They’d have to tell the truth. That’s what the American people really want it!
