The Bloods. The Crips. And, now the Old Coots!
Published July 6, 2011
It’s gang warfare! The Bloods & the Crips have been battling it out for fifty years. Both gangs sprung up in the 1960’s, in Los Angeles. They’ve spread their mayhem across the country and around the world. Even, as we found out last year on a Caribbean cruise, on the tiny Caribbean Island of St. Lucia. We were more than surprised when our tour guide complained that ten teenagers were killed in the previous 12 months in fights between the Bloods and Crips.
Now, a third gang is emerging, the Old Coot gang. The Bloods and Crips do it for territory, for power. The old coot gang is doing it for memory. None of us have one, a complete and functioning one anyhow. But, when we gang up, watch out. Not only can we tell you who is president of the United States; we can tell you who starred in “Titanic.” Sometimes, we can even come up with today’s date. Maybe not the year, though. We are a power to recon with when we gather in numbers, but when we are alone, we’re confused, bewildered, memory challenged and usually muttering to ourselves, “What was that guys name?” But, not anymore. Thanks to modern technology
Like the Bloods and the Crips, we ‘re always armed. They carry guns and knives; we carry “smart” phones. We never would have figured out how to use them if we hadn’t done it as a gang. Mine cost $24, but it’s worth thousands more. It keeps me safe (and smart) when I’m out in the world on my own. If something comes up that I want to remember, I open the menu, go to the voice recorder, mumble into it, and then continue on my merry way. I never forget to retrieve the message because I changed the wallpaper from a picture of a south sea island to a large print text message that says, “LOOK AT THE VOICE RECORDER STUPID!” It’s right in front of me every time I use the phone.
I use the camera function the same way. If I see something I’d like to remember, I take a picture. Like, I did as I was coming down Mountain Road the other day. There was a dead snake in the middle of the lane. A rattlesnake! I took a picture and attached it to an e-mail to Carole LaPlante. She’s a wildlife rehabilitator and storehouse of information. “What kind of snake is this, in the attached picture?” I wrote. “It looks like a rattler to me. My wife says it’s a milk snake.” Her response, “You didn’t attach anything, you old coot! Try again.” So, I did. It turned out my wife was right (as always); it was a common milk snake. I never should have checked. My story sounded so much better when I went around telling (and boring) everybody with my report on the rattlesnake nest on Mountain Road. Now, I have nothing interesting to say, even my old coot gang has turned on me. They renamed me, “Rattlesnake.”
The Old Coot mourns the loss of chocolate milk.
Published July 13, 2011
It’s the law! “No chocolate milk!” Los Angeles is the latest public school to ban this evil, dark liquid, placing it on a growing list of taboos, right up there with tobacco, alcohol and drugs. It’s another salvo in the war on obesity. “It’s why kids are fat,” according to public officials implementing the new ban. L.A. joins the District of Columbia, Boulder Valley, Colo. and Berkley, Calif. as the first schools in the nation to only serve plain milk in school cafeterias. Yet, they all continue to sell fruit juices that contain more sugar and more calories.
It pained me to the quick when I learned of the “No Chocolate Milk” policy. Chocolate milk was the highlight of my day, starting in 7th grade when I moved on from my neighborhood school, where I walked home every day for lunch, to junior high where I ate in the cafeteria. Chocolate milk wasn’t on my mother’s menu. My parents wouldn’t spring for such a luxury, though they did allow us to make our own every once in a while, dumping globs of Hershey’s chocolate syrup into a glass of whole milk. Our homemade concoction never measured up to the variety that came from the dairy. I was amazed on my first day in 7th grade when I spotted chocolate milk in the school cafeteria, on the milk tray right next to the cashier – 10 cents for a pint of regular milk, 12 cents for chocolate. My day in prison took on a new dimension. For a 2-cent premium, there was a reason to endure the Math, History, English and Latin classes that came before lunch. Chocolate milk and gym class, the only highlights in my day in prison.
But, it won’t work! It never does. Politicians ban stuff and people find a way to get it. Even kids. There will be a legion of shady characters in long trench coats all around the L.A. schools, saying, “Psst, hey kid, I’ve got some chocolate milk for sale. It’s the good stuff. $5 a pint.” Kids will try to smuggle it into school in thermos bottles wrapped in gym shorts and stuffed into their book bags. Guards will be stationed at the entrance to check bags and pat down the students. It will be as bad as the ordeal you go through to get on an airplane. Delivery trucks carrying chocolate milk will be hijacked. Speakeasies will open up in the back rooms of soda fountains. A whole new crime war will be launched. This one, focused on chocolate milk. I’d hate to be a “cafeteria lady” when the 688,000 students in the L.A. school system go back to school this fall and find out that chocolate milk is no longer on the menu. It will be worse than a bunch of old coots finding out that the early bird special has been outlawed.
The Old Coot is a bubble person.
Published July 20, 2011
“Think outside the box!” You hear this all the time. It’s a rouse, aimed at getting you to agree with someone, a not so subtle suggestion that you’re stuck in your ways, a dinosaur. I don’t get it. What box? I think in a rounded bubble, not a box. If you read the comics (funnies, to people my age), you know that characters in the strips have bubbles floating above their heads: it shows what they are thinking. It’s the people that tell us to think outside the box that are the dinosaurs. I tell them, “I’m thinking outside the bubble, why don’t you join me?”
These “outside the box people” are the ones who created the box in the first place. They live in a world of square corners. But, to us bubble people, corners should be curved, especially street corners. My car can’t perform a square turn, yet every time I turn right or left I’m forced to try. The road should curve at the corner. But, box people like straight lines. It’s why trucks navigating the intersection at North and Main in Owego run up over the curb and onto the sidewalk.
Round corners would make it a lot easier for the trucks, for pedestrians too. It doesn’t matter to me. I already round off the corners. Usually, it’s when I’m on foot, but once in a while when I’m in the car, daydreaming or thinking outside my bubble. If it’s your lawn I cross when I round a corner, I apologize. My wife doesn’t cut across. She walks to the corner, makes a sharp, military left or right and catches up with me half way down the block. It’s a perfect system for the two of us. I’m a slow, nosy (gawking) walker; she goes at a fast clip. It’s the square corners that let me keep pace.
The State DOT doesn’t like my “round corner” suggestion. They say pedestrian safety is first and foremost in intersection design, and claim that round corners would make it unsafe for people to cross the street. I don’t cross at corners anyway, nobody should. It’s too dangerous. It used to be safe, but when the turn right on red after “stopping” law transformed into the turn right on red after “stepping” (on the gas) law, getting across the street took on a whole new dimension, sort of like running with the bulls in Pamplona. The only safe place to cross is 25 feet down from the corner. Round corners would put you in the perfect spot to cross, but it won’t ever happen. The people in charge have a box mentality; they love square corners and straight lines. They tell us to think outside the box. But, us bubble thinkers know the box people are the ones trapped in a rigid thinking pattern. It would burst their “box” if they found out!
The Old Coot learns to put things off.
Published July 27, 2011
People are wrong! They think old coots are forgetful. It’s not true; our memories are pretty good, but we do suffer from a chronic illness that makes us appear forgetful. It’s called “the do-it-right-now” syndrome. It’s the exact opposite of the syndrome we had when we were teenagers. I know; it’s hard to believe that old coots like us were ever teenagers, but we were. And, just like today’s teens, we suffered from “the put-it-off-until-the last-minute” syndrome back then. Now, we’ve gone the opposite way.
We walk into the living room to get the paper and spot a smudge on the mirror. Our “do it right now” disease sends us back into the kitchen to get the Windex and a paper towel. But, on the way, a hairball on the rug attracts our attention. We bend over to pick it up and the trip to the kitchen for window cleaner flies right out of our head. “Where’s the paper?” our wife asks when we pass her on our way to the garbage can. “Right here,” we reply, and hold out the hairball.
This happens all through the day. Whenever we go to do something, the “do it right now” syndrome sends us off in another direction. We never finish anything. We’re as bad as the teenagers who never start anything. Thank goodness for the generations in between; they get things done. But, you have to give us credit, teenagers and old coots alike; we have good intentions.
I went to the Betty Ford Clinic to see if I could beat my addiction. It was tough! They made me go cold turkey. I spent the first week in a simulated house. They sent me to the front door to get the mail. They had distractions set up all along the way. Two aides walked with me, one on each side. When I reached for a jacket that was lying on the floor, one of the aides slapped my hand with a ruler; it did the trick. The nuns in my catechism class subjected me to this behavior adjustment technique when I was a kid. They used it to make me (and the rest of the class) pay attention and to drive the lessons into my thick skull. I thought I had built up an immunity to it, but when the Betty Ford aides whacked my hand with a ruler, I felt like I was 10 years old again. I pulled my hand away from the jacket and shrieked. It took three days of intense treatment, but I’m completely cured. My wife asked me to go into the living room and get the paper the other day. I said, “Sure! In a minute.” My teenage grandson piped up and said, “Same here!”
