The Old Coot knows the answer?
Published
April 4, 2012
Back in the dark ages, circa 15 B. G. (Before Google), we
rooted around for a piece of information, thumbing through dictionaries,
encyclopedias and old newspapers or squinting at faded microfiche screens.
Often times our inquiry went unanswered. The thought bubbles floating above our
heads were filled with question marks. If we absolutely had to have an
answer, we went to the library and asked to be directed to the proper reference
material. We’d ask, “How old was Joseph Kennedy when his son John was born?”
She (it usually was a she back then) gave us the Dewey Decimal System number
and pointed to the right aisle. You could even call on the phone and get an
answer, but not if you were a kid. You’d usually get an answer while you hung
on the line. Librarians were pretty resourceful; they had their own web of
information, strung together across the state. Long before the World Wide Web
came along and took center stage.
Most of the time the thing we wanted to know wasn’t
important enough to go to the trouble to find it out. We lived with our
ignorance. We lived with the question marks floating above our heads. Not
anymore. If we want to know something, no matter how insignificant, we Google
it and satisfy our curiosity. Useless tidbits of information, like, “Who does
the voice of Howard’s mother on the Big Bang Theory?” (It’s Carol Ann Susi, who
appeared in the Seinfeld episode where George took her on a date because her
mother controlled his unemployment check) Or, “How old is Clint Eastwood?” (81;
he’ll be 82 on May 31)
We’re smarter now, in this A.G. (After Google) era. We know
the facts and our minds aren't clogged with unanswered questions. But, there is
a distinction between the answers we got from the librarians and the answers we
get from Google. You could take what the librarians said to the bank. Not quite
so with Google. Pretty good, but not 100%. How can it be when Google lines up
the references by popularity, mixed in with web sites that pay to be there?
(Can you imagine the Encyclopedia Britannica people paying librarians to hand
patrons their text first?)
Google makes mistakes. One of the most telling is the
misspelling of their own name. They picked a math term to identify their
corporation, Googol. Googol is a large number, “one” followed by “one
hundred” zeros. It was selected because it represents the vast number of web
sites they will connect you to when you seek information. I know this because I
Googled it. I’m not 100% sure it’s accurate. If I wanted to be certain, I could
ask a librarian. But, I’m and old coot, and old coots don’t want to be 100%
accurate. The facts often mess up the case we’re trying to make.
The Old Coot is in a panic.
Published
April 11, 2012
You hear it all the time - a horn sends out a series of
blasts in a parking lot. You fumble in your pocket for your key ring to make
sure it’s not your car that’s causing the ruckus. When you discover it isn’t, a
smug grin crosses your face and you look around to snicker at the poor sap who
pushed his panic button by mistake. We
hear it! We ignore it! It’s so common, we never consider that someone may be in
trouble and need help. This “boy” has cried wolf too many times.
The auto-lock panic button is yet another clever invention
that has outlived its usefulness. It should be thrown on the junk pile, right
on top of the hi-fi turntable, the reel-to-reel tape recorder, the rotary dial
phone, the buggy whip. It’s time for automakers to remove this nuisance from
our lives, to eliminate the red button from auto door lock systems and give
customers a can of mace or a stun gun so they’ll be safe in parking lots.
I personally hope they don’t. It would spoil my fun. Like a
lot of old coots, I often find myself unsupervised in shopping center parking
lots. My wife hops out of the car and says, “I’ll just be a minute,” but I’m
prepared for a long wait, equipped with a newspaper, a thermos of coffee and
the car radio tuned to a sports talk show. When the paper is read, the coffee
consumed and the sports commentators start repeating themselves I exit the car
and get ready to play the panic button game. I head toward the store and wait
until there are a dozen or so people walking to and from their cars. Then, I
push the panic button on my key ring. The horn starts blaring; the game is on.
People fumble for their keys, thinking they pushed their panic button by
mistake.
This creates a true “panic.” Several car horns start
blasting as people push their panic buttons, thinking they are stopping their
horn from blowing but in fact are adding itto
the symphony. More and more instruments join the chorus. No one can
figure out what’s going on, whose horn is yelling for attention. They run back
to their cars to make sure it’s not theirs. That’s when I push my panic button
to silence my horn and go into the store. When my wife comes along and says,
“Sorry I took so long; did you get mad waiting?” I smile and answer, “ Of
course not. I had my paper and coffee. And, you know how much I like to people
watch. They really put on a show today!”
The Old Coot used to ……
Published
April 18, 2012
I was hanging out with a bunch of “forty-something” guys the
other day at the Goat Boy Coffeebar. They were talking about the workout they
had that morning, the basketball game at the Boys & Girls Club the previous
day, the bike ride up Montrose Turnpike planned for that afternoon. I sat mute.
I couldn’t participate, not without saying, “I used to” as a preface to every
comment. I used to play basketball in the noon league at the YMCA. I
used to bike up the steep hills of South Mountain. I used to, I
used to, I used to. And the hardest of all, “I used to be
your age! Now I’m an old coot.
All those “used to’s” get us into trouble, us old guys. We
start to think,” MAYBE?” As in, “Maybe I can still bang around a basketball
court with the young guys. Maybe I can give it all I’ve got and run a fast mile
on the high school track.” Or, do just one of the things the gang of
"forty-something" guys do without a thought that someday they’ll join
my “used to” crowd.
Then it happened. Daren made my day, talking about an old
guy he played basketball against when he was in his twenties. The guy was all
over him – stealing the ball, blocking shots, beating him to the other end of
the court on a fast break. “Wow!” he said to the old guy. I hope I’m in as good
shape as you, when I’m your age.” The guy was forty-one! Daren passed that
milestone several years ago. He was staggered when it hit him that he was now
older, than that “old guy.” It’s something he’ll get used to. In time.
This aging thing is weird. A ten year old will ask a young
adult how old he is. “Twenty,” the “old” guy replies. “You’re old!” the kid
exclaims. Old people are those people older than us. We move the “old” line as
we age. – “I’m glad I’m not that old, ” we say, pointing to a guy in his
fifties. – Or – “I’m young; not as old
as him,” nodding toward a sixty year old. -
Up, up, up goes the old age line. Then along comes Dave, on his daily
walk down West Beecher Hill, through town and back up the steep hill to his
house. He’s in the “eighty something” club. He does this every single day. Rain
or shine! Ninety degrees and muggy or two degrees below zero and windy! He
proves to us that age is just a number and it’s time to stop saying, “I used
to.”
The Old Coot is a dunker.
Published
April25, 2012
It was a symphony. The players lined up on swivel stools, a
steaming mug of coffee on the counter in front of them, a “plain” donut
clutched in their right hand, posed above their mug (except for Lefty). Then,
like instruments in an orchestra, the donuts were dunked on cue, “Plunk, plunk,
plunk – dunk, dunk, dunk.” That unfinished symphony is now finished. The
diner-donut-dunkers are gone. As are the toast-in-cocoa dunkers and the
crumpet-in-tea dippers. An era has come to an end.
Oh sure, there are dunkers out there. Of the ketchup and
French-fry ilk or the Oreos and milk variety. Here and there a grilled cheese
gets dunked in tomato soup. But, the legion of donut dunkers that lined the
silver diners vanished a decade or two ago. The Seinfeld TV show made the last
mention of dunking in public on Season 3, episode 7, when the camera panned to
a well-dressed gentleman dunking a donut in Dinky Donuts. Kramer claimed it was
Joe DiMaggio. (We’ll never know for sure)
People buy donuts by the dozen and consume them in private
at home these days. No one hops on a bar stool, executes a 360 degree swivel
and orders a cup of Joe and 2 plain donuts. And dunks! Even the company that
took the dunking process as their namesake (Dunkin Donut) backed away from
their heritage and discontinued the “dunkin” donut with its little dunking
handle. It no longer has a home on the racks that line the back wall. Coffee
comes in a Styrofoam container with a lid. Who can dunk in that atmosphere?
Old coot dunkers like me are extinct, exiled to society’s
attic, right next to the barrel makers and lamplighters. Coffee was 10 cents in
my early dunking days. Two plain donuts were a quarter. So were sugar donuts,
but none of us bought them; we didn’t want to be seen walking around town with
a frosty white mustache. Plain donuts were safe. Sugar donuts were for
kids.
Now that I’ve got that out of my system, I forgot my point.
That’s what you get from an old coot. A long rant about the good old days and
then nothing. I don’t even know what got me started. Probably that trip to the
dentist last week so Pam could fix yet another tooth that started to come apart
(an “old age” thing). It must have got me looking into the future, to a time
when I’ll only be able to eat a donut if I can dunk it. Sitting on a stool in
the diner and saying, “Hi,” to someone who greets me with, “How you doing
Gummy?” That’s even worse than being called, “Old Coot!”
