May 22, 2013 Article

The Old Coot is overloaded!

By Merlin Lessler

So here I am at a (wedding, opera, cocktail party, christening – you fill in the blank) standing around with the other men in attendance, looking lumpy. Our pockets are bulging with lipsticks, compacts, credit cards, store cards, wads of wallet photos, car keys, discount coupons, perfume samples and heavily highlighted copies of Men Are from Mars; Women Are from Venus. And why? Because clothing designers won’t put pockets in women’s clothes.

Oh sure, there are some things with pockets, but only as an artistic element, not as a fully functioning compartment. The fashion people aren’t interested in functionality. So, men get all the stuff and jam it in their pockets. We can’t get out of it. We’ve got pockets galore. Four in a suit coat, four in a pair of pants. It’s why we don’t like to dance at weddings. And, if we do, it’s why we dance funny. The weight in our pockets shifts with every dance step and makes us lurch and stagger around and lose the beat. It’s the old two-step. One step is our dance move; the next is the stumble we take to recover our balance.

I first became aware of this pocket deficiency in women’s clothes back when I was a kid, proudly strutting around in a coveted pair of Levi’s. We didn’t call them jeans back then; we called them dungarees. Jeans were what our sisters wore, denim pants with an elastic top, a zipper up the side and NO POCKETS! There I was in dungarees, with enough pockets to handle a jack knife, a yoyo, a five pack of baseball cards, a derringer cap pistol and a frog or two. My sister didn’t even have a place to put a skate key. She had to string it on a shoelace and tie it around her neck. Jeans have changed since then; women’s jeans now have pockets, but still, they don’t function very well. The jeans are too tight to accommodate anything bigger than a credit card.

It’s why men have started using “man purses” disguised as masculine looking brief cases or camera bags. If you peek inside you’ll find lipsticks, compacts and other items we’re lugging around for our wives!

May 15, 2013 Article

The Old Coot doesn’t know your name!

By Merlin Lessler

It was a typical morning in the Goat Boy Coffee Bar – There I was, pontificating along with the regular crew – solving the Village, Town, County, State and National problems when in walks Phil Wiles. “Hi Paul,” I said, a little too loud. “I’m not Paul; I’m Phil,” he replied. “No you’re not,” I responded. “I just saw Phil at Dunkin Donuts and said Hi Phil and he said Hi back.”

“No! Really! I am Phil! Paul didn’t want to correct you for the 100^th time, so he let it go.” That’s when my compatriots deserted me. Their catcalls and whoops let me know I was wrong, yet again! So, I gave in. Maybe he was Phil. It’s confusing for an old coot, this business of trying to use the right name when you see someone. Paul and Phil are especially hard, being twins, but adding to the confusion is Jody Rose’s husband, Paul Philips. My brain starts to spit & sputter when I run into him. What should I say? “Hi Paul? Hi Phil? Is he Paul Philips or Philip Paul? I know I won’t get it right. I really get mixed up: Paul Wiles, Phil Wiles and Paul Philips. It’s no wonder I’ve dropped names entirely and greet people with Hi Captain, Hi Kid, Hey Man, How you guys doing?

But, it’s not me; it’s them! The people with similar sounding or otherwise confusing names: Craig and Greg, for example; who can keep them straight? How about Lynn, Laurie, Laura, Lana, Lisa, Lorna, Liza and all the rest of the “L” names. It’s beyond my capabilities. Even the name of the village I live in causes me problems. I’ll tell someone I live in Owego and they often say, “Oh, Oswego, I’ve heard of that; isn’t it on Lake Ontario?”

It’s not just people’s names that mess me up. The street names around here are ridiculous, the ones that have several names for the same street: Academy Street and Mc Master Street - East Ave becoming West Ave turning into Mountain Road and finally, East Beacher Hill – and how about the four-bagger, it starts out as East Front Street. You drive along looking at the ducks on Brick Pond and presto; you’re on Taylor Road. Look down to read a text message and you find yourself on Bodle Hill. Bend over to pick up the Big Mac that slid off the seat onto the floor and you’re on Day Hollow. The same road, four different names. When someone asks me for directions I always say, “Sorry, no speaka da English! Governor!”

 

May 8, 2013 Article

The Old Coot is a criminal?

By Merlin Lessler

I got stopped by the cops the other day. I knew it was just a matter of time – I was long overdue. “What seems to be the problem officer?” I politely asked, as we all do when pulled over and are blatantly guilty (of something). It’s called the “innocent as a lamb” strategy. It never works!

“License and registration please,” You know the drill; they take your credentials and get back into the squad car to run you through the system: Outstanding warrants? Escaped convict? Stolen car? Runaway or missing person? I wasn’t worried about that stuff. I knew my slate was clean. Nor, was I worried about the out of date inspection sticker on the windshield. I could handle a ticket for that. It wouldn’t affect my life style. I was worried about getting charged with DWO (Driving While Old).

It’s not an official violation. Not yet! But as soon as the traffic safety people get the drunks off the road, the cell phone users, the texters and the road-rage drivers they are going to come after us old guys. We don’t cause a lot of accidents, not as many as the under 25 crowd, but we do something worse; we drive fifty-five in the passing lane with our blinker flashing endlessly. We take forever to get into our car and pull out of the way while you wait to grab the only empty space in the lot. We turn left on red (when no cars are coming). What’s the difference? Left? Right? If no cars are coming, we go!

I can see the handwriting on the wall. DWO is in my future. The police won’t subject me to a breathalyzer test; they’ll count the wrinkles – then make me stand on one foot to check my balance (try it for 60 seconds; if you can’t do it you are headed for trouble too). They’ll make me retake the driver’s test. The only part I’ll pass is the parallel parking requirement. The thing that knocks out all the young kids. It’s a useless skill; 99.9% of all parking is pull in, not parallel. Yet, it’s an integral component in the path to a license, and the only driving skill us old coots still retain.

It’s why we are drawn to Florida – the state with the most effective lobbyists for old guys. The state is loaded with laws that protect my elderly brothers and sisters. The politicians don’t even think about passing laws to restrict old coots – just the opposite. Oh sure, the place is loaded with old coots like me that pull out in front of you and then crawl along at speeds that barely register on the speedometer, turn without signaling and give you a dirty look if you complain – park their big boats so close to you in parking lots that you can’t open your door.

But, we don’t weave through traffic at 80 MPH – slam on the brakes at a stop sign half way into the intersection and sneer at the terrified pedestrians waiting to cross. Still, it’s just a matter of time until I’m dragged before a judge, charged with DWO! I’ll put my hat on backwards, slip on a pair of flip-flops, untuck my shirt and plead “not old.” I just hope the judge is older than me.

May 1, 2013 Article

The Old Coot lets his shirttails fly!

By Merlin Lessler

“Tuck in your shirt!” My mother said that to me a million times when I was growing up. Our world was a prim and proper place back then: shoes shinned and tied in double knots - shirts buttoned – mandatory wearing of clean, white underwear (it had to be white and it better be clean if you got in an accident. What would the doctors in the emergency room think of your mother if it were otherwise?) And, of course, a tucked in shirt.

Times have changed. And, at the risk of looking like a delusional old coot trying to pass as a youngster, I now let my shirt flap in the breeze like today’s young males who live in a privileged world. Privileged, because they never hear their mothers say, “Tuck in your shirts!”

And why not? Who wants a bunch of wadded up cloth under their belt, struggling to free itself from exile? But, it doesn’t always work, this protest by an old coot against the tuck-in rule. Just the other day, I ran into a “shirt-tuck” law enforcer. It happened at a breakfast meeting of old guys who graduated from the same high school more then half a century ago. “Hey man, I don’t know if you know it, but your shirt isn’t tucked in!” He was giving me the benefit of a doubt with his “I don’t know if you know it” phrasing, affording me the opportunity to claim it was a memory problem (forgetting to tuck it in) and not a violation of the tuck-in-your-shirt rule.

But, it wasn’t a memory problem; it was outright defiance. Plus, I felt sorry for the shirt. It hung in the closet for weeks. Then, when it finally got out, was hidden under a crew neck sweater, except for a slim half-inch of collar that peeked out at the top. It must have been heartbreaking for the beautiful, five color, plaid shirt. But, my un-tuck proclivity afforded it considerable exposure as it waved, “Hello,” to the world from below the waistband of my sweater. The sweater was not tucked in either. I only mention the latter because extreme shirt-tuck-in rule followers tuck in everything: T-shirts, regular shirts, and yes, even sweat shirts and sweaters.

“To tuck or not to tuck, that is the question, Jimmy,” as Clark Kent might have phrased it if he was discussing the issue with cub reporter, Jimmy Olsen back on 1950’s TV, in the era when mothers pelted their sons with an unending barrage of, “Tuck in your shirts.” I have the answer for Jimmy, “Don’t tuck!” And, for my fellow old coots, “Don’t act your age! Let your shirttails fly! Let them flap in the breeze! Let freedom ring! (Followed by a chorus of God Bless America, if you’re so moved.)