June 19, 2013 Article

The old coot can’t have any fun.

By Merlin Lessler

“You never let me have any fun!” What kid didn’t say that to his mother while growing up? It’s not mothers saying no these days; it’s the government. All levels of government. They won’t let us have any fun!

I’m not sure when this so called nanny state started, but it sure has blossomed over the past few decades. I think we brought it on ourselves. Any time anyone had a problem, they went to an elected official for resolution: local, state and federal. Elected officials used to send us back to solve our own problems. Not anymore, they enact a law and the bureaucrats issue a new set of rules.

It’s OK for some things, like making it illegal to pass a stopped school bus, or to drive the wrong way down a four-lane highway. But, now we are subject to laws that cover every trivial social misfortune. And, the number of new “you can’t do that’s” are growing at an ever quickening pace. We’re overrun with rules, and we’ve lost our sense of humor in the process. 

It starts right out with our kids; they are as regulated as we are. When kids from my generation ran home and told their mother that Bobby called them fatso or string bean or four eyes or any of the 1,435 insults in circulation at the time, she didn’t call the kid’s mother, or the police, or the school principal. She sat them down and taught them a chant, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me!” We believed it and repeated it whenever some “bully” called us a name. The school system wasn’t bogged down with identifying and preventing such “outlandish” behavior. (We played dodge ball too.)

When we called a random phone number and asked the person who answered the phone if their refrigerator was running, and when they said yes, replied, “Well, you better hang up and go catch it!” The police didn’t show up ten minutes later and tell our parents to make us cut it out or we’d be arrested and charged with harassment like they did when my son made his first crank call. Both parties got a kick out of it in my day, but not anymore. Not in our no fun society; it’s against the law.  

If you get busy and forget to have your car inspected and park it on the street overnight, guess what? You’ll find a ticket on the windshield under the wiper blade. And no, they won’t void it if you rush right out and get it inspected that day. Not anymore. Even if you were in the hospital for the past two weeks. This is serious business! 

Let your dog off the leash in an empty park so he can run free for a few minutes, like his great, great grandfather did – you get a ticket. Tell a co-worker she looks great today – you get sent to HR for a lecture on sexual harassment. Drink soda out of a container larger than 16 ounces in the Big Apple – you get a scolding from Mayor Bloomberg. Jokingly say that the fathers at Notre Dame are holy on Sunday but you can’t trust them on Thursday or Friday like the president of Ohio State did – you get a visit from the politically correct police and retire a few years earlier than you planned. We can’t laugh at others, and we can’t laugh at ourselves.

 
We’re left with one choice, us old coots living here in what once was the land of the free. Break the rules, and when you get caught, just say, “You never let me have any fun!”