January 8, 2014 Article

The Old Coot is under investigation.

     “The stadium lights went out during the big game,” an on scene newscaster will report, and then turn to a stadium official for a statement. “The stadium lights went out during the big game. I can’t say more than that. It’s under investigation.” It’s the same story everywhere; school officials, municipal officials, corporate spokespeople, FAA bureaucrats. None of them will ever tell you what’s going on, what happened, or didn’t happen. They always say, “It’s under investigation!”

      Even when they know, which is most of the time, they hide behind the “investigation” shield. To save themselves from blurting out the truth. And, the investigation isn’t about searching for the facts. Primarily, it’s about how the facts can be massaged to keep their image intact. It works! By the time they get around to “revealing” the (now dressed up) facts, we’ve lost interest or have completely forgotten the incident. 

      It’s a strategy I’m adopting. My public image is constantly going to pot, because I don’t protect it like corporations and public officials do. Like the day I kicked over the ladder and got stranded on the roof – or -the slip I took off the top of a garbage can trying to cram 40 gallons of trash into a 30 gallon can (ending up a little shorter and minus a disc in my back) – or - the backward summersault I performed getting out of a bag chair on the hill in Hickories Park – or - the dunking I took when I rammed my canoe into the riverbank and flipped it over, forcing me to walk through town looking like a drowned rat (nobody noticed the difference).

      When those things happened, I foolishly told the truth. Not anymore! My wife asked me what happened to her flower patch (I grazed it with the lawnmower). I played my hand. “I can’t say; it’s under investigation.” The building inspector and a member of the Historic Preservation Commission wanted to know what I was doing to the side porch. “I can’t say; it’s under investigation.” A couple of readers I’d insulted with a thoughtless Old Coot opinion had the editor quiz me about it. Out came my “under investigation” response. I can’t wait for my image to start improving.  Maybe I can venture out in public again.

January 5, 2014 Article

The Old Coot experiences the big squeeze

By Merlin Lessler

      I went to a luncheon the other day. There were 14 of us. We called ahead for a reservation. When I walked in, the table was set up: 14 placemats, silverware sets, napkins and water glasses graced the surface. Fourteen chairs lined the table. There wasn’t an inch between them. I took a seat. I had to pull the chair out, get in front of it and then go through a few contortions in order to pull the chair from behind me while lowering my body to meet it as it came forward.  I felt as awkward as a newborn colt gaining its feet for the first time. Thankfully, I was the first one there and nobody saw the graceless maneuver. Old coots are always the first ones there. We’re the only people left who think being on time is good manners.

 The rest of the gang straggled in and went through similar contortions to get themselves seated. I chuckled each time. Some were a lot less graceful than me. Eventually, all 14 of us were seated. We looked like a collage of artificial people. Our arms were at our sides, our backs erect and our faces forward. We didn’t have enough room to be anything but erect and proper. The lunch was brutal. I don’t know how the food was; I was intensely focused on the chore of using a knife and a fork while keeping my elbows from crashing into my neighbors. I looked like a praying mantis with its’ front paws pulled together in prayer.

      It took me five minutes to spear a French fry, dip it in ketchup and maneuver it to my mouth. Some of my fellow diners weren’t quite so polite. They dug in as though there were three feet between them and the person next to them. Unfortunately, one of them sat next to me. My arms and side still sport the black and blue marks.

      Even the conversation was affected by the lack of space. When you sit at a table with your elbows pulled together so they are almost touching as you maneuver food on a plate in front of you, your whole being feels pinched. It limits your thought process and forces you to speak in a high-pitched squeaky voice. I said something to the guy across the table from me and wondered. “Who said that?” I didn’t recognize my own voice. The lunch ended early. We all wondered why we thought it was such a good idea for old friends to get together. I’d managed to eat three French fries and take two bites out of my hamburger. It was all I could accomplish in a straight jacket.

     The next time I phone for a reservation, I’m going to request a table for 18 and remove four chairs when I arrive. I’ll tell the maitre d’ the other four couldn’t make it; they haven’t healed from the beating they took the last time we were here. 

December 25, 2013 Article

Old Coot not too old for toy trains

By Merlin Lessler

      I’m an old coot now but I still believe in Santa Claus. In spite of how he tricked me when I was eight years old. I snuck down the stairs on that snowy Christmas morning. The room was dimly lit. Just the flicker from a set of bubble lights on the tree. I perched on a step near the bottom, studying the scene through the newel posts. A dollhouse loomed behind a stack of presents. I knew it was for my sister. But where was my “big” present? I didn’t see anything. Then, I spotted a gleam of light, a reflection from a metal track. Could it be? Was it the train set I wanted so badly? My heart skipped a beat! I hopped over the railing and raced to the tree. There it was! An electric train! A black engine, four metal cars and a red caboose. There really was a Santa Claus! What I didn’t know, was that it would be nearly four decades before Santa delivered MY train. This one was for my father.

      Oh sure, I was allowed to place it on the track, switch on the transformer and crank up the dial to send it speeding down the rail. I was even allowed to take the extra track out of the box and change the oval layout to a figure eight and to set up a “Plasticville” village for the freighter to run through. But, it wasn’t my train, not really. It was my father’s. He was the one who carved out a space under the basement stairs in order to slip in a four by eight sheet of plywood to accommodate a complicated layout. He put lights in the houses, added electric switches, and created an alpine village on a mountain, the same mountain that the train disappeared into after leaving Plasticville. The rest of the fathers in my neighborhood did the same thing. Only Billy Wilson escaped the great train robbery. His trains made it to the attic before his father got his hands on them. Several sets, and a sea of accessories were scattered over the floor. It’s where we went to be railroad men. Nobody was there to stop the fun, to prevent a speeding freighter from crashing into the back of a passenger car or to make us take the cow off the track before it was sent flying into the school house. Billy’s attic was our toy train sanctuary.  

      I finally got my very own train set when I was well into my forties. My wife was sick of my drooling, every time we passed by the set of “big” trains in the window at Miniature Kingdom in Owego. The store is gone now, but once was the place to go for all things miniature: dollhouses, furniture, figurines and LGB trains. My wife bought a set and put it under the tree. I was eight years old again as I tore the wrapper from the box. I was still there, lying on the living room floor, sleeping like an eight year old when the clock struck midnight. The clickety clack of the wheels on the track had lulled me into slumber. It was a sad, drab day in January when the tree came down and the trains went back in the box, forced into hibernation until the next Christmas. Things come slow to old coots, but it eventually dawned on me; I didn’t have to be deprived of my train for eleven months. I could build a high shelf around the room and put the track and train on it. So I did!  Now, I “play” with my trains throughout the year. It’s the best cure in the world for insomnia. Two laps around the loop and I start dozing. When I dream, I’m eight years old and coming down the stairs on that long ago Christmas morning.