October 22, 2014 Article

The Old Coot takes a dive.

By Merlin Lessler

I took a swim in the river today (October 17). It was one of those old coot things. Something I hadn’t planned. I was shooting for a nice kayak ride to Hickories Park, paddling hard, against the current and then slowly drifting back to the village. So, off I went. It was a little tough in spots; the current held me to one foot of progress for each stroke, but for the most part, it was an easy chore to move upstream, in spite of the river being at its highest level this season.

The sky was a beautiful blue with puffy white clouds slipping by overhead. The wind was gusty, blowing leaves out of treetops and rattling the brush and tall grasses along the shore. The temperature was pushing seventy. A perfect environment for an old coot on an outdoor adventure in the final days of autumn.

I made it to Hickories in about an hour and pulled ashore for a respite, and an orange. The orange was an excuse; it was my sore arms that needed the break. Then I shoved off, to begin a long slow float back home. I let the current determine my course. It was a magnificent ride, better than anything in Disney World. And, in spite of dozing off a few times, it created a nice memory to think back on when winter weather moves into town.

Then my revere came to an end. I pulled to shore near the intersection of Front and Ross. The water was two feet deep on the left side of the kayak, five or six feet on the right. My landing point wasn’t the usual flat spot at the bottom of a steep bank. It had moved halfway up the bank, five feet from the top. I stuck my paddle into the mud to hold the kayak and proceeded to pull myself from a sitting position to a kneeling position. This is where the old coot affliction I’m saddled with kicked into high gear. My head thinks it still resides in a seventeen-year-old body, but the body knows my head has missed the mark by fifty plus years. This condition has gotten me into a lot of trouble over the years and today it got me dunked into a cold and muddy river. The mishap sent the kayak downstream, the paddle upstream and me into the drink between them.

I snagged the rope attached to the kayak and grabbed the paddle as it floated back toward me and tried to gain a hold in the mud covered bank. All I got was a handful of slime. It sent me into a panic. Not because of any physical danger. No, my panic was mental. I was afraid I’d have to ride the current to a point closer to downtown Owego, where the landing area is old-coot-friendly and be forced to walk home along the busiest street in town. A drowned rat, dragging a kayak behind him. I did that gig, about ten years ago, when I’d flipped a canoe, trying to ram it onto shore with force rather than with skill. It was just another conflict between my mental age and my physical age. I was desperate not to repeat it. And, luck was with me.

 I managed to dig a solid handhold in the mud. And then a foothold. I slowly clawed my way to the top, pulling the kayak behind me. I’d already tossed the paddle above to safety. Then the rope broke and kayak slipped into the water with me following close behind to retrieve it. Then, I repeated the whole process. I shook off the water like a dog coming in from the rain, emptied the water out of my farmer boots and headed for home. Only a few drivers witnessed my condition as I waited for them to pass so I could shuffle across the street to the safety of my driveway. For a day or so, I’ll accept the fact that I’m an old coot in an old man’s body. But soon enough, I’ll relapse, and my affliction will take over and I’ll face the world thinking I’m a seventeen-year-old. I can’t imagine what adventure that will bring my way. 

October 15, 2014 Article

The Old Coot waits it out.

By Merlin Lessler

I witnessed an encounter between a mother and her teenage son in the grocery store the other day. It was a chance meeting; she came from home; he came from school. Her greeting brought me back to my own teenage days, “Why are you wearing that shirt? I just ironed it!” His face turned red and his buddy didn’t help the situation when he said, “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” and chuckled out the side of his mouth. My mother said the exact same thing to me every time I tried to sneak out of the house wearing a freshly ironed shirt.

Ironed clothes had to go into a waiting period (limbo) before they could be worn. I never knew how long the resting period was. It depended on my mother’s memory. If she could remember ironing it, it had to go back on a hanger and into the closet. (If I got caught, that is.)

The same principle applied to new clothes. “You take off that shirt this minute young man. I just bought it!” Good pants and play pants were another issue, “Change your pants before you get them all grass stained. They’re your good pants.” We had good pants, play pants and best of all, Sunday Pants. It was an era when people dressed up to go to church or to someone’s house for a Sunday visit.

It went deeper than new clothes; all new things did time in limbo. When we got a new stove, the old one went into the basement. That’s where the heavy cooking took place. Better to lug stuff up and down stairs than to “wear out” the new stove. It also applied to baked goods. “Get your hand out of that cookie jar; I just baked those brownies!”

Ok, Ok; I get it. When I got old enough, my mother taught me to iron and turned the chore over to me. It’s a lot of work to iron things, but even when I did the ironing myself, she still made a stink if I slipped into something freshly ironed. I made a mistake a few years back, and told my wife about how I had to let freshly ironed clothes rest when I was a kid. Today’s dress code is pretty causal so we don’t do a lot of ironing; we fold things. If she sees me put on something that was freshly folded (folded by her because I’m folding challenged) she yells over to me, “Why are you wearing that shirt; I just folded it,” and then cracks up laughing at how I cringe. I can’t help it; it’s a guilt feeling that’s ingrained in my subconscious. But, I recently discovered she’s got the same defect. She bought a new car, and keeps asking me to drive my 15 year-old Miata everywhere we go, because her car is “too new” to drive. Apparently, the condition is contagious. 

October 8, 2014 Article

I Grew Up in a World Without Book bags!

By Merlin Lessler

School’s been back in session now for over a month. I still think, “Yippee,” even though my kids are well past school age. We lived in a small town north of New York City when they were little. On the first day of school, a small clutch of parents gathered at the bus stop. It was mostly mothers, but a few of us fathers went to work late so we could join in the celebration. We came equipped for the event, with pots, pans, metal soupspoons and noisemakers. Anything that would make a racket. The kids clustered together as far from us as they could, embarrassed that their parents were acting like crazy fools. We banged the pots with our spoons as soon as the bus pulled up. Whistles and party noisemakers rounded out the symphony. One by one the kids stepped onto the bus and slunk down the aisle to their seats. It was the best “first day of school” celebration I ever experienced. It was back in prehistoric times, when it was still politically correct to delight in the fact that the “little darlings” were out of your hair for a few hours a day. Freedom was at hand!

I’m sure my mother and father would have joined the parade had there been one when I went off to school, but they didn’t need a celebration in those days, parents ruled the roost, not the kids. Yet, in spite of being at the bottom of the pecking order, we had a better deal than the kids do today. We didn’t have homework! Not until Junior High (7^th grade). When the dismissal bell rang, we were free. Not today. Kids lug schoolwork home in their backpacks every day. Even toddlers in nursery school come and go with a book bag strapped to their back. We were spared the misery. We did our schoolwork in the classroom.

Book bags didn’t even exist back then. They hadn’t been invented. There was something similar, knapsacks. Brought home from the war, the big one, WWII, by our fathers, uncles and cousins, or purchased at one of the numerous Army and Navy surplus stores that dotted the countryside. We used them for hikes in the woods, to carry food, water and matches for a campfire. We weren’t smart enough to use them for hauling books back and forth to school when we reached the grade where homework was the order of the day. We didn’t give the knapsacks a thought. Instead, we stacked up our books and carried them under our arm, resting the bottom of the pile on our hip. Girls used a different technique. They used two hands to carry their books, clutching them to their chests as though holding a newborn baby. Every other day or so, somebody would come along and shove the stack of books out of your grasp, and then laugh and say, “Drop a few subjects, did you?”

A few brave souls totted their books and papers in a brief case. It was nerdish, but the term, “nerd” hadn’t been invented yet. We just called these guys, “The weird guys with briefcases.” Us “cool” guys wouldn’t’ think of toting a briefcase through the halls. We’d rather suffer with an eighteen-inch stack of books balanced awkwardly on our hip. It messed up our alignment, and is the reason old coots like me can’t walk in a straight line. We sidle down the sidewalk like drunken sailors. And, it explains why so many of us need hip replacement surgery as we get older. That’s what happens when you grow up in a world without book-bags!

October 1, 2014 Article

The Old Coot looks for a bargain.

By Merlin Lessler

“50% OFF!” That’s the sign that lures you in. If you’re like me, and don’t pay attention to the details, you don’t discover that it’s 50% off the 2^nd item, until the clerk at the register rings you up and you’ve scolded them for over charging you. “This leather jacket is on sale,” you say, with an indignant look on your face. “The sign says 50% off!” Then you learn the truth.

50% off the second item is a good deal if you’re buying bananas, Moose Tracks ice cream or Snicker’s bars. Something you can use more than one of. But those 50% off (the second item) sales are often things you don’t really want two of.

Then there’s the, “Huge Sale! Up to 70% Off!” sales. That “up to” gets me every time. I know the item I want, having learned the hard way, will never be 70% off. It’s not an item with the highly prized green sticker; it’s the one, the only one, with the yellow, 10% sticker.

How about, “50% Off the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price!” If those signs were honest, they would continue on, and admit that nobody (not them anyhow) ever charged the manufacturer’s suggested retail price. The whole thing is a long running joke between the manufacturer and the retailer, “We’ll put a ridiculous price on the article and you can be the hero and slash the price.

They do that with automobiles too. I hear the reason GM came out of bankruptcy so quick, following the recession of 2008, wasn’t because of the government bail out; it was because some guy in Utah bought a Buick and paid the sticker price!

Besides, everybody knows, cars are cheaper when the sales lot is blanketed with balloons and flags. Or, the cars are moved to an off-site location, like the mall or the fair grounds. At least that’s what the dealers would have us believe. And we do!

We love a bargain. Especially us old coots. So, we fall for the “sales” pitch, no matter how far fetched: Going out of Business! – Inventory Reduction! - Moving Sale! (Even though the place going out of business does so three times a year, the inventory reduction is immediately replenished with the exact same inventory, and the business that runs the moving sale never moves. My favorite is a sale sign that says, “Open Under New Management!” That’s what they do to get back the customers they’ve been rude to, bilked or never returned their phone calls.)