December 10, 2014 article

The Old Coot runs a smart race?

By Merlin Lessler

I “participated” in the Franz Family, 5-K run last Saturday.  I arrived at the Little League field in the “Flats” at 9:30, signed in, picked up my T-shirt, made a donation (this year the money went to the Multiple Sclerosis Recourses of Central New York) and hung out in the middle of a pack of elite athletes, eavesdropping on their race strategy and coming up with my own. 

It was cold. Bitter cold. The young runners wore knit hats, thin gloves and lightweight nylon & polyester workout suits. My racing attire consisted of three layers of clothes, wool socks, insulated hunting boots, double thick gloves, ear muffs, a scarf and a hooded winter jacket. Five minutes after signing in, I was frozen, a human ice cycle. The elite runners were casually chatting back and forth, stretching to stay limber and jogging down to the corner and back. I spent my time looking through the crowd for a guy with a flask. To no avail!

Finally, it was time to race. We lined up at an imaginary tape and Tommy Franz, the Franz who came up with the idea as a memorial to his uncle, Ed Franz, gave a little speech thanking the crowd for participating, explaining the genesis of the event and the safety rules. Some rude, old guy in the back kept yelling, “Lets go! Lets go! It freezing out here!” Tommy’s mother, Pat, blew her car horn to help move things along too. Tommy looked my way and asked me to be patient; he’d get it started as soon as he finished. How do you say no to a bearded Franz wearing a fuzzy red, horned Viking helmet?  

Finally, we were off and running. I stayed in the back, in accordance with my “Tortoise and the Hare” strategy. (Let the other runners burn themselves out. I’ll catch up and win.)  Bill Franz, a guy of my old coot vintage and mind set, hung back too. He said his foot was acting up; I told him my knee was having a bad day. We looked at each other, and when the pack was out of sight, we hustled to our cars. He headed east; I went south, returning a while later with my wife, Marcia, to the taproom at the Farmhouse Brewery. Tommy said we would meet there after we finished. Marty and Natalie Mattrazzo, their son Alex and their two friendly dogs, Sal and Sofia warmly greeted us at the door. We were the first ones in. Marty started us off with a flight of beers, saying it must be five o’clock someplace, though in the “Flats” is was just barely 11 am.

After 10 minutes or, so the real runners started to wander in; before we knew it, the place was abuzz with Franz family members and friends. all eager to check out the plethora (sorry about that highbrow word: I just love the way it rolls off your tongue) of beers that Marty had crafted.  It was the best 5K race I ever “participated” in. Tommy thanked us again and announced that over $800 was raised for Multiple Sclerosis. The crowd then serenaded him with a Franz family tradition. I didn’t hear all the words, but the song ended with something about him being a horse’s rear end. I’ll be there again next year, the Saturday following Thanksgiving. I’ll stick with the same game plan. It worked out great! I was the first one to the tasting room!

December 3, 2014 Article

The Old Coot is a car snoop.

By Merlin Lessler

Old coots are snoops! Well, I am anyhow.  If I’m walking along the street passing by a line of parked cars, I can’t help myself; I glance in the window. It’s not that I’m looking for anything specific or casing the joint like a robber looking for something to steal; I’m just curious. So, I look. The inside of a car says a lot about the owner. If Human Resource people were smart, they’d check out the inside of a job candidate’s car instead of their Facebook page.

They’d find out if the applicant was a slob, with a dash buried under the remnants of take-out meals, a floor laden with empty coffee containers, Big Gulp cups, water bottles and the like. If the owner is especially neat and clean, it might be a sign of someone who is overly fastidious. Checking the inspection and registration stickers is worth a look too. You can find out if the owner is a slacker. A quick glance at a car yields a lot of useful data. It doesn’t matter if you’re a nosey old coot or an HR rep charged with hiring people.

Another interesting aspect of car snooping is that many car owners think their windows are made with one-way glass. They can see out, but you can’t see in. You see proof of this when you look in someone’s window and their lips are moving in sync with a song playing on the radio, or the driver is rehearsing the lecture they plan to give their teenage son when they get home for putting his dirty dishes in the dishwasher with the clean ones he was supposed to put away. (In spite of telling him to do it three times and leaving a note taped to the dishwasher door.) Speech “rehearsals” like this can get pretty entertaining, especially if you are in a car running parallel to the orator in slow traffic and they work themselves up so much they start to go ballistic.

But, that’s not the only proof that people think car windows are made with one-way glass. Moving lips are just the tip of the iceberg. Preening in the rearview mirror is another. Picking a piece of spinach out of one’s teeth, shaving with an electric razor and putting on lipstick are just a few of the personal appearance activities that take place. Food consumption is another common, in-car activity. There is nothing like pulling along side someone at a stop light and getting a grin from the driver with half a Big Mac and a handful of French fries sticking out of his mouth. The final proof is the people that do some serious mining in the nasal area while tooling along in traffic. If that doesn’t prove my one-way glass theory, I don’t know what does. 

November 26, 2014 Article

The Old Coot explains the face crumb syndrome.

By Merlin Lessler

"Go like this!" A perfect stranger will say to you, and then brush their index finger across their cheek. “You’ve got a crumb on your face." So, you brush your left cheek, mirroring their gesture, and a cornflake, a stale Cheerio or a chunk of blueberry muffin falls to the floor. "How long have I been walking around like that?" You ask yourself (somewhat ashamedly). Not long, is the answer, not if you were within sight of another human. Our species is obsessed with things out of place on each other’s face. An eyelash, a piece of confetti, a speck of sand. It doesn't matter. Our eye is drawn to it. We can't stop ourselves from saying, "Go like this," to eliminate the imperfection. Sometimes, taking matters into our own hands and brushing it off the "afflicted" face.

It's a face thing! Oh sure, we'll order a stranger to, "Zip it pal!" Or we'll giggle, as a macho stud struts across the room with a three-foot streamer of toilet paper attached to the heel of his shoe, but our real attention is focused on the face. I think this might come from our ancestors. If you’ve ever watched a pair of monkeys or a family of gorillas you get an idea of how far up the family tree this fetish goes. Apes spend most of their free time tidying up each other’s faces. Beneath our sophisticated trappings we're not a lot different than our evolutionary predecessors. 

Old coots experience “Go like this” statements more than regular people. If we didn’t, our faces would be covered with unwanted droppings, matching those on our clothes. We’d look like a Marine in full camouflage. But, it’s more than debris that we carry around; we have other “attractions” that result in unsolicited public commentary, such as: “Your pants are on backwards!” – “You’re wearing two different shoes.” – You missed all three belt loops on the back of your pants.” – “Your sweater is on inside out. Maybe backwards too.” So, the next time you feel a little embarrassed because someone points out a cornflake stuck to your cheek and says, “Go like this,” just think how you’ll feel when you get old enough to join the old coot association. That’s when you need all the courage you can muster to leave the house and venture into public. Your fellow old coots won’t help you. We never say,” Go like this to each other.” We want the old goat next to us to look worse than we do. It’s a jungle out there. 

November 19, 2014 Article

The Old Coot notices the THREES!

By Merlin Lessler

“Three” is a magic number. It dominates our culture, yet we hardly notice how far it pervades all aspects of our lives:  3 strikes and you’re out – “I’m going to count to 3 and you better get cracking by the time I’m done” – Our flag, and that of many countries, is tri-colored. We teach our kids to react to fire in three steps: stop, drop and roll. – The most popular sandwich is a BLT (bacon, lettuce and tomato).

Most jokes have three elements, “Three guys walk into a bar. An Irishman, a Scott and a Russian….” We decide things by threes  (rock, paper, scissors). Ever hear of a two-ring circus or a nursery rhyme with two blind mice? Of course not! Matter itself, exists in three states (solid, liquid and gas). We have three meals a day, live in a three-dimensional world, with tri-color traffic lights at intersections. If a cop catches you running one, he may give you a ticket for being “three” sheets to the wind. 

We refer to TV networks with three-letter notations: ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN. Most people have three names. Those with only two are considered odd. Workers in corporate offices are referred to by their initials, three letters. I was MWL for decades. I worked for several different bosses: IMS, JHR, DLG, to name three. They sometimes wore, 3 piece suits. Sports organizations follow suit, referring to themselves as the: NFL, NBA, AHL, PGA. (football, basketball, hockey, golf)

And, how about, the bad luck you can expect if you light 3 cigarettes on a match – or - the 3rd time is a charm – or - on your mark, get set, go – or - Neapolitan, one of the most popular ice-cream flavors (vanilla, chocolate, strawberry). Nor can we forget the 3 Stooges. And, how many speeches you’ve sat through where the speaker made 3 main points.

It never ends, this 3 thing. A genie gives you 3 wishes, 3 wise men brought gifts, cops give you the 3^rd degree, friends come to you with news and give you 3 guesses at what it is. Columbus discovered America with a convoy of 3 ships. Even something as fundamental as our education system is built upon a foundation of 3, the three R’s - reading, writing and arithmetic. (Oddly, only one starts with an R). Death comes in threes. Coffee is offered in 3 sizes (small, medium and large, unless you are at a Starbucks; their choices are Tall, Grande or Venti. I’ll give you three guesses to name which is the small size. Even reality comes in three versions: yours, mine, and the real truth. This is my version. How many “threes’ in yours?