January 28, 2015 Article

The Old Coot lies about his age. All over again!

By Merlin Lessler

“I need to see some proof of age!” It’s a request we’ve all been confronted with. It starts when your parents enroll you in school. You have to prove you’re five. My mother and father, like most parents, couldn’t wait to whip out my birth certificate. It was a ticket to peace and quiet, if only for a few hours a day. 

I was 12 the next time I needed to prove my age, to get a paper route and to be allowed to ride the roller coaster at Palisades Park in New Jersey. Then came the most important one of my young life, turning sixteen and getting a driver’s license. I waited four long years for this milestone, driving the family car back and forth in the driveway every chance I got. And, around the block when no one was looking. The birth certificate came out again two years later. This time to prove I was old enough to buy a quart of beer, to drive at night, and to register for the draft. There was only one milestone left, or so I thought at the time, turning 21 and registering to vote. Now, it’s been switched; you’re considered mature enough to vote and fight for your country at eighteen but not mature enough to drink alcohol responsibly. I’m not sure of the logic in switching the voting age and the drinking age but I’m convinced it hasn’t worked. The number of teenagers that sneak a beer or two hasn’t changed. Tell a teenager he or she can’t do something, especially if you “forbid” it, and they’ll do it with more enthusiasm than if you said it was OK. I don’t know why we forget this when we become adults and try to “fix” everything with new laws.

This “proof of age process” doesn’t kick in again for about forty years. Senior discounts! At first you have to ask for them. And, sometimes prove your age. That’s when you hear, “Gosh, you sure don’t look that old!” You believe it, just like your mother believed it when she pushed you around the neighborhood in a stroller and a neighbor said, “Oh, what a cute baby.” But, soon enough, you no longer have to ask for the discount and the “Gosh you don’t look it,” comes to an end.

You no longer have to prove anything. Or, so I thought. Then, a few weeks back, I had to show my license to buy some beer for a New Years Day party. I didn’t mind, but I did think it was kind of stupid for a business to adopt a “100%, “ask for proof” policy. But, that’s what it’s come down to. We’re so afraid of making a mistake and facing the consequences enacted by the geniuses in Albany and Washington that we ask old guys like me to dig out their ID’s to prove they’re over 21. A five year old could tell that! 

My big fear, and I know it’s coming, is that I’ll start being asked for proof of age all over again: at coffee shops, so they can inform me that people my age cannot buy a small coffee and occupy a booth for over 15 minutes – at the entrance to the roller coaster I wasn’t allowed to ride when I was too young and now, it will be because I’m too old -  at the DMV, so they can reduce my privilege to drive to that of a junior license holder (no more driving at night and no road trips with a car full of old coots). When I complain about this, I’ll get the same answer I get when I complain to the doctor about my latest physical limitation. “You have to expect that at your age!” I wish I had a younger brother so I could “borrow” his ID and lie about my age. With proof! Another example of history repeating itself.  

January 21, 2015 Article

The Old Coot says 97 yards isn’t the same as 100 yards.

By Merlin Lessler

I was swimming laps in the Owego High school pool the other morning, paddling around like a turtle on sedatives, when I noticed that the girls state record for the 100-yard freestyle is something like 52 seconds. That’s down and back the length of the pool twice. I can’t go down and back once in that short amount of time. But, I’m an old coot, so what can I expect? Yet, even when I swam the 100 yard butterfly in high school, a stroke that is just as efficient as the free style, I never came anywhere near the one-minute mark, much less 8 seconds below it. But, I had an excuse. Two, actually. #1 - I smoked Marlboros, about a pack a week, and #2 - there were (and still are) different rules for butterfly swimmers than for freestyle swimmers. Butterflyers have to square their shoulders and touch the end of the pool with their hands before heading back the other way. Free style swimmers, or what we called the Australian crawl back then, don’t. They do a half summersault, three feet before they get there. It’s called a flip turn. I call it a shortcut. Oh sure, their feet touch the wall at the end of their flip, but still, they cut a yard off the length at each turn. It’s OK with me if that’s what they do, but it should be called what it is, the 97-yard freestyle. 

It’s not just swimming, most sports “fudge” a little these days. Golf is one of the most notorious. Take today’s clubs, the drivers for example, versus the drivers of just a few decades back. The club head is the size of a cantaloupe; it used to be the size of an apple. Mine still is. And, the shaft is different too; it flexes more than a politician running for office. The ball is made from high tech materials and the dimples are highly engineered to increase the distance it will travel.

Then there’s track and field. The old cinder track has been replaced with a bouncy, rubberized surface and the runner’s hard soled cleats have been replaced with high-tech, expensive, springy foot enclosures. The rigid pole used in pole vaulting has been put out to pasture and replaced with a highly flexible one made with space age materials. It’s not a vault any more; it’s a sling. The pole bends into a u-shape and fires the vaulter into the air as though shot from a cannon.

Basketball is unrecognizable when you compare it to the game that was played by some of the greats: Bob Cousy, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and John Havlicek. A player couldn’t elbow, slug, push and bash the other players as though in a prize fight when those guys ruled the court. I can’t figure out what the foul criteria is today. It seems a player has to commit assault and battery before the refs blow their whistles. And, what about the height of the basket? It’s still stuck at ten feet, though many of the players are one to two feet taller than those who started the game way back in 1891. The only dunking done in those days was with a donut and a cup of coffee.

So sure, today’s athletes are highly accomplished physical specimens who’ve pushed their sport to new levels. But still, I think the rules and the equipment have been bent when you compare them to those of the good old days. We would have had a different name for them back then, “Cheaters!”

January 14, 2015 Article

The Old Coot can’t say, “I’m sorry!”

By Merlin Lessler

Tom and Ray, better know as Click and Clack the Tappet brothers, took a call from a listener on a Car-Talk “Classic” broadcast a few weeks back. The caller asked if there was a good way to apologize after making an “oops” on the highway. Pulling back into the travel lane too soon after passing for example. Did they have a suggestion? They didn’t, though it took 10 minutes of laughter and chatter to arrive at that conclusion. I pull back too fast sometimes, and commit a few other “oops” when I'm behind the wheel. In spite of having a buzzer and a light on the side view mirror that warns me when a car is in my blind spot. In spite of a back up camera that keeps me from denting a fender in a parking lot or doing something even worse to a pedestrian pushing a shopping cart. In spite of having a co-pilot next to me, watching my every move like a hawk and letting me know when I’m headed for trouble with a loud thunk on an imaginary brake, accompanied by a series of progressively louder gasps that communicate the seriousness of my error.

It doesn’t work! I still move from the passing lane to the travel lane too soon, usually because an even worse driver than me is on my tail. When I do pull over, I find myself fighting for the same space as the guy who decided to charge past on the right. I thought I taught myself to be on the alert for this when I did a lot of driving in Connecticut, where everyone passes on the right. When there isn’t a lane to do it, they use the shoulder. I guess I really didn’t get used to it because I’m always startled when someone whizzes by on my right. It also evokes an extremely loud gasp from my co-pilot. I try to apologize with a shoulder shrug, a slap to my forehead or by making the peace sign, but none of these gestures are effective. Not if you judge it by the number of times I receive the international hand signal of displeasure in return.

I need a, “sorry” flag, or something similar. I blame the auto industry for my dilemma; they’ve equipped cars with an uncountable number of devices and functions we didn’t ask for and don’t want. Like a key that isn’t a key; it’s a square box the size of a bar of soap. Try and put one of those things in a hide-a-key container. My dash is loaded with screens and controls, but nothing that says, “I’m sorry!” The horn is incapable of giving a friendly toot. You have to push it so hard because of the airbag behind it that it’s only good for blasting an angry message. It alone is responsible for half the road rage on today’s highways. You mess up on the road, try to give a little toot of apology and end up making the situation worse. I desperately need a button that waves a white flag from the roof and a mechanism that sends an, “Oops, I’m sorry,” message to the radios in the cars around me. And, while they’re at it, they might consider adding a brake pedal on the passenger side of the car for my co-pilot. If you encounter me on the road and I do something to irk you, I apologize in advance, “I’m really sorry! I just don’t know how to tell you.”  

January 7, 2015 Article

Old Coot says it’s time to change!

By Merlin Lessler

It's a new year; it's time to take inventory, to throw out the stuff that doesn’t work. Get an old coot to help with the process; we love to tell you what you’re doing wrong. Start the assessment with how you view your birthday. Is your perspective out of whack? Are you making too big a deal of it? When you were a kid, your birthday was a monumental event; it meant you were old enough to take the next step - start school, get a two-wheeler, drive a car, buy a six-pack (with your very own ID) and vote. Your parents were excited as you reached each new plateau, but it doesn’t matter anymore; nobody cares that it’s your birthday. The fact that all the cards you get are “belated” should give you a clue; it’s time to let it go.

Here’s another harsh reality; you’re not going to become the leader of the free world! I know your mother said you could grow up to be president, but it ain’t gonna happen. Unless you get your mail at the governor’s mansion in Albany, or the Senate Building in Washington you are out of the running. It’s time to face the truth. And, speaking of faces, yours isn’t getting any better looking - even if you find a “good” mirror and cock your head at the precise angle to minimize the bump in your nose and the enormity of your ears. Hollywood won’t be beating a path to your door.

There are a lot of clues that tell you it’s time to change, if you pay attention - Do you greet people with, “How’s it going?” Have you noticed that this question gets you more than you bargained for? They go on and on about an ingrown toenail or a burned pot roast. While you are bored and not listening, ask yourself, “Do I go on like this too?” If the answer is yes, it’s time to change. When you’re asked how’s it going, simply say, “Great!” - “Thanks for asking.” You won’t bore them and you won’t give them an invitation to bore you.

Another conversation offense you need to be sensitive to is the, “You think that’s bad syndrome.” No matter what anyone says to you, you try to top them. They had a tooth filled and it hurt so bad they cried - you had an impacted wisdom tooth pulled and the dentist broke your jaw. Their car gets 30 miles to the gallon - yours can go 100 miles on fumes. If this is the pattern of your conversations, it’s time to SHUT-UP! Don’t take it personally, it’s not just you, a lot of people mistakenly think that everyone is dying to hear how good or how bad you have it. They’re not.

The saddest example of this syndrome is the young mother-to-be, who finds herself surrounded by a group of veterans who’ve given birth to a legion of children. She mentions the discomfort of her pregnancy; they chuckle and then attack as a pack with an endless stream of delivery nightmares. The poor girl flees in tears, wondering how she ever got herself into such a mess. She goes home and kicks her husband.

There are a lot of things to throw out. You need to accept yourself for who you are. You won’t be getting any taller, or any thinner. Your hair won’t get thicker and more lustrous. Your physique or figure won’t improve. In fact, you’ll be lucky if it doesn’t slip several inches lower on your skeletal frame by the time you get your first Social Security check. So let it go! Face life as it is and enjoy the journey. It’s the trip of a lifetime! (And, a short one at that.)

January 4, 2015 Article

The Old Coot suggests a solution.

By Merlin Lessler

“If I let you do it, I’d have to let everyone do it!” I heard a friend say this at one of her famous Sunday afternoon, neighborhood turkey and ham dinner parties a while back. I can’t mention her name without violating the privacy regulations; it’s Nancy Ruiz! She was relating a conversation she had with a kid in the school cafeteria who’d asked her to bend the rules. It woke me from my usual coma like state at these events. “No you wouldn’t!” I shouted from across the room, bringing a dead silence to the huddles of conversation throughout the house. “You could have given him what he wanted.” She looked at me as though I was nuts, and she was probably right, but I’ve heard that line a million times and it drives me crazy.

It’s very predominant in public schools. It’s where I first encountered it. Miss Wood, my fourth grade teacher, told me in no uncertain terms, “No, you can not turn in your assignment tomorrow; it’s due today. I’m giving you a zero. If I let you turn it in late, I’d have to let everybody turn theirs in late!” No she wouldn’t, just the kid who spends the creative energy to come up with an original excuse. Mine was that I’d set my English homework down on the sidewalk when I stopped to repair a bird’s broken wing. A dog came along and ran off with my essay. (That alone deserved something higher than a zero.)

You run into this “If I let you………..” excuse” all the time, especially when dealing with corporate or governmental bureaucracies. Service reps recite it so often it sounds like a religious chant. Once in a blue moon you get someone who will bend the rules, but for the most part you get a full helping of, “What do you think would happen if we let all our customers do that?” (my response) - “THEY’D BE HAPPY AND YOU’D HAVE THOUSANDS MORE! DUH!”

I have to admit I’m probably over sensitive to the “If I let you” excuse. I’ve felt its’ sting time and again over the years. It’s almost always been something the person could have done, in fact, should have been happy to do. And, it’s almost always the case that they wouldn’t have had to do it for EVERYBODY. I wonder what the world would be like if everybody used this excuse as often as the bureaucrats in government and in corporations. It would be pretty miserable. Old coots would suffer the most; our senior citizen discounts and early bird specials would disappear. “Let the old guy have my seat” would be replaced with, “Get out of the way you old coot. If I gave you my seat I’d have to be polite to all old people!” The guy in the aisle seat on an airplane wouldn’t jump up to let me out when a leg cramp strikes my calf. Melissa, at the Goat Boy Coffee Bar, wouldn’t advance me a cup of coffee and say it’s Ok to pay tomorrow when I walk out of the house without my wallet.

But there is a solution. If we all just reject the “If I let you do it” mentality and replaced it with the Golden Rule. It’s such an easy fix. 

December 24, 2014 Article

Old Coots have highly functioning short-term memories!

By Merlin Lessler

Old coots and young children have a lot in common: their interaction with society is erratic, they are self focused, have no patience, can be embarrassing to be with, cause public disturbances, wake up a lot in the middle of the night, won’t share their toys and go around with nametags sewn into their clothes. We have the nametags for the same reason as the kids; we leave out stuff all over the place. All sorts of stuff. Drop in any place old coots gather, and you’ll find it littered with the things we’ve left behind: baseball caps (with Mickey Mantle’s signature embroidered across the brim), NY Giant Super Bowl XXV sweat shirts (with Phil Simms number on the back), eye glasses (with lenses the size of saucers), seven day pill dispensers (with 42 compartments), the New York Daily News (opened to a completed crossword puzzle with six misspelled words). The clothing items have a nametag inside; the rest of the stuff is engraved with our phone number. But, we never get anything back. It goes to the museum.    

Of course those ID’s wouldn’t help us find the glasses we’ve frantically searched for, with them resting on the top of our head. Something we don’t notice until we catch a glimpse in the hall mirror. Or, the car keys we carry around in our hand as we scour the house looking for them. Even though we’ve frantically switched them from one hand to the other while checking our pockets. A half dozen times!

But, contrary to popular opinion, the problem isn’t due to a defective short-term memory.  Just the opposite. Our short-term memories work too well; they immediately overwrite all previously stored information. Take the typical old coot situation; we walk into the kitchen to get something and stop dead in our tracks and mumble, “Why did I come in here?” It seems like a short-term memory problem to the uneducated, but it isn’t. On our journey to the kitchen we stopped to pick a wad of cat hair off the floor, walked over to the bathroom to throw it in the waste basket, unscrewed the filter on the sink faucet and cleaned the screen, peeked out the window to check the bird feeder and then went to the kitchen. All those new memories override the one that sent us there in the first place.

We don’t deserve to be chastised for a short-term memory deficiency. Just the opposite; we should be praised for having a fantastic, short-term memory. I’d finish this thought with a clever ending, but I just looked out the window and saw a squirrel run up the tree with a black walnut in his mouth and lost my train of thought. Oh yes, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! 

December 17, 2014 Article

The Old Coot says mediocre is now awesome!

By Merlin Lessler

  

I’ve written about this before, the common use of overblown adjectives, but it’s been eight years and nothing’s changed. If anything, it’s gotten worse but we’ve become numb to it. At least I have. But, the other day the numbness evaporated and I started to notice the inappropriate adjectives that fill the air, from TV and radio news reporters, meteorologists, politicians and in everyday conversations. 

I was jolted out of my numbness in the Blackbird Bakery & Eatery when I eavesdropped on two young couples taking a break from parenting. Old coots do this all the time. You think we are sitting next to you in a stupor; we’re not; we’re taking it in. One of the fathers described the “unbelievable” accomplishment of his four-year-old son, “he put away his toys!” Unbelievable? Not really. That’s my point. What adjective is left for the kid when he does something significant: learns to belch the alphabet or to cross his eyes. He’s doomed to mediocrity. It’s hard to beat “unbelievable.”

It’s not just a parent & kid thing, this excessive use of inappropriate adjectives. It’s all over the place. I asked someone what they thought about the new Dunkin Donut building going up in Owego. “Fantastic!” was the reply. I’ll concede the new building looks nicer than the old one. But fantastic? Not by a long shot. Fantastic, is when I put a letter in my pocket, walk to town and remember to take it to the post office and mail it. Now that is deserving of a “FANTASTIC!” 

We can thank the advertising industry for the abuse of adjectives. They’ve hyped products for so many years that there are no words left for something that truly is outstanding. No one will buy a great, or even a super laundry soap. We’ve been conditioned to look for the box that screams “Miracle Soap.” The kid that received a “fantastic” for putting away his toys will probably be called “genius” for memorizing the multiplication tables, though in today’s education system he probably won’t have to. It will come as quite a shock to him when he grows up, moves to a bigger pond and discovers he’s just plain average. He won’t hear adjectives like fantastic and unbelievable for another fifty years. Anyhow, that’s how long it took for me.

It started the day I received my first Social Security check and officially joined the old coot society. I took advantage of it the night I did a book reading at the Pumpelly House and only lost the point I was trying to make fourteen times and addressed a member of the audience by a name which started with the same letter as his actual name. One of those Mike versus Mark things. Pretty darn close for an old coot. I was FANTASTIC that night.   Then, two years in a row, I remembered our anniversary, with only six reminders. UNBELIEVABLE! I drove home from Elmira with my left turn signal only blinking for half the trip. INCREDIBLE! I love that my bar is so low I get high praise and superlative adjectives for mediocre performance. It’s just one of the perks that come your way in the GOLDEN years.