April 26, 2017 Article

The Old Coot lauds the automatic washing machine.

By Merlin Lessler

The greatest invention of all time (Wow! That’s putting it out there) is the automatic washing machine. No one calls it an “automatic” washer anymore. Today’s generation has no idea what the world was like when this invention first started showing up in basements across America in the 1950’s. It replaced the “wringer” washing machine, which was nothing more than a steel drum with an agitator motor to slosh the clothes around and a set of rolling pin like bars that you fed the clothes into to wring out the excess water. Even that device was a step up from a hand cranked wringer and a stick to push the clothes back and forth in a tub. Before that, I guess it was the “beat the clothes on a rock by the side of the creek” process. I don’t go back quite that far, but I was there when my mother got her “automatic” washing machine.

It was installed in the basement, a few feet from a matched set of stationary tubs that were used to presoak clothes before they went into the wringer washer. My mother kept up the presoak process, like many housewives of the day, because she didn’t trust the “newfangled” machine to get clothes clean with such little effort. Kind of like, what many of us do today, by rinsing dishes thoroughly before stacking them in the dishwasher.

Eventually, people accepted the change and stopped the pre-wash step. The term, “automatic” was put aside and the washer machine became simply, the washer. So here I am, sixty some years later, using an automatic washer, despite getting a, “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” from my wife when I do so. I usually wait until I’m home alone, just like I do when I climb the ladder to wash or paint our 212-year-old clapboards. I’m happiest when I’m unsupervised; I can ignore her plea of, “Just let me do your wash.”

I do it because I don’t like her technique. I like to wash everything in my hamper in one load.  And, get this, she thinks the clothes should be divided into piles: whites, colors, permanent press, etc., and washed separately. I cram mine in and set the cycle to large load. I have a two by four handy to jam them in when the lid won’t close. I did add one step, at her insistence. I check the pockets for paper receipts and tissues, so the washer, the dryer and the clothes don’t end up imbedded with confetti. Oh sure, my stuff has wrinkles, some of the stains don’t come out and a few white things have become pinkish. But, wrinkles are in these days and “real men” wear pink. As for the stains, well, if I hold my arm in front of them nobody notices. Trouble is, I’m getting a catch in my elbow and don’t know how long I can continue with that technique. I might be forced to listen to her for a change.   

Comments? Complaints? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com

April 19, 2017 Article

The Old Coot, “Feels like” 2 + 2 = 5.

By Merlin Lessler

“Sooo!” – “I feel like…..” – “Sup?” These three expressions are part of the new hip language in our society. And, once again, I’m out of step! This leaves two choices for an old coot like me; join them, or become a critic? If I join them, I’ll look like an idiot. Picture this – some old sourpuss coming along, his arm raised, saying, “Sup?” & “Give me five!” It just doesn’t fit. So, I’ll take the critic route and see where it leads me.

“Sooo.” – is a widely-used starter when someone is answering a question. It’s quite prevalent in one-on-one conversations, but more noticeable on the media when well-educated, and articulate commentators and guests use it to start a response. A commentator will ask a guest, “What is the effect of the new policies to protect students on campus?” The college dean will respond – “Sooo. The Title 9 rules…. blah, blah, blah.” Sooo is used so frequently in this manner, we hardly notice it anymore. It has replaced: “Er.” – “Um.” – “Well.” and “Ahh”. All words I mastered in the third grade, when called on by the teacher and didn’t know the answer. If the intellectuals who start their answers with Sooo, just dropped it, they would appear much more knowledgeable.

“ I feel like.” Has only recently made the language scene, but it is even more widespread than “So.” It has totally replaced: - “I think” – “To the best of my knowledge” – “I heard” – “It is my opinion.” I FEEL LIKE is a cop out. You’re never wrong when you cushion a declaration with, I feel like…”  You can’t be criticized for making an asinine statement because it’s how you FELT, not what you thought or knew. You hide behind the “I FEEL” (I don’t know the facts but I feel like they are this or that). “I FEEL LIKE” has also succeeded in replacing that old (cop-out) favorite, “They say.” Both, take the speaker out of the equation and let their unfounded assertions go unchallenged.

“Sup?” is last on my list . The short form of “What’s up?” It usually evokes a, “Nothing,” in response. It’s more of a conversation stopper than a conversation starter. When we are confronted with it, our brain freezes; we can’t come up with a good answer and feel just like we did when the teacher asked us a question in third grade and we had no idea what she was talking about.

SO, I FEEL LIKE & SUP need to be challenged until they disappear. “THEY SAY” it will happen; it’s just a matter of time. I sure hope so!    

Complaints, comments send to – mlessler7@gmail.com

April 12, 2017 Article

The Old Coot is priced out.

By Merlin Lessler

I’m a stranger here myself. In this Have, Have-Not and Have-Too-Much world. It came to me a few weeks ago when I was reading the business section of the Sunday, New York Times. It’s a little pricey, the Sunday edition of the Times, and it takes me all week to get through it, but it’s a college education. Read it every week for a year and the knowledge you can gain is equivalent to six college credit hours. (I’m well on my way to a PHD in Old Coot Studies).

But, back to the business section, where I had my epiphany. Every week, they compare three homes in different parts of the country, “What you get for $400,000 (or some such amount).” It used to be fun to look at it, a ranch house in Arizona, a Brownstone in Brooklyn and half a duplex in Philly. You could see how much you got, or didn’t get, for your money. See how a house in an urban setting compared to one in the country, or one in the mountains to one on the water. And, chuckle a little, about how much more houses cost in metropolitan areas versus where we live, in what the elite call flyover country. A chance to be a little smug over the good deal we got, compared to the houses featured in the Times.

Little by little, the “What you get for” price escalated, while the house I live in has sustained a long, steady slide into an abyss. I finally lost my interest in the “What you get for” section. Several weeks ago, it compared three houses on the market for $1.2 million: a 3,600-square foot contemporary in Santa Barbara, a 4,800-square condominium in Denver and a five bedroom Tudor in Wayne, Pa. The following week it was three houses “You can get” for $1.9 million (Richmond VA, Truro Mass. and Varshow, Washington). Nice houses for sure, but no longer relatable. I was out of the game, sidelined by soaring prices.

Then, the coupe de etat – a Business section article about the most expensive new house on the market, a 38,000-square foot monster in Los Angeles with a $250,000,000 asking price. (I included all the zeros to emphasize just how much $250 mil really is.) Yes, it has a lot of goodies: an 85-foot-long, glass tiled infinity pool, a four-lane bowling alley, a 20 foot, 4K resolution TV and the thing that perked my interest, an enormous garage that comes stocked with a $30,000,000 classic car collection. Staggering? Yes! But, then the article ended with a description of an even pricier house, also going up in L.A., that is expected to list at $500,000,000 in two years when it’s completed. If you are interested there is still time to get in on the bidding. I’m truly a loser in the game of who ends up with the most toys. But, a happy (and somewhat smug) loser.

Complaints? Give A Shot at mlessler7@gmail.com

April 5, 2017 Article

The Old Coot mastered the knife and fork.

By Merlin Lessler

We eat stupid! We Americans. If you pay attention to how we use a knife and fork. Throw a steak on our plate, or anything that requires cutting, and we pick up the fork with our left hand, the knife with our right and go to work. We hold the T-bone down with the fork, cut a piece with our knife, lay down the knife, switch the fork to our right hand, pick up the morsel and send it to our pie hole. (If we’re right handed. Just the opposite if we’re left handed.) We repeat the process until there is nothing left to cut. With an eight-ounce steak, we put the knife down and switch hands more than a dozen times.

Where to put the knife? That is the question. In real fancy restaurants, you might find a knife rest next to your plate. It looks like a miniature set of bar bells. For years I didn’t know what it was. Most people lay their knife back down on the table, causing a mess, or find a spot on their plate and then knock it off when they switch the fork to their right hand, also making a mess. It’s a tricky maneuver, beyond the dexterity of an old coot like me.

In Europe, the fork stays in the left hand, the knife in the right (for right handed people). They maneuver food from the plate to their pie hole with their left hand, using the knife to help load it onto the fork, often with the tines facing down, and the food transported on, what we would call, the wrong side of the fork. (I tried it and found I couldn’t do it.) Also, what do you do with peas? How can anyone balance them on a fork held in the “wrong” hand?

This is where being an old coot has some benefit. People don’t expect much of us. (And, we play that card as often as possible). We arm ourselves for battle, the fork in our left hand, the knife in the right, and go to war with that piece of meat. We cut it up all at once, send the knife into exile and eat in peace, just like we did when we were little kids and our mothers cut our meat for us. We’ll eventually end up with someone cutting up our meat again, so we might as well get a head start on eating the sensible way before it becomes a necessity.  

Comments? Complaints? Send to – mlessler7@gmail.com

March 29, 2017 Article

The Old Coot endures the racket.

By Merlin Lessler

It’s getting noisy out there. Oh sure, civilization has always been a little noisy, once we climbed down from the trees and moved into caves. Roaring sabretooth tigers and bellowing mammoths raised the sound level. And a millennium later, it was civilization: horses clomping down the lane, good old boys whooping it up in the town square, music blaring from pubs and bistros and bagpipes screeching across the moors. Add “choo choo” trains streaming through town, church bells, fire alarms, police whistles and you have a noisy world.

Then, the automobile made the scene, an immense noise maker: the roar of the engine, the blaring of the exhaust, horns honking and the crinkle of metal and sirens, as emergency vehicles rush to the scene of a crash.

And still, there was more to come. Electronics! Quiet at first, until boom boxes made the scene, the final step in the evolution from the crystal , that was so quiet, you had to use head phones to catch the whisper of sound coming across the airwaves, turned up the volume. The culprits of new noise are many. First and foremost, the cell phone. That tiny little device that demands so much of our attention. It started as a simple phone, but has evolved into a nanny. Beeping that it’s finished booting up, moaning that it’s running out of juice, and when the battery drops into the teens, begging and yelling in a panic, “Plug me in!” It beeps and burps as it goes through the day, acting as a personal assistant, reminding us of that 10 o’clock dentist appointment, taking over the function that we humans used to be so proud of, our memories, when we recited poems, rattled off phone numbers, addresses and people’s names. No More!

It’s become a bossy nag, warning us that a storm is headed our way, a blockage in traffic lies ahead, a new e-mail awaits in the in-box, a friend has posted something on Facebook, a text message came in, and occasionally back to its roots, a phone call, demanding to be answered. Our phone is so important, we handle it with more care than a newborn baby, cradling it as though it were fragile as an egg. The second it starts to whimper we rush to attach it to a USB cord, the electronic equivalent of an umbilical cord.

 Cell phones aren’t the only modern convenience that add to the din. Warning alerts and beeps fill the air from all sorts of devices, immersing us in a symphony of sound. Microwaves tell us our hot dog is done, cars remind us to fasten our seat belts or that a vehicle is coming along side in the blind spot. Trucks and construction vehicles beep when they back up. Everything we use, produces one kind of a beep or another. Even the washing machine and dryer boss us around, “I’m done; take the clothes out” says the washer. “Me too,” says the dryer, “or, everything will be wrinkled.”

We don’t have to remember anything. Some computer chip or circuit board will do it for us. That’s nice I guess, but it’s getting noisier and nosier out there.  

Comments? Complaints? Email to mlessler7@gmail.com