November 22, 2017 Article

The Old Coot spots a strange process.

By Merlin Lessler

The male grocery buying process! It’s a marvel to behold, akin to the Goodbye Process, the Male Clothes Buying Process, the Male Can’t Fold Process and the other processes I’ve unearthed in my old coot quest for truth, justice and the American way. This one, often goes unnoticed. A male goes into a grocery store in search of 13 items, sometimes with a list, but more likely with the items stored in his head. He’s not the primary shopper in the family; he’s the “pick-up-a-few-items-now-and- then” guy. He sometimes grabs a basket, but more often thinks he can do without, that he’ll be able to juggle the items for the few minutes it will take to get them to the checkout counter.

He goes to the first aisle, passing the stacks of goods on sale and picks up his first item. Let’s call this conquest #1, because this is a war, he’s in enemy territory on a seek and destroy mission. He moves through the aisles in a methodical process, secures all the items on his list in 3 minutes and 27 seconds and heads to the “express” checkout lane. “Coupons? Store card? Need help with the bags? Want to donate a dollar to the bunion scholarship fund?” No! No! No! No! He pays in cash, grabs his bags and leaves. He didn’t get the best buys, nothing on sale, no two-for-the-price-of-one deals, no unit price comparisons. Just the thirteen items on his list in under four minutes. Ta Da! The male grocery shopping process!

There is a modified version of this process. I call it the Early-Bird Grocery Buying Process. It’s usually old guys, like me. Early birds act as though they are in a foreign country when they step into a grocery store: tentative, unsure and anxious. They dart in and start by snatching a newspaper, the New York Daily News or maybe the New York Times, an item in their comfort zone. Then, they go for the few things they’ve picked up before: milk, bread and frozen pizza. When there is something like baking soda on their list they don’t know where to look. It requires a reconnaissance mission, a search through the store, aisle by aisle.

The signs that state what is in each row don’t help, not detailed enough. They are forced to do the unthinkable, ask for directions, something they never do when driving a car and unable to figure out how to get from A to B. But here, in this strange land, and nearly in tears, they ask. And, often the response they get is, “It’s right behind you sir. Just turn around.” That exposes yet another male defect: men don’t know how to look. But that’s a topic for another day.

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

November 15, 2017 Article

The Old Coot is a “light” reader.

By Merlin Lessler

Old coots. Old coots who are readers, of books, may have to alter their reading habits as they age. I have anyhow. I’m a moderate reader: 25 to 50 books a year. It’s a habit my mother started me on by reading Uncle Wiggily stories to me every night at bedtime. Then came “Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby.” Then, on my own, it was comic books (Little Lulu, Superman, Archie and the like). They were stacked up in the corner of my bedroom and grew in height at about the same rate as I did. I started reading books, from the school library, when I was in second grade, but continued to grow the comic book pile too, and to this day, read the “funnies” in the paper every day. Reading fills in the gaps, eliminates boring moments in the day and takes you all over the world, back and forward in time and gives you the opportunity to “walk in someone else’s shoes” to experience life every way imaginable.  

I have a group of favorite authors. When they publish a new book, I buy it or get surprised with it as a gift. I give other authors a test run; I borrow their book from the library, as a cheapskate old coot should. My author list has really grown over the years, but my reading selection has become limited of late. I’m forced to select a book by its weight, the lighter the better; it must be light enough for me to read while lying on my back and holding it over my head.  

It’s just another adjustment I’ve had to make as I move deeper and deeper into old coothood. No longer can I read some of my favorite authors, Stephen King and James Michener to name two. Their books run 800 pages or more and are too heavy for my reading posture. King is writing smaller books of late and Michener died in 1997, but there prolific writing style is still an issue since I re-read many books, generally on a five-year cycle. I’ve had to take their books out of the rotation. I don’t have enough arm strength to read more than a page or two at a time.

I’ve been reading books of 400 pages or less for the last year or so, but it’s evident I’ll soon have to lower my limit, maybe to 300 pages. Unfortunately, most books on the best seller list have more pages than that. I’m headed into a reading dead end. Oh sure, a Kindle would solve my problem, and I have one, as well as a Kindle App on my phone. I read on those electronic marvels now and then, but they just don’t cut it as a mainstream reading mechanism for me. Talking books don’t work either; they take me back to when my mother read me to sleep. I went out so fast it took a week for her to get through a single short chapter. I fade out even faster today.

I’m sure I face more surprises, more adjustments, as I journey down the old age jungle path, but I didn’t expect this one. I don’t know why I was surprised; I’m well acquainted with the aging process. My doctor has clarified the issue on many occasions over the past 25 years. Whenever I quiz him about my latest quirk, his response is always the same, “You have to expect that at your age.” If I could just find a copy of that Uncle Wiggily book, I’d be OK. That was a light one.

Comments, complaints? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com

November 8, 2017 Article

The Old Coot fights the fear mongers!

By Merlin Lessler

It’s the end of the world! Civilization is doomed! Life as we know it is over! This is what someone would think if they woke from a fifty-year coma and turned on a radio or TV. EVERYTHING is a crisis of epidemic proportions these days! Media descriptions of unfolding events claim them to be: the worst ever, the hottest, coldest, driest, longest, most tragic, never before seen, or some such apocalyptic description. Each new twist and turn in civilization seals our fate.

How did we get here? Scared to death by the media. Living in dread of an impending doom. It’s especially puzzling to those of us who, when we were small children, were exposed to the fable of Chicken Little, who panicked and ran around screaming, “The sky is falling,” when an acorn fell on its head. Apparently, Chicken Little grew up, graduated from Journalism or Meteorological college and is now employed by network news and cable.

Oh sure, there are tragedies of staggering proportions taking place. Nothing new; thousands of years of history tell the same story, yet the world still spins; the sun comes up every morning, despite REAL natural disasters, like the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 that resulted in “the year without a summer,” and that of Krakatoa in 1833, an explosion 13,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. It created a tidal wave that circled the earth 3½ times, dropped global temperature by 1.2 degrees for 5 years and sent ash plumes 50 miles into the atmosphere. Kind of makes the conventional wisdom that strives to keep us in constant state of fear over climate change seem a tad dramatic, if not downright silly. Ours, is a resilient species, but you’d never know it from the Chicken Littles who dominate the media and the scientific community. If they were around in prehistoric times we’d still be cowering in caves.

It’s time to push back. Before Chicken Little has us running for cover every time a raindrop plops to the ground (or is simply in the forecast). It’s time to scoff at the apocalyptic descriptions that are employed to panic us into staying tuned. It’s time to reject the gloom and doom, to stop stampeding like sheep in a state of fear and dread. Flowers are blooming all around us. Turn off your radio; turn off your TV, and smell the roses.

Comments, complaints, new things to fear? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com

November 1, 2017 Article

The Old Coot wants a piece of the pie.

By Merlin Lessler

You made it! You’re a millionaire! Not as big a deal as you might think. You’re in a crowded arena. There are 4,400,000 (4.4 million) millionaires in the United States. (Boy did I take a wrong turn along the way. Maybe more than one.) The real big deal, is the 400 Club, headed up by the likes of Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and Mark Zuckerberg. The 400 wealthiest Americans, according to Fortune Magazine, which creates the list every year. The average member is worth $6,000,000,000 (that’s six billion dollars in plain language, but I like to write it out to see just how many zeros it takes to make a billion). It almost, but not quite, makes you feel sorry for the poor guy at the bottom of the pile; he’s only worth a mere $1.7 billion.

There are a lot of wannabes, who hope to join the ranks of the 400 club someday, 156,000, to be specific, who have assets worth $25 million or more, pikers by comparison, but way ahead of everyone I know. None of them worry about paying off a college loan, making a monthly house payment and probably aren’t on the budget plan with their local utility company. Even so, I can’t help but think that they are missing a great adventure in life, making a go of it in the lower 99 percentile. They never experience the glee of making that last car payment, burning the mortgage or seeing their credit score finally begin to climb.

Many members in the 400 Club are generous with their wealth. They dole out millions, to well deserving individuals and organizations. It makes life better for many people. Even the “poorest” member in the 400 club can afford to be generous. If he hands out a million dollars a month for 100 years he’ll still have several hundred million to get him through a rainy day, even a monsoon and a hurricane season or two. And, why not share the pie, other than bragging rights, what good is having more money than you can spend in a lifetime, in several lifetimes. If this message touches one of you in the 400 Club, with a soft spot for old coots, my checking account number is 3895674217 and the bank routing number is 066000078, or you can just contact me at mlessler7@gmail.com. I’ll come over and pick up the check!