February 22, 2017 Article (Tioga County Courier)

The Old Coot travels outside the lines.

By Merlin Lessler

I have a problem with the DOT. I think they do a good job, for the most part. State roads are well taken care of. Take a short ride over the border and I’m sure you will agree. But, I think the proliferation of pedestrian cross walk signals are a waste of time and money. I can see it, at busy, tricky intersections, but a lot of locations where they’ve been adding the signals, at $50,000 a pop, and more, are unnecessary, and a little insulting as well. How stupid do they think we are that we need help crossing streets where all you need to do is look both ways? A skill that five-year-old kids master before starting kindergarten. I suspect it may not be the DOT’s choice; it’s probably some federal safety standard that must be met if they want to get their fair share of federal funds. Like a lot of Washington’s programs, it’s blackmail of the highest order.

So no, I don’t have an issue with the” transportation” component of their function. My issue starts just off the edge of the travel lane, the shoulder of the road, where pedestrians, bicycle riders, skateboarders and the like, wend their way. Oh sure, there’s a bike lane here and there, a narrow space between a painted white line right next to the lane where 4,000-pound SUV’s fly by as though racing in the Daytona 500. I’d like to see a new state department established, the DOPT, Department of Pedestrian Transportation (meant to include pedestrians, bicycles, skateboarders, and every other form of non-motor vehicle transportation). The DOPT would have exclusive authority over the travel zone alongside the road. 

The first mission of the DOPT would be to clean up this travel space, to sweep off the sand and salt after a cruel winter, the debris that has fallen off commercial transporter’s vehicles and the limbs and weeds that encroach over the pathway. Not everyone in the country moves around in a motor vehicle, a lot of people can’t afford it and must travel on foot or under human power of some sort, to get to work and other places. Another whole bunch, do it for the pleasure and health benefits of powering themselves from one point to another. A clear path would be a good start.

Then, the safety issues could be addressed, creating truly safe places to walk and bike, protected from the distracted drivers who are running us down at greater numbers every year. The money wasted on those unnecessary cross walk signals would go a long way toward solving the problem.  A state department with a single focus on this component of transportation, would be a worthy and much appreciated venture. We’re a small portion of the population, but our numbers are growing as the benefits to good health (physical and mental) and a smaller carbon footprint are adopted by more and more joggers, walkers, peddlers & skateboarders. We spend millions on rail-trail projects, that, while important, don’t solve the problem for the great masses that don’t have access to them and do their thing along the roads dominated by motor vehicles. I’m spoiled; I grew up in a world where it was safe to get around under human power, on sidewalks along the roadway. We moved along on foot, on bicycles, pogo sticks, stilts and roller skates and we were safe. It would be nice to progress back to what once was.

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February 15, 2017 Article

The Old Coot isn’t buying it.

By Merlin Lessler

Stuff you can’t buy. A single pair of ankle socks. Oh sure, a lot of stores sell the socks, but not by the pair. You are forced to buy six or eight or a dozen in most places. If you look hard, you might find a store that sells a three pack. An off-brand three-pack, where the heel disappears after three uses. Maybe you want a white pair, a gray pair and a black pair. You are forced to acquire at least nine pairs.

And that’s another thing. Color. I like more color than what’s available in our black, white & gray fashion world of today. Red, yellow, green, blue; that’s what I’m looking for. I have to go on-line to a site called “Joy of Socks” to get them. Guess what? They sell them by the pair. I like that, so I usually buy three or four. My decision, not theirs.

Socks aren’t the only problem. A lot of retailers try to load you up with more product than you want. Go to an office supply store for a small box of paper clips. You have to buy a dozen boxes. Old coots like me use 6.8 paper clips a year, on average (don’t believe me? look it up at Old-Coot-a-pedia). A small box is a lifetime supply. A dozen small boxes is something you have to take care of in your will.

                                  

How about grocery stores, the big chains? Buy one get one free (with their rewards card). The stores around here will let you buy one at the lower price, but many other places won’t give you the discount unless you buy two. Food stores aren’t the only ones that bundle discounts like this. A lot of other businesses do. You need a pair of dress shoes for a wedding? Something that happens to us old coots because we tossed out all those suits, ties and leather shoes when we retired. Thinking we’d never need them again. We forgot about the funerals we’d be attending and the next generation’s weddings. So, you go looking for a cheap pair of shoes to get you over the hump and are confronted with a 50% off sign on the rack. “Wow! I lucked out this time.” Then, you read the fine print, “50% off the second pair.” Shoes, suits, pants, a whole bunch of things you barely need one of, are often priced like this.

We grew up in a world where the customer made the choice, not the merchant. We grew up in a penny candy world and spent our childhood gazing into a candy case full of sugary delights and telling the patient clerk, “Give me a black licorice stick, no make that red, a couple pretzel rods, two bubble gums, a spearmint leaf, an orange slice, a bit-o-honey, a jaw breaker and two fire balls.” Interspaced with a couple of dozen, “Ums.” We walked out with a little brown bag chocked full of sugar treasures. As close to nirvana as a ten-year-old can get. We had choices. Now we don’t. And, I’m stuck with a drawer full of socks I don’t need.

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February 8, 2017 Article

The Old Coot “Hearts” New York.

By Merlin Lessler

Us New Yorkers are a funny bunch. The taxes are high, among the highest in the nation, the regulations are excessive (a nanny state run wild), the Albany crowd that governs is rife with thieves and just about everything you enjoy doing is illegal. Even your poor dog is regulated. Let him run free for a minute and you’ll find out. You most definitely are prohibited from sipping a can of cold beer on a stifling hot afternoon, during a 30-minute ride home after working all day at a construction site, yet it’s OK to stop at a tavern, down a quick one and then drive home. If you do the math, the car-sipper drives with ½ the blood alcohol level as the bar-stopper. It’s illegal for your 13-year-old to ride a bike without a helmet, yet It’s OK if he climbs a tree or plays soccer or swings around on a set of monkey bars. New York legislators are inconsistent, they have a knee jerk reaction to a tragedy, pass a law to cover the situation and pat themselves on the back for their accomplishment, thinking their constituency is too stupid to solve their own problems.   

But still, we love being New Yorkers. It might be messed up, but it’s ours. Old coots like me especially love it; there is so much to complain about, but the state does have many cool things: the big city, good roads, nice parks, the wine country, beautiful lakes and the Adirondacks. Even so, it’s all under the thumb of a mean-spirited bureaucracy. Take the auto inspection process. Your car is a year old with 3,000 miles on the odometer and you failed to notice the inspection sticker expired last week. You only now noticed it because when you went to get in there was a ticket under your wiper blade. They used to warn you. If you got it inspected within 24 hours you were off the hook. There wasn’t a specific regulation then; the cops and local judges could use discretion. But now it’s a money thing. That crew in Albany can’t get enough, so you get a ticket.

It gets worse, this inspection process. You grab the ticket and head to the garage to get it taken care of. The first thing the mechanic does is scrape off the expired sticker. He has to! It’s the law! You’re not worried; it’s a new car; it will pass and you’ll get a new sticker. MAYBE NOT! The lights work, the tire tread depth is good, wipers, brakes and all the safety equipment checks out. Then he plugs into your on-board computer and connects your car to Albany. If one of the emission devices is out of whack, your car will fail. No sticker for you! (as Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi would say)

Now what do you do? You plead, “Can you give me a temporary sticker so I can drive home and come back tomorrow when the part comes in?” The poor mechanic has to say, “Sorry, I can’t.” So, you find a puddle and splash some mud down the side of your windshield and hope for the best, hope you don’t get another ticket for driving an uninspected car.

Of course, I know all this by learning it the hard way. I’m driving around with a piece of black electrical tape covering the check engine light in my 18-year-old roadster. This worked OK last year. I disconnected the battery and the light went out. A few weeks later I had it inspected. Joe Sellers of Hilltop Motors did the inspection. He’s kept me road worthy for decades. As he was connecting the car to the computer in Albany I told him what I’d done. He got a funny look on his face and said the computer would still send the code that turned the light on to the big bullies in Albany. He probably wouldn’t be able to give me a sticker. Just then the computer beeped and approved my vehicle. I was lucky; the code wasn’t one of the ones that earn you a failing grade. It probably came from a loose gas cap or something benign.

But, now the light’s glow is hidden behind a new piece of black tape. I’m dreading the countdown to this year’s inspection It’s just one of those New York things. I “Heart” New York, but not as much as I did 50 years ago.

  

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February 1, 2017 Article

The Old Coot is being phased out.

By Merlin Lessler

I’m “unlearning” how to drive. My car, most cars, are well into the process of dumbing us down. I don’t drive something exotic like a self-driving vehicle, yet my car is slowly making my driving skills less and less necessary.

Take the backup camera. It gives me a wide view of what’s behind me, along with markers that tell how close I’m coming to some object.  If I keep going, moving closer and closer to the “red” line, it starts a warning beep that would wake up a baby if one were sleeping in the back seat. I don’t have to look in the rearview mirror. I don’t have to look in the side view mirrors. And, best of all, I don’t have to swivel around in the seat and twist my neck to look out the back window. I just stare at the screen on the dash and back away. All my mirror and neck craning skills are ebbing away.

The same thing is happening with my lane changing skills. My side view mirrors light up if a car is coming along side. Especially, when it enters the blind spot. I don’t have to keep an eye on the traffic behind me, to be aware that someone is coming up on one side or the other. I know the lights on the mirrors will handle that. If I’m not paying attention, and put on my blinker to signal I’m about to change lanes, the side view mirror will yell at me so I won’t crash into the car hidden in my blind spot. My skill at changing lanes is drying up.

My car doesn’t parallel park for me, but some cars do. More and more every year. It will soon become an unnecessary skill. One that new drivers dread, and the single most reason they fail their driving test. I don’t even have to know how or where to insert a key to get in or start my car. I just carry a magic black object in my pocket. It will unlock the door as my hand touches the handle and will start the car when I push a button on the dash that looks like the doorbell button in my first home. When I pull out of the driveway, the car locks the doors, so nobody will accidentally fall out.

It’s insidious, how cars, and so many other devices (bread machines, Keurig coffee makers Roomba Robotic vacuum cleaner and the like) are dumbing down the human species. Forget to fasten your seat belt? The car will nag you until you do. It won’t take long until robots in all shapes and sizes completely take over. I’ll have to ask my car if it will take me for a drive in the country  and stand in front of the refrigerator holding out a glass, hoping it will let me have a few cubes of ice. No longer in charge!

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