April 25, 2018 Article

The Old Coot explains his cult/s.

By Merlin Lessler

I belong to two coffee klatches, but none of us call it that. If we did, we’d be expelled. We just say, “I have coffee with the boys in the morning.” One group meets at Starbucks, in Ormond Beach, Florida. The other assembles at the Owego Kitchen and Carols Coffee & Art Bar, in Owego, NY. Both are loud, boisterous and disruptive to the profitability of the establishments, yet we are tolerated, and for that, grateful.

Each klatch is a closed society, though guests and visitors do pop in and out on occasion; full membership must be earned. It takes a while to fit in. We’ve added two new members (Eric & Mike) to the Owego klatch over the past few years. I’m the newcomer in Ormond Beach. Both groups have similar rules, codes of conversation, so to speak. Have a “story” to tell? Some neat, or dreadful experience you want to relate? Good luck with that! The floor is never yielded completely, no matter how compelling the experience you wish to talk about. 

It’s not “show & tell.” It’s “group-tell.” Daren, of the Owego klatch, often has something to share. He’s active, travels, things happen to him. He gets into a lot of predicaments. Some, by simple bad luck. Some, because he’s a stand-up guy who steps in to lend a hand or straighten out a mess. But, his best stories are those where he’s as hapless as the rest of us. Like, the time he chased a bat around his bedroom wielding a tennis racquet or tried to convince a squirrel it didn’t really want to build a nest in his attic. Each of those episodes had their hilarious moments, but nothing compared to his macho strut across a nite spot in New York City in his salad days, with a long stream of toilet paper dragging from the heel of his shoe. (Revealed in print for the 3rd time. Sorry Daren)

It doesn’t matter how intriguing or funny his story may be; he gets no more than 30 seconds to tell the tale before we interrupt and take the discussion in another direction or replace it with our own experience. He waits and grabs it back, and rushes to get more of the tale told. But, it ain’t gunna be that easy. We all talk, or nobody talks. It’s what keeps the klatch going; no one can bore the group for any length of time. The Ormond Beach klatch is the same, though people in that group resist interruptions with more vigor. It does them no good.

Tony, a former member of the Owego klatch, got so used to being interrupted that when he moved to the west coast of Florida and joined a bunch of locals for morning coffee, they thought he had an affliction. They were puzzled by his pauses after each sentence. He was expecting to be interrupted, but the group didn’t do that. They wondered, “What’s wrong with this guy; he can’t sustain a normal conversation?” He told me it took several months to stop talking in an erratic fashion. Of course, I interrupted him as he related this to me.   

Comments? Complaints? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com  - past articles at www.oldcootwisdom.blogspot.com

April 18, 2018 Article

The Old Coot finds his pen.

By Merlin Lesler

I’m well acquainted with it – been dealing with it for decades. It start’s in your fifties, for most people. I call it memory distractions. Sounds harmless. Memory collapse is more like it! I first stumbled into it in my mid-forties. I was on the phone with a vendor; after settling on a delivery date, he asked for my address. My mind went blank. I knew the street name, but the house number escaped me. I said to him, “Hang on a second; someone’s at the door.” I put the phone down and tore to the front door, went out on the porch to see what numbers were nailed to the siding and reported back. A few days later, I was on the phone telling Cheryl, a family friend for years, about my memory collapse. She laughed so hard she had to put her phone down. When she came back on the line, she said, “That’s nothing! I was on the phone and was asked my name; I went blank. I had to hang up and call back a minute later. With a – “We got disconnected” – excuse.

Her experience made me feel so much better. I knew I wasn’t alone, memory spasms were ordinary. And, to make it even better, hers’ was worse. I forgot all about my address failure, but a few years later, when I was in my fifties, the memory lapses become a way of life. The issue really came to the forefront the other day, I was racing around the room looking for a pen that I swore I’d just put down on the table. I eventually went to the “pens and gum” drawer (a name it was given back when we had little kids running around the house), got another pen and sat down at the table to write. It was then that I discovered the first pen; I was holding it in my teeth.

What a shock! Worse than a typical old coot memory lapse, the one where you “lose” your glasses and discover them riding on top of your head, or the one where you find the “lost” car keys, after racing around in a panic, tightly clasped in your hand. Whenever something like this happens, you think, “Alzheimer’s. Now I’ve got it!” But, after a short while, you forget the incident, and all is well. It’s not Alzheimer’s. It’s just a rerun of your teenage years. Those days where you: “Forgot to do your homework.” – “Forgot to make your bed,” – “Forgot to put your dishes in the sink.” Talk about memory problems, compared to teens, us oldsters are memory savants. Sure, we have these episodes of memory “distraction.” That’s our problem; we get distracted; we have too many thoughts going through our head at the same time. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Comments, Complaints – send to mlessler7@gmail.com

Past articles at WWW.oldcootwisdom.blogspot.com

April 11, 2018 Article

The Old Coot spots the goobers.

By merlin lessler

I swear there is a troupe of goobers who roam across the country from one disaster to another: a flood, hurricane, tornado or earthquake. That sort of thing. When the national media moves onto the scene, the goobers do too. Male goobers, are costumed in plaid flannel shirts, bib overalls, wide brimmed hats and dirty work boots. Women, are enclosed in well worn, stained “house” dresses from the fifties, stretched out cardigans, stockings rolled down and folded over white crews socks that rise from a pair of bunny slippers. Dentures are discretely removed when TV news reporters holding microphones, approach with a cameramen trailing alongside. The media seek out these “local” characters, to add color for their national audience. The interviews follow the same script, no matter where, or what the situation. The reporter asks for a reaction to the disaster and the goober says, “I lived here my whole life and ain’t never seen nothing like this! The actual residents see this on TV and groan, “Oh great! Doesn’t that make our community look pathetic.”

Another, but elite set of goobers also move into town. This crowd takes center stage, the “official” response to the disaster, a carefully orchestrated news conference. The most interesting performance from this elite group happens when local police agencies share the stage with the FBI, who are hell bent to hog the limelight. The news conference starts with a Governor who follows a standard script.  “We are going to pull out all stops to fix this mess (natural disaster), or to get the perpetrator (major crime situation) and will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law!” This is followed by several statements about the wonderful cooperation of all the agencies involved. We know they have no love for each other and that it kills the local guys to be lined up with the county, state and federal law officials, yet they all bite their tongues and follow the script. The regional FBI chief is introduced. He (it usually is a he) says the exact same thing the governor did. Then, a US Senator takes the podium, to repeat yet again, what’s already been said and then introduces the lesser politicians, right down to the local mayor, all the while keeping a firm grip on the microphone. That done, the governor grabs the mic and offers to take questions from the reporters.

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You never hear the questions at these events. The governor stands mute, listening, but no sound comes out of your TV; the reporters aren’t wired for sound. It doesn’t matter; the governor never answers the question anyhow, but simply hands the mic to the FBI chief who says he can’t respond because the situation is under investigation or it would be a violation of the privacy regulations. Every question generates the same response. Eventually the reporters give up and the local police chief takes the mic to conclude the news conference. He says there will be an update at four o’clock. The news reporters scatter and invade the local diners to get “facts” from the residents and from the traveling goobers. Rumors are passed along as fact, but the media teams don’t care; they have a deadline to meet. The lack of accuracy is covered up by attributing the “facts” to anonymous sources that have asked not to be identified. A few days later the goobers and the reporters leave town; then the local people go about the business of cleaning up the mess.

Comments? Complaints? E-mail to mlessler7@gmail.com

April 4, 2018 Article

The Old Coot is under pressure.

By Merlin Lessler

It happens every time there is a big swing in the temperature. That stupid tire symbol lights up on your car’s instrument panel. Like we don’t have enough techno aggravation in our lives. Here’s one more thing to worry about. The first time it happens, you wonder what it means, this amber “U” with an ! inside. You pull out the manual (it’s the size of a New York City phone book) and thumb through the pages. After an extensive search, you learn the light means the air pressure is less than the manufacturers recommended level, or the measuring device on one of the tires is defective.

When it happens for the first time, you assume the pressure gauge is working and that one of the tires is low on air. You go to the nearest gas station. I still call it that, even though it’s really a mini market that sells gas. If you’re lucky, they have an air pump and it works. You insert three or four quarters and the sound of an inadequate compressor starts to rumble. You rush to the first tire; the clock is ticking and you’re not sure how much time you have to get the job done. There usually is a gage on the end of the air nozzle, but unless you align it with the precision of a brain surgeon, you get something ridiculous, like 15 pounds.

Eventually, you get it right and discover the first three tires have 29 pounds; the problem must be with the last one. Isn’t that always the way? Sure enough, that tire registers 24 pounds. You try to align the nozzle to push in more air, but most of it blows off to the side and now the tire is down to 21 pounds. You finally get it right and air goes into the tire, but the compressor is so lame your time runs out and you have to start all over again. Of course, you don’t have enough change; you must go inside to get some quarters, but you have to wait while some goober redeems 15 lottery tickets and then takes his time picking out 15 more, spending every cent he won, plus an extra twenty dollars.

You get more air and get back in your car only to find out the darn light is still glowing. Now what? When you get home, you Google for an answer and are advised to wait a few days for it to reset. UNLESS THE SENSOR ON ONE OF THE WHEELS IS DEFECTIVE. REPLACEMENT COST IS IN THE $80 RANGE! It doesn’t turn off in a few days and you decide there is no way you’re going to pay eighty bucks to fix a nag that turns on a light on the dash. You do the same thing you do when your check engine light comes on for some obscure reason, you cover the light with a piece of black electrical tape. You’ve lived without an air pressure sensor for years. You just hope the price of tape doesn’t go up too much when the automobile dealers find out why people are buying it in quantity and corner the market. And, raise the cost to astronomical levels, like the pharmaceutical companies do.

Comments, complaints? Leave at: mlessler7@gmail.com