October 24, 2018 Article

The Old Coot gets questioned.

By Merlin Lessler

“Are you still........?” It’s the start of a question that old coots like me are asked with greater frequency, as the flames on their birthday cakes resemble a towering inferno. Are you still driving? -   Are you still in your house? Are you still riding your bike? Are you still? Are you still? Are you still? We can’t escape it! Underlying the question is, “I can’t believe you’re still alive!” We do get the actual question every once in a while, “Are you still alive? I thought you were dead.” Sometimes followed by, “So glad to see you’re still around.” It’s not so bad, if they haven’t seen you for years, but if they just saw you last month, or worse, last week, you start wondering, “How bad do I really look?” (At least they were glad to see me. Or, so they say.)

Old coots aren’t the only ones under siege from, “Are you still?” questions. Expectant mothers in their last trimester can attest to that. “Are you still carrying that kid around.” (It looks like you’re having triplets.) Young adults get the, “Are you still?” business too. “Are you still living at home?” – “Are you still unmarried?” –  “Are you still unemployed?” (Unspoken, is the judgement, “When are you going to get a life?”)

Whenever I’m asked an, “Are you still?” question, I go home and look in the mirror. Really look. Not one of those quick glances where the memory of a younger me obscures the reality of the old man’s face reflected back from the glass. But, I get over the stark reality of truth soon enough, just like I get over the, “I love your articles; are you still writing them?” – “Sure,” I respond, and then go and check the paper the first chance I get to see if I really am. The last time I looked, I was. Now comes the harder question, “Is anybody reading them?”

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

October 17, 2018 Article

Coming to you from Bikefest, 2018...Daytona Beach LOL

The Old Coot loves old clothes.

By Merlin Lessler

We all have them, old clothes that are treasured old friends. When we put them on they make us feel good about ourselves - more confident, more secure and more prepared to face the world and take on the day. But, inevitably, they, like ourselves, begin to age, lose their vigor, their presentability. For some people, it’s that special T-shirt, for others, that faded, broken in pair of Levi’s. For me, it’s an off-white, crewneck sweater I bought in the mid-1980s, at the long gone, Champion Outlet on Upper Front Street in Binghamton.

It survives to this day, in surprisingly good condition.  And, I get to take it out for a day every now and then. But, most of the time it sits in limbo, patiently waiting, with a few other “favorites” I can’t let go of. Most of them are on a closet pole in the attic above our garage. More than I care to admit, including a silk, patchwork, Jamaican party shirt I “had to have” when I saw it at a flea market in the Bahamas. It’s never been for a ride on my back, yet it still beckons me, so it remains in wait.

We get stuck in a fashion mode too. For me, it’s the fifties: Levi jeans (though we called them dungarees back then), crew neck sweaters, oxford cloth, cotton, button-down-collar shirts, dusty bucks, kakis, long, wool winter overcoats and argyle or colored socks. I added river driver shirts (now called henleys) in the 70’s and rugby’s in the 80’s. They’re all on “stand-by” in the attic.

When an item becomes too old to wear in public, it leaves the attic and goes to a “work clothes” rack in our garage. Every once in a while, I’ll give a “work clothes” item a new chance at life, and attempt to restore it to its former glory, so I can parade it out for a public appearance. It’s become easier, now that stained, tattered and paint splattered casual ware is in vogue. (Pricy too; you pay extra for the worn-out look) So, my horde of work clothes is slowly moving to the “stand-by” rack in the attic and now, more than ever, back into the house. I may look like a bum to many of you, but the hip crowd knows I’m up to date, but best of all, I’m walking around in the good company of treasured old friends.

Comments? Complaints? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com

October 10, 2018 Article

How the Old Coot is Frosty.

By Merlin Lessler

I wrote about a new name I’d picked up a few weeks ago. VERN! Now, I’ve been dubbed with yet another moniker, FROSTY. I guess it’s my year for new names. Some behind my back like Old Stumbles, Crusty, Grouch and Cheapskate, and of course, those I hear in public, Sir, Mister and Gramps (plus Vern, Coot and now, Frosty). It makes me wonder what else I’ll be called by before the year ends.

Frosty came my way in Zion National Park, Utah, on a western trip that found me in the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Lake Powell, Los Vegas and three days with our son in San Diego. Frosty became my handle on a riding trail in Zion Canyon. Frosty was the horse I was assigned for a trail ride, something I’d agreed to with trepidation, remembering well, my one and only experience mounted on a horse, properly called the “barn idiot,” when I was 16 years old. The “Idiot” broke from the pack and galloped back to the barn where I barely managed to slip off before he shot through the door that would have surely knocked my head off, since the opening was hardly high enough for a galloping horse, let alone one with a mounted rider.

I tugged myself atop Frosty (horse people call it mounted) and got in line, next to last, with several other riders and our guide, Sylvia. She didn’t call us by our names but referred to us by the name of the horse we were riding. “Slow down back there, Spirit?”  - “Hurry up Trigger; don’t let a big gap open between you and Pinto.” Thus, I became Frosty, a lot better than Old Timer, the name I started with when I signed up for the ride, which, explains why she kept swiveling around in her saddle and yelling, “How you doing back there Frosty? Are you OK?” It was not just my age; it was the grimace on my face and the yelps of pain I emitted every time Frosty decided to gallop or to turn his head and snap at my legs with a set of horse teeth that looked lethal to me.   

I’m sure the group was sick of the constant, Frosty, Frosty, Frosty. Even when the ordeal was over it didn’t stop. As I limped across the coral back toward the lodge, the shouts of, “How you doing Frosty,” continued. Whenever my wife, Marcia, relates the tale of our horseback ride in the canyon (with too much chuckling, I might add), another new person starts calling me Frosty. I’ll accept the horse name, but I’m not planning on doing anything horse-wise to pick up a new steed reference. So, call me Frosty, or Vern, or Coot, or Jim Steel. It’s better than being ignored, which us old coots get a lot of. So, thanks for that.

Yours truly, Frosty   Comments, complaints? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com

October 3, 2018 Article

The Old Coot adjusts to change.

By Merlin Lessler

I bring my own napkins! I have to! Too many restaurants only give you a single, paper napkin these days. It’s just not enough, especially when you are having soup and your nose threatens to embarrass you, and say, “Gotcha!” My problem is, the paper napkin I’ve been issued is quickly overloaded with ketchup, mustard, mayo, gravy or whatever substance was on my plate that I had to remove from my shirt, pants or places on my face nowhere near my pie hole.  “How did you get ketchup on your ear,” my wife will ask? “I have no idea,” I respond, desperately looking around for a waiter or waitress, to secure a new napkin, something that is apparently too costly to let customers have more than one at a time. So, I bring my own. That bulge in my back pocket isn’t a wallet; it’s an emergency paper napkin supply.

It’s my fault, along with the rest of my crowd, “People of Age.” We’re the ones who lined our pockets (and pocket books) with packets of mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, salt, pepper, sugar and whatever else wasn’t nailed down, for years on end, forcing restaurants to control the supply of condiments (and paper napkins) in order to stay in business. I know more than a few people of my vintage who haven’t bought ketchup, mustard, and the like in decades. So, now I’m saddled with carting around a supply of paper napkins in my back pocket.

It’s even worse in a nice, upscale restaurant where they entrust, even old coots like me, with expensive cloth napkins. I skip the soup in those places, but my nose isn’t prevented from causing me trouble; it acts as though I was slurping a steaming hot bowl of soup. And, the nose I’m sporting these days, has grown as I’ve aged. Just like my ears. Just like all old guys noses and ears. We get shorter as our bones settle, but our facial protuberances get longer. It’s the truth! I don’t want to scare readers in their 30’s, 40’s and 50’s, but it’s in your future too. I probably should have issued a “spoiler alert” at the beginning of this article, so you wouldn’t have to discover yet another reason to hang on to the falsehood that you will never get old and look like us. I remember thinking that when I walked around in an intact human mechanism. I still spend too many moments in denial of the aging process to this day. So, here I am, big nose, big ears and a wad of napkins in my back pocket.   

Comments, complaints? Send to – mlessler7@gmail.com