The Old Coot wears his scars proudly. A Tioga County Courier Article of August 15, 2021.

 

The Old Coot is marked.

By Merlin Lessler

 When I was a kid, say in the 7- to 10-year-old range, I almost always sported a scab on my knee and elbow. Sometimes, a blackened fingernail joined the duo; it took forever to grow out. Even my socks and pant legs were marked, not by rips and tears, but with burdock balls that decorated my faithful dog’s fur as well.

 Fast forward 7 decades, and here I am, looking like that younger self. Back then the knee abrasions came from bicycle accidents – a pant leg caught in the chain while coming down the steep hill I lived on, and crashing onto a cinder side road near the bottom. All because, I was not able to push the pedal backwards to engage the brake – (no hand brakes in those days).  The scab I sport on my knee at the moment came from banging it while sitting at the table and bumping it while switching position. The one on my elbow came from walking out the back door and bumping into the lock mechanism. The other decorations I sport come from similar, seemingly innocent missteps – it’s what happens when you are an old coot.

 Like most of us old guys, I’m on a low dose, daily aspirin regimen. To keep my heart healthy. This results in small bleeds under the skin. If we bump into too many things we look like some thug beat us up in an alley. Our old skin enclosure also thins as we age. Aspirin or not. Sometimes those bruises break through and Walla! We look like a 10-year-old again. Add a suntan to the equation, further thinning the skin and we are officially “Thin skinned!” Literally! 

 Oh sure, I have some rips and tears of the bicycle accident variety, but not from falling off with my pant leg caught in the chain. Mine come from swinging it around in the garage to point it in the other direction and brushing my leg with the pedal. The black fingernail I sported all summer is something for which I have no explanation. When I was a kid, I knew exactly where it came from, a hit with a hammer while building a tree fort in the woods. I picked up the burdock walking through fields to get to and from the woods on South Mountain in Binghamton. It was harder to deal with than a cut or a scrape. 

 They say you go through a second childhood when you get old, so here I am, heading toward 80 like a rocket, looking like a 10-year-old with a bike and a tree fort.

 Comments? Complaints? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com

An Old Coot loses his cool. A Tioga County Courier Article of September 8, 2021

 

An old coot buys a Cinnabon!

By Merlin Lessler

 You see this all the time, in a grocery store parking lot, along the street in a shopping area and especially at a mall with a huge parking lot. The driver’s side door opens. An arm comes out and reaches for the roof. It lingers there for a moment or two and then tenses. A stooped, human-like form begins to emerge. Up, up it comes; soon, the entire world can see the thing that has exited the car. It’s an old coot (could be me) that’s struggled out of a decades old crate, unceremoniously held together with gray strips of duct tape. It’s like watching a chick emerge from an egg.  

 But, that’s just the beginning; the show is far from over. The old coot locks the door. Twice! Then checks it to make sure it’s really locked. He peers toward the mall entrance and heads off on a long and dangerous trek, having parked at the remotest corner of the lot. He makes it to the door, only to turn around and stride back toward his car in a panic. He dodges people in cars who dangerously back out of parking slots while chatting on cell phones. He skirts around families that insist on walking five abreast. He makes it to his car, opens the door, bends down, reaches under the seat and retrieves his wallet. It’s several inches thick, loaded with discount cards, ID’s, memory aids and a plethora of items that he almost never uses. He can prove he passed his Junior Red Cross lifesaving test 65 years ago; the crumpled, faded card is there, mixed in with a stack of discount coupons, most of which have expired. He can’t drive with the wallet in his back pocket; it makes him tilt too far to the left (not a good position for a conservative old coot), so he sticks it under the seat. Now, he jams it in his front pocket, locks the door twice, checks it, and heads back to the mall.

 Twenty minutes later, he comes storming out the door, clutching a Cinnabon box. His face is flush from a combination of embarrassment and anger. He just told the manager of the men’s department in Penney’s what he could do with a pair of khaki pants, and then threw them at him to make his point. He’d found them on a rack with a big sign that said, “50% off.” The manager came over to the register to see what the ruckus was all about. It erupted when the (snotty) clerk told the old coot that the 50% off applied to a second pair of pants. “The first pair are full price; the second pair are the ones that are half off.”

 He stomped all the way to his car, put the Cinnabon box on the roof while he unlocked the door and began a protracted entering process. It took a full minute to bend, stretch and wiggle his way behind the wheel. The cinnamon bun, that he was so looking forward to, fell off the roof and rolled under a truck when he tore out of the lot. That’s an old coot for you!

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

Old Coot stood in the corner - an Old Coot ,Tioga County Courier Article Sept 1, 2021

 The Old Coot toes the line.

By Merlin Lessler

 School is back in session – kids are wearing masks. I tried that in 2^nd grade. I had on my cowboy shirt and hat and wore a kerchief across my face like cowboys did when driving the herd. The teacher wasn’t happy with some wise crack kid walking into her class like a bank robber in an old western movie.

 “Take off that mask and go to the back of the room and stand in the corner!” I heard that a lot when I was in elementary school. I got to spend time in all the penalty zones: the corner, the cloakroom, the hall and at the blackboard with my nose touching the slate. I wasn’t a special case. All the boys got the same shrift. We were itchy in school. Itchy to get outside and play. It was reflected in our behavior. We daydreamed when we should have been learning the difference between it’s and its. We shot wads of paper at the back of kids’ heads instead of making an endless series of loops, an exercise designed to improve our writing skills. We slipped a frog out of our pocket to see how he was doing when we should have learned to spell city, CITY, instead of CITEee. Girls too, got punished, but not for disrupting class or acting like a jerk. They got in trouble for whispering, passing notes and chewing gum. A sharp word from the teacher was all it usually took for the girls to shape up. Boys needed more; I don’t know why; that’s just the way it was.  

 Discipline was progressive. “Give me the squirt gun,” the teacher might say, to start a scenario, followed by a series of more onerous punishments. “Go stand in the cloak room,” was a common 2^nd step. It wasn’t so bad in spring and fall. It was just boring, hanging out in a narrow room with 25 coats, boys on the left, girls on the right. It was worse in winter; you were in exile with 25 sodden, wool coats. The smell of wet wool drying in a confined space is a punishment that exceeds the crime. I know it well, having served many sentences in “the hole.”

 I don’t envy teachers today. They have to get the three R’s across without the behavior adjustment tools that teachers used when I was in elementary school. Although teachers were authorized to spank kids back then, they rarely did. Just knowing they could, was enough to keep us in line, most of the time. Any adult was apt to give you a whack if you misbehaved or got sassy. The whole village really did raise children back then. If your parents found out that a teacher or a neighbor had given you a swat on the behind for acting up, you got a double dose from them. Consequences were perfectly matched to the crime. Bring a peashooter to class – lose it! Talk out of turn – get scolded! Do it again – stand in the corner. One more time – a trip to the principal’s office. Next, came the most dreaded punishment of all, “Stay after school.” You sat at your desk while your classmates ran outside to play. Often, writing 100 times on ruled paper, “I will not disrupt class, ever again,” or some such thing.

 The meekest, frailest teacher in the school had total control of her room. She had an arsenal of weapons at her disposal.  The all-female staff at my school had a secret weapon too, a highly developed vise-like grip between their thumbs and index fingers. When it was applied to a cheek, an ear lobe or the tender flab of skin on the back of your upper arm, it would bring tears to the eyes of even the toughest kids. We messed up, but always with consequences.

 Comments? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com