Old Coot interruption defense. O.C. Article - Tioga County NY Courier April 27, 2022

 The Old Coot interrupts.

By Merlin Lessler

 Old guys constantly interrupt each other. Regular people do it as well, but do it to agree with, or to counter, a point that was made. Old guys do it for a different reason. We interrupt because we’re afraid we’ll forget what we want to say. The thought will evaporate into thin air if we don’t get into the conversation immediately. And, when it does, we stop listening and spend our time trying to resurrect it from the murky sludge inside our skull.  

 It’s not hard to break into a conversation when the old guy talking runs into a memory block and says something like, “What was that guy’s name?” It creates a pause in his babbling, allowing for an easy path to grab the reins. When that doesn’t happen, and we can’t wait for an opening, we interrupt.

 My friend Mike (with an S at the beginning and end of his name), has developed a counter measure to stop an interrupter. He hops back into the conversation, looks the guy in the eye and says, “Sorry I was talking while you were interrupting!” It throws him off. “Huh?” he responds, not quite getting the point. Too late! Mike is back in the driver’s seat.

 One old coot conversation that takes place without interruption is what we call, “Old Man Poker.” A guy will say he had a knee replaced. Another guy will say he’s had both knees replaced. A third will say, “Oh yea; I’ve had both knees done plus a hip.” It’s like a poker game when the betting is over and it’s time to declare your hand. On and on it goes in old man poker – knees – hips – shoulders, heart stents and so forth until someone comes in with a royal flush and says, “I haven’t had anything done; all my parts are intact and working fine.” We hate this guy. He won’t be invited back.

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The old coot is out of time. Old Coot Article of 04/20/2022

 The Old Coot is a day person?

By Merlin Lessler

A new conflict in America has been set in motion, a new schism in the fabric of our society. “Day People” versus “Night People.” The House of Representatives passed a bill to permanently keep our clocks set to daylight saving time. The Night People are happy. They want that extra hour of daylight at the end of the day. The Day People are stressed, losing an hour of daylight in the morning. Some of us odd balls, mostly old coots, want “them” to leave things as they are. Our constant rant at every change is, “Leave us alone!”    

 This new conflict just adds to the efforts of the media and politicians to assign us to separate camps, and then nudge us into conflict. Republicans versus Democrats, young versus old, rich versus poor, etc. etc. They feed on it. It keeps them in business.

 Us middle-roaders, independents, want congress to butt out. The time change in the fall and spring is a familiar event that marks the change to a new season. And, it adds some humor to daily life when people forget to reset one of their clocks and arrive too early or too late at an event. A chance to laugh at ourselves. A chance to dig into our automobile manuals and figure out how to reset the clock.

 Even the medical and scientific communities are at odds. One group says that changing the time twice a year causes an increase in cluster headaches, heart attacks, strokes, car accidents and male suicides. Really? Don’t people frequently get up an hour earlier or go to bed an hour later. Should they stop. It happens all the time. Is it really that lethal? I’m a skeptic. Statistics do lie.

 Other scientists claim that year round daylight saving time is not in sync with our inborn cicada rhythms. They say it’s best to remain on regular time, all through the year. The working population and school kids adjust to changes in wake up times every week, and then sleep in on the weekend. We’re pretty well adapted to change. And, how about the millions of people living at the west border of the time zone they live in; their cicada rhythms are already out of sync. And they seem to be doing OK.

 All I can say, is this battle looming in congress will provide some hysterical entertainment as the seasonal clock resetting topic is debated. We might as well enjoy it. It keeps them from messing up our lives in other ways.

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The Old Coot is out of time. A Tioga County Courier (NY) Article of 4/13/2022

 The Old Coot goes shopping.

By Merlin Lessler

A reader (Terry) brought an interesting phenomenon to my attention. “If you want to know how someone drives, watch how they push a grocery cart.” They ram into other carts, don’t slow down for intersections and, heaven forbid if you get in their way of getting to the last package of their favorite cookies; you just might feel their cart ram into the back of your legs.  

 I did some research on my own. This is what I observed about grocery store manners that end up on the highway.  A “wide walker” set my pace. He moseyed along in front of me. He wasn’t wide, but his walking style was. When he stepped with his right foot he went way to the right and then did the same when he stepped with his left. It was like walking behind a waddling duck. And, that's another thing, what is it with people who insist on walking side by side? They clog up progress down the aisle more than anything.

 If it isn't a wide walker then it's a "weaver" who hinders my progress. You know the type; they push their cart along in a coma like state. When you try to pass on the left, they weave in front of you. If you go to the right, they beat you to the open lane. It's why I think the carts should be equipped with a horn.

 If the stores were required to have the carts "inspected" by an authorized mechanic every year, it would solve another of my shopping cart problems, getting one with a bent wheel, the kind that won't go in a straight line. It constantly goes at an erratic angle so that you have to jerk it back into the “driving” lane. I hate it; it makes people think I'm a "weaver" - they yell and throw things at me as I wind my way through the store. If there were horns on the carts, they could just toot, and I'd let them pass.

 If cell phone laws against using a phone while driving applied to drivers of shopping carts it would improve my grocery shopping experience.  - The people who sail along in front of you yakking to a friend. (Who, in my mind, put down their phone hours ago, bored by the endless stream of chatter.) Anyhow, they sail along in front of you, loudly yacking into their phone and then come to an abrupt stop, causing you to do the same. In their car they text and sit motionless when the light turns green at a traffic light. And much worse, drive right over bicycle riders and pedestrians, and of course, and into passenger cars. Shopping cart behavior and automobile behavior are one in the same. Check it out and see if you don’t agree.

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Old Coots can't watch TV. A Tioga County NY Courier article of 4/06/2022

 The Old Coot can’t watch TV

By Merlin Lessler

 I can’t watch TV.  Not when I’m a guest at someone’s house and on my own. “There’s a TV in the den and in the living room, if you want to watch,” they say, as they head out the door. “Great!” I think, since I don’t have a book or a newspaper to occupy my time.

 So, I go into the den and sink back into the recliner and grab the biggest of the three remotes from the table at my side and get ready to relax and watch a football game. The remote is the size of a small I-pad, loaded with buttons, some labeled with words, most labeled with icons, many a mystery to me. I push the power button, an icon I’m familiar with. Nothing happens! I figure I used the wrong remote. I try a slightly smaller one. This time the power button gets some results; “Samsung” flashes across the screen and then goes blank. No picture. No sound. “Must be the cable box is off.”

 I pick up the third remote, a tiny thing with no markings at all, just two buttons on the side, barely visible and a touch pad that works like a joystick: up – down, side to side. I push it in every direction. Nothing! I give up!

 When the owner comes home, he finds me sitting in the recliner staring into space. He grabs a remote and pushes a couple of buttons. A picture flashes on just as the sports commentator says, “That was the most spectacular finish to a football game I ever saw!” Then an actor comes on wearing a lab coat, extols the virtues of a miracle drug that will cure what ails you. The side effects are enormous, but don’t seem so bad when they are revealed, because the scenery in the background is so peasant.  So is the music!

 I grumble to myself, “Man, I miss the days when a simple remote was all you needed.” Especially when I think back to the year my parents bought their first TV. No remote at all; I was the remote, running up to the TV when my father wanted to change channels or the volume. We got three channels with an antenna on the roof. It cost nothing to watch TV back then. Now, the average cable bill and/or streaming services push the monthly cost into the two-hundred dollar range. It’s just another example of why old coots like me go on and on about the good old days.

Old Coot goes slow - an Tioga County Courier Article of 3/30/2022

 The old coot is a slow poke.

By Merlin Lesssler

 Something just dawned on me the other day. I was at a stoplight with three lanes going in my direction. The car next to me, a sleek-looking Audi, had nosed ahead into the crosswalk, eager to be first when the light turned green. He was; I lost the race at the starting line. I'm a slow person. It took me almost eight decades to realize it. (Apparently, I’m a slow learner too.)

 I'm slow at about everything. Motorboat? Speedboat? Not me. I’m a canoe, kayak, rowboat guy. When I go out in the Susquehanna River in my kayak and paddle upriver a mile or two I’m in a trance. All I can see from that level are a few houses and a couple of commercial buildings, but mostly just trees and hills. I feel like I’m on a lake in the Adirondacks.

 Motorcycle? Not me. I poke along on a bicycle. Not a fast one, like you see the spandex people leaning forward on. I’m upright and slow. No spandex on me. I'm going ten miles per hour; they’re going twenty. When I worked as a soda jerk in high school the boss called me the Turtle; I spent too long making a banana split into a work of art.

 Snowmobile? Four wheel trail bike? Not me. I'm on cross-country skis or snowshoes, moving along at snail speed compared to snowmobilers and downhill skiers. I’m slow and sedated, pushing through fresh snow on a trail in the woods. And in summer, slowly hiking up those ski mountains in hiking boots.

 Fast cars? I've had a few, but much of my driving life was spent in VW Bugs and Buses; thirty-six horsepower doesn't get you there very fast. I have a friend who hit over 150 on his motorcycle and was rewarded with a speeding ticket. Another friend has a rare high-speed, expensive VW which he pushes up to 140 mph every so often. Another, who drove the Mass Pike at 120 miles an hour when he was in college, often gliding into the grass median to get around cars he came up on too fast. I've only had one speeding ticket; it was when I was sixteen and wanted to see if I could get my father's Edsel up to one hundred miles an hour on Upper Court Street in Binghamton, New York. I lost my license and was back in the slow lane, on foot power.

 I even eat slow, the last to finish at home and everywhere else. “Have a beer,” someone will say, and hand me a long neck. An hour later I'm still sipping it. Yep! That guy at the stoplight made me realize, I'm a slow person. He did it again, as we were side-by-side at the next light, three miles down the road. Sometimes a turtle catches up. 

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