Old Coot's war with Father Time is ongoing. A Tioga Co. Courier And Owego Pennysaver article, 09/28/2022

 The Old Coot’s at war.

By Merlin Lessler

 I can relate to the war between Ukraine and Russia, in a way only an old coot can. I’m Ukraine and Father Time is Russia. America is the team of medical specialists, helping me withstand the onslaught. I’m bombed and attacked from the north, south, east and west. It’s a blitzkrieg that I face. One sector gets settled – my sore elbow repulses the attack and the Russians go after another with a missile raid, attacking the knuckles in my right hand, flaring up the once dormant arthritis. My knuckles are the focus of my attention and continue to ache because I use that hand all the time, to swing a hammer or a golf club, untwist the top on a jar or turn a screw driver. Though, it does come in handy when asked to perform an unpleasant task. “I’d love to help, but the arthritis in my hand is so bad I can’t.” Or, to explain why my golf ball went into the woods.

 When my hand is under siege, I get no help from America, except to be told to take a pill and ease up on gripping things. Then, Russia takes advantage of my preoccupation and starts bombing my knee. Making me limp and yell, “Ouch,” at every misstep. My hopes of getting aid from America are dashed when they say, “We can replace the knee, it is bone on bone after all.” But I don’t want a replaced knee, not yet, anyhow, so I shrug and say, “No thanks,” and work on it myself, with an elastic sleeve and PT exercises.

 But the Russians aren’t done with me. They go after the north quadrant, hitting me with red, itchy eye that feels like a speck of metal is stuck in it. America comes through this time with some defensive weaponry, a bottle of high-quality eye drop medication. In a few days, I’ve pushed back the Russian assault. All is calm in the north. Then, they bomb my memory, agility, balance and reflexes. My weakest sectors. But that’s where their air attack stalls. I can cope with the damage, but it looks like a long war ahead with no treaty in sight. That’s OK. I’ve prepared for this war all my life.

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The Old Coot goes the wrong way to the past. September 29, 2022

 Old Coot finds magic on Parker Lane’

By Merlin Lessler

 I drove down Parker Lane the other morning. It’s a narrow, one-way street in Owego, NY, well-marked, to keep cars from entering from Front Street. But that’s what I did! I’ve been told by locals, which I’m not, though I’ve lived here for 36 years, that Parker’s Lane wasn’t always a one-way street; you could enter from either end. I just had to see what that was like, so I defied the one-way arrow, and slowly worked my way to Main Street. It was a one block journey, but what a lovely ride.

 I swear it’s a magical port that takes you back in time, like it felt to me when I first wrote about in 2004. I’d defied the one-way sign back then, though on foot and in a swirl of an early morning fog. I swear I saw the shadowy figure of Justice Parker striding from his back door to an awaiting carriage, the outline of horses munching hay in his backyard and foundry workers shuffling to work with tin lunch buckets clutched in their hands. Smoke from ancient chimneys seemed to hang in the air.

 Parker Lane wasn’t always blessed with such a melodic name. In the early 1800’s it was called Camp Alley. Henry Camp owned the corner lot at Main St. where he operated a foundry that was destroyed in a fire. It was rebuilt on Front Street across from what is now the Parkview Inn. The foundry produced engines and machinery that were used in the local steamboats that hauled goods up and down the Susquehanna. It too, caught fire and burned to the ground. The fire spread and destroyed all the houses on both sides of Front Street from the bridge to the alley.

 Nathan Camp, Henry’s uncle, owned the parcel of land that abuts the alley on the west. He too, had an impact on the village, but his contributions were positive.  He started the first library in 1813, and was one of the founders of the Ithaca - Owego Turnpike Company, an endeavor that helped expand trade. He sold that lot in 1829 to Harmon Pumpelly, who built an impressive brick mansion, which still graces the site today. It eventually became the Residence of John Parker and his wife Stella Pumpelly. The street was renamed in Parker’s honor after his death in 1873. He was a 2-term congressman and a Supreme Court Justice. 

 It only takes a minute to walk down Parker Lane, but a minute in this time warp seems longer. You emerge relaxed, calm and ready for the day. A final irony greets you as you exit onto Main St. The street marker for Main, the longest most active road in the village is one foot long; the marker for Parker Lane, the shortest and least used pathway is twice as big. It may be that the hands of the sign maker were guided by a force beyond his control, a force that wanted to remind us that the lane is important too, a connection to the past. Take a minute some time and see if the magic is there for you.

The Old Coot is happy to be dumb. A Tioga County Courier and Owego Pennysaver Article - 9/07/22

 The Old Coot grew up in the dumb generation.

By Merlin Lessler

 It’s been quite a while since I spent time in Martha’s Vineyard, but the memory is fresh. I spent my mornings on a bench with a cup of coffee at the harbor in Edgartown. There is nothing like sitting on the dock in the early hours. The waves gently lap at the pilings; boats rock with the beat; shore birds perch on piers and sea ducks weave through the trash carelessly tossed into the drink by thoughtless tourists. Sleepy bankers, lawyers and stock peddlers stumble out of BMW’s, Jaguar’s and Audi’s, and head for the charter boats. Upright fishing poles stand at attention to greet them.  Well used boats line the docks, with names that reflect the owner’s point of view: Splendid, Tenacious, and my favorite, My-Old-Lady. The Wall Street titans, decked out in Armani shorts, Chap’s shirts and 300 dollar boat shoes are greeted by local boys, sailors and fishermen alike, smoking Camels and sporting jeans, work boots and stained T-shirts, one with an inscription, “Will trade wife for boat.”

 It’s the meeting of two tribes: the blue-collar clan that makes things work and the white-collar clan that reaps most of the fruit. Hands are shaken. Grips made strong from swinging hammers and turning wrenches are matched with grips firmed up from grasping tennis racquets and swinging golf clubs. Money changes hand and off they go. Their crafts create a wake that give the tethered vessels a goodbye wave. Uniformed waitresses sit passive, killing time before their 8 A.M. shift in the Yacht Club, catching a few precious rays before they spend the day under manmade light. An old coot sits to my left, in knee socks and sandals, reading the Wall Street Journal and saying, “Howdy,” to every passerby.

 A father came by one morning, pushing a boy and a girl in a double stroller. He was wearing a pair of gray sweat pants rolled up to his knees, sandals, a sixty-dollar T-shirt and drinking diet ice tea from a leather ensconced water bottle. A group of ducks floated into view. I expected him to say, “Look at the ducks!” But he didn’t. Instead, he said, “Melissa, can you count how many ducks there are?” “Tree!” she answered. “No, count again,” he replied. “Two?” she said this time, trying to please her mentor. “Right; you’re a good counter Melissa.”

 But he was wrong. There were three ducks. He couldn’t see the one peeking out from behind the pier. She could. So, he just taught his daughter how to count wrong. We have such a hard time these days, letting kids be kids. We have to make sure they can count, say the alphabet, write their name and otherwise be prepared for kindergarten. We were lucky, my generation. We were brought up dumb. We learned all the stuff in school that today’s kids know before they get there. And, we stayed dumb. We didn’t learn to read until first grade, had no homework until seventh grade and took college courses in college, not high school. We were lucky; we grew up dumb.

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The Old Coot is a victim? Tioga County Courier and Owego Pennysaver Article of 9/7/22

 The Old Coot’s world is shrinking.

By Merlin Lessler

 I’m not a conspiracy theorist, though I was one for a while when I was a kid and learned that the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny weren’t real. An, then came the biggest lie of all, told to me by my mother when I was five years old, and on a gurney, waiting to go into the operating room for a tonsillectomy, “Don’t be afraid; the doctor will take a rose out of a drawer for you to smell and you’ll go asleep. After it’s over you can have ice cream.” WHAT A LIE! No rose, just the same ether the ear doctor used when he put me out to puncture my ear drum when I had an ear ache. Ice cream? It was two weeks of swallowing hell before that came true.

 OK, there really was a conspiracy going on to ease me through childhood. But today, I don’t believe in the conspiracy theories that infuse society in general, and social media addicts in particular. UNTIL NOW! It has dawned on me that the fashion industry is executing a full-blown conspiracy. A conspiracy between designers and manufacturers to use less cloth in their garments.

 My Irish heritage has cursed me with skinny arms. I was OK when short sleeve shirts came down to my elbows. The one I put on the other day, barely made it past my shoulder, exposing my chicken bone arms to the world. It is why I often wear long sleeve shirts in the summer and roll up the sleeves to stay cool, literally and figuratively.

 But, the exposure of my skinny arms isn’t the point. The conspiracy that is going on to reduce the amount of material in garments is real. A little bit of cloth here, a little there, adds up to an enormous amount of cloth the manufacturers don’t have to buy. And, it’s not just shirts, pants are so skinny that men look like they are wearing tights. Shorts are shorter. No longer down to the knee, but working their way up the leg. Who knows how high they will go. This garment industry conspiracy is just like the food industry conspiracy that has been shrinking the size of cans, cereal boxes, ice cream containers and just about everything else. The world is shrinking around me! Or, am I just paranoid?

The old coot lost his soap. An Owego Pennysaver Article of 8/31/2022

 Old Coot’s in a Lather!

By Merlin Lessler

 I started this gripe in 2005, Article # 86. Now, 17 years later, I’m still complaining, Article # 993. It’s because I miss soap. I miss bar soap to be specific. We have liquid soap at our house, even in the shower. It’s a revolution that’s taken over the country. I don’t know how it happened. I wasn’t paying attention. One day the soap dish was gone; in its’ place was a liquid soap pump in a decorator jar. I feel like I lost a good friend.

 Bar soap is a hapless victim in the war between the sexes. Apparently, it irritated millions of women over the past several centuries as it sat in soap dishes covered in grime and handprints. Male hand washers never learned to clean up the soap after using it. We never even noticed that it was filthy. We washed, we dried, we went on our merry way. First, our mothers and then our wives cleaned up after us. It took ten seconds to rinse off the soap and put it back in the dish, but we never caught on. Now, it’s too late; our bar of soap is gone.

 I hate liquid soap dispensers. I get my hands wet and then reach over to the pump, hoping against hope that some soap is left in the container. You can’t tell by looking. This was never a problem with bar soap. A quick glance was all it took to know there was enough soap to get the job done. Now, it’s a crapshoot. I pump; nothing happens. I pump again; nothing. Six more pumps and a dribble of soap finally makes it to the tip of the nozzle. Now, I can wash my hands. The pump is filthy from all the contact with my wet dirty fingers. I scrub and shrug. The liquid soap isn’t as good as bar soap. You can’t dig your nails into it to do a good job on the dirt that gets trapped underneath. It smells funny too, like lilacs or oranges or something pleasant. Soap should smell awful. It shouldn’t make you want to eat it.

 Our latest dispenser ejects a stream of foam; you don’t have to work up a lather with your hands. The soap company figured it’s too hard for customers to do it. I miss all the old bar soaps: Octagon, sand-laden Lava for grease-laden hands, Yellow Soap to bite on when you said those words that made our mothers cringe, Palmolive, Dove, Dial, Camay and Ivory. It was a bar soap world, now overtaken by lather in a jar.

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