The Old Coot is in Style, Article #1047, Published on September 27, 2023

 The Old Coot is in style.

By Merlin Lessler

 Some old coots (me especially) are messier than two-year-olds sitting in a highchair eating pasta. Often with the bowl on top of their heads with spaghetti cascading down around their face. The spaghetti head look! Us old coots (me) often end up in a similar state - dribbling, dropping and spilling food & drink onto ourselves and our surroundings. Restaurants have to wash the table and mop the floor after we leave. But we don’t just leave a mess behind, we take it with us too.  

 We’re stain kings! Food slobs! Spaghetti sauce magnets! I crave for the days of the 50’s and 60’s when reversible clothes were in vogue. Splatter your shit! No problem, just slip into a rest room (kind of like Superman slipping into a phone booth) and turn it inside out. Same thing with reversable jackets and pants. Instead, we walk around, strategically placing our arms across our chests to hide the mess on our shirts. When we get home, we sneak into the house and hide it in the back of the closet.  

 Thankfully, today’s fashion is rife with torn and stained, jeans and shirts. The kids buy them new, and at a pretty steep price; we pull them out of the back of our closets, for free. We have a whole wardrobe of torn and stained attire. Probably worth a fortune on the open market. We’re not hip on purpose; we’re fashionable because we’re “Unstained Clothes Challenged.” A condition for which there is no known cure.

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The Old Coot is tied in knots. Article #1046 - September 20, 2023

 The Old coot is tied in knots!

By Merlin Lessler

 I was walking along, minding my own business, probably daydreaming, when my shoelace nearly tripped me. It had come untied. I knew why; I hadn’t tied it with a double knot. I had to bend down and re-tie it. The bending down and getting back up isn’t a problem for me, like it is for a lot of Octogenarians, but losing my balance and tipping over while I’m down there tying the lace is a problem. I have a balance issue that ramps up during a bending down situation. I scolded myself for skipping the second knotting of the lace. I knew better

 I almost always tie my laces in a double knot. It prevents the tripping and bending down problem. It got me thinking, “Am I the only, loyal, “double-knotter” on the planet? What’s going on in the footwear world?” So, I started asking people, “Do you double-knot your shoes?”

 I got blank stares from some young people, followed by, “What’s a double knot?” Including one kid, whose laces weren’t tied at all. And, of course, being an old coot, I pointed out it might cause him to trip. He grinned and told me that’s what his mother always tells him. I noticed his friend’s sneakers had a knot at the top eyelet (hole) and the rest of the lace was cut off, converting the tie-shoe to a slip-on. If I tried that, the sneakers would have to be so loose for me to get into them, that I’d take two steps and become shoeless.  

 My unscientific survey provided a spectrum of answers I hadn’t anticipated. “I only wear flip flops!” – “I only double knot when I’m hiking.” (Or jogging.) – “I don’t have any tie shoes.” – “My shoes fasten with Velcro.” The survey proved the world has changed, and now the Sketchers Company is pushing it even further with their new, slip-on sneakers. I tried on a pair; they were too wobbly for me. I’ll stick with a double knot and stay safe, in spite of Martha Stewart recommending slip on Sketchers in TV ads. “Stick to what you know, Martha!” (I should do the same, but…..)

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The Old Coot is in a fog. Article #1,045 - Published 09/13/2023

 The Old Coot is in a fog.

By Merlin Lessler

 Fall is here. It always comes as a surprise. I think summer will go on forever and then a fog rolls in to remind me. I rode my bike to town in it; the whole village looked as though it was wrapped in a cobweb. It was the topic of the morning conversation at the Owego Kitchen, “Boy, sure is foggy out there!” We’re a sharp bunch, us old coots; we notice things like fog.

 We don’t notice we missed two belt loops in our pants, that our “lost” glasses are perched on the top of our heads or that the guy we just greeted with, “Hi Bill,” is really Frank. No, we don’t notice those things, but we do notice fog. Fog is good. You can’t see the crabgrass through the haze; the lawn looks flawless. The east side of the house that looked like it needed repainting yesterday seems just fine on a foggy morning.

 Fog is one of the best things about fall. There is nothing quite so serene as a flock of geese ascending from the river blanketed in fog. First, you hear the resounding honks, then, one by one, the geese rise in a Vee and head off to warmer places. Old coots do the same thing, except their formation is on the southbound lane of Route 81 or 95, interspaced among a sea of tractor-trailers.

 Some of my old coot brothers (and sisters) don’t notice the fog; they haven’t had their cataracts fixed. To them, a foggy morning is just like any other. It’s not good to put off getting the cloudy lenses replaced with new ones, and not for the obvious reasons like it’s impossible to drive at night or it’s hard to recognize people. I get why some old coots don’t deal with their cataracts. It’s the, “there is nothing out there I want to see” syndrome. It’s similar to the condition that stops old guys from buying hearing aids, or turning them on when they do. They don’t want to hear anything either. Especially someone telling them it’s time to trim those cornstalks growing out of their ears. 

 But, delaying the inevitable (cataract repair) is fraught with danger. The kind that takes place when you get home from the hospital and look in the mirror. First, you screech. Then you yell, “How did my face get so old looking?”  When you turn around to ask your wife what’s going on, you get another shock, “Who are you?” you ask. No, it’s better to nip the problem in the bud and enjoy the real fog, the one that comes rolling in on a nippy morning and announces the arrival of fall.

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The Old Coot knows why. Article #1044 Published September 6, 2023

 The Old Coot knows why.

By Merlin Lessler

 You see it on TV all the time – another promise to make you thin and healthy – “Buy our video” – “Join our gym” – “Eat our prepared meals” – “Take our pill”- “Follow our diet.” None of it works, not for long anyway. But, I’ve discovered the secret. We just have to do the stuff we don’t do anymore. 

 Like, get up and walk over to the TV to change the channel. Lean way to the right in your car and use a hand crank to open the passenger window. “Push” the lawnmower; use a hand-powered trimmer. “Sweep” the clippings off the sidewalk with a broom. “Shovel” the snow.

 The list of “stuff we don’t do” is a long one. I spent ten minutes looking for the car keys so I could drive to the post office and get a stamp to mail a bill to a business five blocks away. I could have walked over and paid it in person, but we don’t do that anymore. Now, I do even less; I sit at a computer and pay the bill. I’ve become so sedate I no longer turn pages in a book. I push a tab on a Kindle. Presto! I’m on the next page. I don’t even expend energy to turn down the corner of a page so I can go back to it. My Kindle has a tab for that too. 

 We don’t take the stairs – up or down – even if we only want to go to the next floor; we push a button and wait for the elevator.  (And catch a cold from another passenger in the process). We push a lot of buttons – the one on the dishwasher. (No more scrubbing the plates and wiping them dry). The one on the dryer – no more strenuous trips to the backyard to hang out the clothes. More of the stuff we don’t do anymore.

 It’s everywhere – this stuff we don’t do. It’s in our car. We don’t push in a clutch, shift gears or crank the wheel with our own muscle power. We don’t row a boat – climb a hill to ski or sled down. We don’t clean the oven or pull the stuff out of the freezer to defrost it. We don’t pick berries or can tomatoes. We nibble; we nosh; we sit and push buttons. And wonder why we’re overweight and out of shape.

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The Old Coot Needs a Caddy - Article # 1043, Published August 8/30/2023

 The Old Coot needs a caddy.

By Merlin Lesler

 It finally dawned on me (I’m a slow learner) that professional golf is a team sport! The role of the caddy has changed. The job is not simply to carry the bag and hand a club to the pro. It’s become a consultation job. The courses I play on have a marker at 200, 150 and 100 yards from the green. It’s how I, and the guys I golf with that aren’t using a golf watch, select the proper club for the journey from the tee to the green. But using the right club doesn’t even matter much if you forget to keep your head down and shank the ball a pitiful distance forward. The guys with the golf watches scuff the ball as much as I do.

 The caddies handle all that stuff; he or she tells the pro, how far it is to the pin, a more precise measure than a hacker’s estimate. Sometimes you will see a golfer and the caddy spend several minutes arguing about which club to use. They both have notebooks that let them know about every hazard ahead, but don’t agree on how best to execute the shot. They have to take into consideration the wind, the rise & fall of the green. whether to put spin on the ball, hook it or slice it, and several other variables. Sometimes, this discussion takes longer than the walk to the ball. Often, you’ll see a club pulled from the bag, put back, another taken out, followed by more discussion and yet another club selected to finally whack (my term) the ball.

 The caddy also acts as a cheerleader, ego-booster and psychologist. All, to get the pro out of a funk after a bad shot. It’s a team: caddy and pro. Off the course is additional support staff: swing coach, psychologist, publicist, agent, and tournament booking secretary. But none of the secondary team is as important as the caddy.

 I do the same thing that caddies do, but I do it myself. And, not just when I play golf. I go through a check list, every time I leave the house. I have to make sure my shirt is on right side out, my pants aren’t on backwards, my hair is combed, my shoes are tied and I have keys and ID in my pockets. I also remind myself what day of the week it is and who is our president. Lastly, I make sure my arm is positioned to cover the stains on my shirt. I could use a caddy just to get out the door!  

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