The Old Coot misses rotten tomato throwing. (Published 3/27/2024)

 The Old Coot misses the rotten tomato era.

By Merlin Lessler

 We once were blessed with an effective (and fun) mechanism to express our opinion of politicians. Even, a Broadway performance, or anyone making a public appearance. It was the “Rotten Tomato Era.” A political hack, laying it on thick, could expect to be showered with a barrage of rotten tomatoes. It was such fun to deal with politicians in those days. Sometimes, a voter would run up to the podium and introduce a banana cream pie to the gas bag’s face. Actors and actresses, which for some reason, (I never got the memo), we now are forced to call actors, could also expect a showering of rotten vegetables from the audience when their performance was severely lacking.  

 Not anymore! Our right to free “rotten tomato” speech is a criminal offense. To even touch another person without their permission, can get you arrested and charged with disorderly conduct or assault. We’ve lost such a delightful free speech mechanism. Yet, we still do it mentally, at least I do, every time I watch the news and hear a bloated bunch of malarky from a corporate executive, politician or even an advertisement that I know is a lie. It makes you wonder what happened to the truth in advertising rules that were enacted five decades ago? The consumer protection czar is asleep at the wheel and most certainly deserves a pie in the face. 

 And, what about the American Bar Association? It once restricted its members from advertising their wares. It was a matter of professional ethics. That tradition sure has evaporated. The members who run the ABA deserve a double, whip cream pie in the face, along with the CEOs of pharmaceutical companies. Can you imagine how nice TV watching would be without ads from ambulance chasing lawyers and drug pushing corporations. Ads, that consume ten minutes of every 30 minute time slot. Sometimes the best way forward is to go back. It sure would be nice to get those rotten tomatoes moving once again.

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

 

       

The Old Coot get's distracted by a paper bag. Article # 1022 Published March 20, 2024)

 The Old Coot gets lost in the past.

By Merlin Lessler

 My wife bought a jar of honey the other day. The clerk put it in a craft paper bag that reminded me of the ones I took to school when I was in junior and senior high. In elementary school, we walked home for lunch, but once we made it to 7^th grade, we rode a bus from our elementary school, across town to junior high with a bag lunch in our grasp. We carried our books under our arms, covered in craft paper that matched the lunch bags. No book bags or back packs in those days. I guess I grew up in the dumb generation.

Our school had a cafeteria, but many of us, either couldn’t afford, or couldn’t stand, to eat the slop that the lunch ladies plopped on your plate. The only thing I purchased in the cafeteria was government subsidized milk, and once a week, a sliver of ice cream, served on a cardboard dish for ten cents.

Things changed in senior high. There were no school buses. You either took a city bus, walked, or were lucky enough to have some older kid in the neighborhood with a car who would get you there and back for a buck a week. At 25 cents a gallon, it was a profitable venture. If you played sports, with after school practice, you walked home or bummed a ride. Hitch hiking was another way of getting around in that era.

The other change in senior high, was where we settled in to eat our lunch. There was a bakery just a few steps from school and for reasons unknown to me, they let us crowd in to eat, even though most of us just bought a container of milk. It was a mob scene, so crowded that it was hard to get from the front door to the beverage container in the back. We stood around like munching cows in a pasture. My bag usually contained three sandwiches, a boxed snack pie and an apple. I’d weigh 400 pounds if I ate like that today.

When I made it to eleventh grade, my lunch room shifted to the pool hall down the block. I learned more there than I did in class, but the subject was street smarts. It cost ten cents to play rotation or eight ball, a penny a minute for straight pool. Those games were fairly innocent. It was the money games that improved our street smarts, nine ball and six ball. We had an hour for lunch; it was enough time to lose a week’s allowance with a missed shot on the money ball. The Lotis brothers, who owned and ran the pool hall, collected a fist full of dimes and got a garbage can full of empty paper lunch bags as a reward. Oh my, all that from a jar of honey in a paper bag.          

The Old Coot gets a workout. #1071 Published 3/13/24

 The Old Coot gets a workout.

By Merlin Lessler

I was recently on a cruise in the Southern Caribbean. It wasn’t my first rodeo. I’ve been on a ship or two or three over the last 30 years, but I was a youngster when I started, in my early 50’s. A lot has changed over those 30 years, but this isn’t a documentary about the evolution of cruising. I don’t know what it is. Anyhow, I’m usually off my leash in the early morning hours. I’m at breakfast as I write this. It’s a cafeteria deal, with islands of food items, not one long line. You scramble from place to place. Cereals here – custom cooked eggs there – meats at another station- toast and bread off to the side.

You weave through a mass of people like an NFL running back trying to avoid tacklers. No small feat for an octogenarian with balance issues. On this day, I actually remembered to grab a silverware pack (knife and fork wrapped in a cloth napkin) and shoved it in my pocket. Unlike the day before, the several days before, when I located an empty seat, sat down to eat, and realized – NO UTENSILS!

This day, with a knife and fork in my pocket, I headed to the toast station where you wait while the bread you select runs through a car wash like toaster conveyor. I decided to come back in a few minutes and moved on, grabbed a juice at the beverage corral, found a table and plopped down my stuff, marking my turf. End of trip #1.

 Then, I grabbed a large plate and a bowl and put the bowl on the plate. Did I mention that there are no trays to purvey your selections? Not anymore. I went to the cereal station and deposited a splash of Cheerios into the bowl- then to the fruit island to add watermelon, cantaloupe and two strawberries to the plate the bowl sat on. My solution to the no tray situation. I put the goods on my table. End of trip #2.  

Trip #3 - back to the beverage corral to snag a coffee and said, “Sorry,” to the nice little old lady I nearly knocked over when my balance issue hurled me into her. I sat down and breathed a sigh of relief, opened my napkin and discovered just a knife and fork, no spoon. This started trip #4. I went back to the cereal island and grabbed a spoon, thinking, “This is it; I can finally eat my breakfast.” Oops! Not to be, I had forgotten to pour milk on my cereal; grabbed the bowl of Cheerios and went back to the cereal station where there were pitchers of milk and cream. Trip #5.

I‘d forgotten to pick up the toast, but decided I’d had enough exercise for one morning. Maybe tomorrow. I hadn’t tripped or bruised too many passengers in the process. Someone is sure to ask what I did on my cruise. I’ll simply say, “Had a good breakfast. And, got a lot of exercise.”       

The Old Coot rides down memory lane. (Article # 1,070 - published March 6, 2024)

 The Old Coot rides down memory lane.

By Merlin Lessler

 I was on a 12 lane, 70 MPH highway the other day, 6 lanes going north, six lanes south. The way cars wove in and out was amazing. It was like being in the Daytona Five Hundred. I did OK, for an old guy. Did some weaving myself, though I felt like I should do what an 81 year-old is supposed to do, and go to the center lane, stay there going 45 miles per hour with my left signal blinking. Just to add a little drama to the symphony between the lanes.

 It's an ugly mess, compared to the road trips my sister and I took in the back seat of the family sedan, a 1950 Hudson Hornet, gazing out the window counting cows. Cows on her side versus my side. And, reading billboards, twenty feet in the air and Burma Shave signs at street level. There were only two lane roads where we lived in those days. The speed limit was 50 MPH, but you could rarely go that fast for very long. You got stuck behind a truck inching up a hill or a family in a Buick sedan taking a Sunday Drive, and no straight-a-ways long enough to pass them.

 We were never bored; when the cows were gone, we played the Alphabet Game – be the first to spot a letter on a sign, working through the alphabet in sequence. Alice’s Diner” would start you off with an “A.” No matter how far ahead you got, the “Q” would slow you down. The first eagle-eye to spot an antique shop usually won, but a “Z” could be a show stopper too.    

 Time went by pretty quick, between the alphabet game, watching and counting farm animals and the odd sites along the way, like a mailbox 15 feet in the air with “Airmail” stenciled on the front. Our dog spent the whole trip with his head out the window, his ears flapping in the breeze. Dad’s arm hung out his window. Mom made sure ours were inside the car. No seat belts, no air bags, no air conditioning. But we were lucky; we had an AM radio, tuned to a station that played the Lone Ranger and Suspense. The adventure in those days was getting there. I miss it.  

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

The Old Coot racks up mileage. - Article #1,069 Published 2/28/24

 The Old Coot is on the move.

By Merlin Lessler

 I was on a cruise ship recently. It went from Fort Lauderdale to Barbados with 4 stops in between. Approximately 3000 nautical miles. (1 nautical mile equals 6,076 feet, in case you didn’t know, like me). I think I put on a similar mileage going from our cabin in the back end of the ship, to the theater for shows in the front, and back to the dining room in the aft.

 But that’s not the only place I racked up the miles. I did a like amount riding the elevators, from our floor, nine, to fourteen for breakfast and lunch, back to twelve for the pool. Up and down, down and up: floor five for coffee, floor ten to the library and puzzle room, down to the gangway on two, 800 steps to a bus or cab when in port, or three times that much to walk into town. I’m not complaining, just commenting. Actually, my Fitbit went nuts counting steps; it must have wondered if someone had stolen it and was on the run.

 Elevator mileage added up the most. I don’t like elevators in general, and those on cruise ships in particular. I once got stuck between floors on a cruise ship in a storm with high seas. The boat was rocking; there I was, stuck with the door open, the floor above was at waist high level. Should I try to scamper up and get out? What if I did and the elevator started to move? It goes so fast I’d be cut in half. So, I sat and waited. An hour or so later, the maintenance crew got me out.

 I don’t know what floors I was between; it couldn’t have been between twelve and thirteen. There is no floor thirteen on a ship. (Or, in a hotel and most other tall buildings.) Superstition over the number thirteen! Really?  In what we call our enlightened modern age. Whenever I went to fourteen for breakfast I laughed at the lights ticking off the floors: nine, ten, eleven, twelve, fourteen.  I’d comment to other passengers, “What happened to the thirteenth floor?”  Someone always explained why that was, that it was superstition. That gave me my morning chuckle. My stupid question was never met with silence. It’s what old coots do, let ourselves look stupid because we no longer care what other people think.

 Comments? – Send to  mlessler7@gmail.com