Old Coot graduated stupid. Published in NY papers 10/29/2025

 The Old Coot graduated stupid.

By Merlin Lessler

I’m kind of irked that I graduated from high school, STUPID! I knew nothing about anatomy, a critical subject to help one get through life. Wouldn’t you think that knowledge of how this mechanism works that travel around in all our lives would be important?

Anyhow, I learned anatomy the hard way. Waiting for the doctor, in the “little room,” and reading the information and looking at pictures on charts hanging on the wall. It was a long, slow process that I’ve been at for more than sixty years. Oh boy! So that’s where my kidneys are. Man, a liver is big. Look at all the bones in the ear. Who would think there were so many bones in such a small space?

I learned some stuff from doctors. It usually started out OK, but when they switched to Latin I was lost, even though I took several years of it in high school. I wasn’t familiar with any of the words I heard in the little room. When I got home, I looked them up in a dictionary, to see if I could figure what the Doctor was talking about. It was a lot harder in the pre-Google years. Not so bad now, but too late for me since I already know enough to qualify for an anatomy certificate. 

I don’t know what’s taught in school these days. All we had on how the body functioned was a single semester in Health Class that focused on hygiene, nutrition and dental health. And, a single afternoon when an embarrassed elderly Health teacher tried to cover the subject of sex education. I don’t know who was more uncomfortable, the teacher or us. There were no questions; we couldn’t wait to get out of the room.

These days when I find myself lacking some medical information, I use Google to help me out, but more importantly, I have a collection of old coot friends that are a wealth of knowledge and advice on just about any affliction that comes your way in old age. They’ve had it all and now are heart specialists, joint replacement experts, digestive system affliction pros and many more afflictions encountered by old men. And, you don’t have to wait in the “little room” for an explanation, that you’re probably not going to understand anyway.