March 23, 2016 Article

The Old Coot comes clean.

By Merlin Lessler

I love McDonalds! There, I said it. The most politically incorrect food statement imaginable. I’ve been hiding it. Afraid to admit that their French fries are “to die for,” their Big Macs are transcendental and their prices are “old coot” friendly. Now mind you, I only consume two Big Macs a year, but they are there for me when the urge gets too strong to fight. When I just can’t stop myself.  That’s not the case for their breakfast menu. I go for an old coot special nearly every week: a sausage McMuffin, hash brown and large coffee for under five bucks. And, how about that drive-in window on a bitter cold, winter morning or rain drenched summer afternoon? So convenient! And most of the time, so fast.

I feel better now – I got it out in the open – I confessed. But, there’s more. I love bread. Rye bread, Kaiser rolls, baguettes, Italian bread, and yes, evil white bread. No, it’s not the same bread my mother sent me off on my bike every couple of days to pick up at our neighborhood grocery store. That bread was fresh and would turn hard in a day or two, more or less. No preservatives! I could never resist opening the package to pull a slice out of the middle and munch it down as I peddled back home, with the rest of the loaf hanging off my handlebars in a canvas drawstring sack. That must be where my weakness for processed wheat comes from. That, and the box of Wheaties on our breakfast table with Mickey Mantle staring at me as I ate. 

Oh sure, bread was different back then. Wheat and wheat processing has changed over the years but, people have changed too. Especially kids. We moved around more than kids do today; we ran, skipped, jumped, climbed trees, played every game possible with a round ball. We fought cowboy and Indian wars with cap pistols in the woods. Our metabolisms were ramped up enough to devour those calories and keep the fat cells at bay. We didn’t know that having fun was good for us. And, when we sat down to the dinner table, we were hungry. Starved! Oh that world before TV.

Now I’m old. I still move around, but not like I used to. And, I’ve been marginalized because I’m politically “food” incorrect. I’m just about finished with this revelation, this admission. I’m going to put down my notebook and pen and go up to the counter to get my free, senior coffee refill and then come back and write a closing sentence. (One minute later) “I love McDonalds!” 

March 16. 2016 Article

The Old Coot cares. More than CBS.

By Merlin Lessler

CBS Cares! - Subaru is love! Nike says, Just do it! – GE used to say, We bring good things to life, but have since launched, Imagination at work, spending $100 million in promotion. Most companies use a slogan to present a positive public image. And, without giving it a lot of thought, we buy it. Especially if we hear it a lot. It seeps into our brain and finds a home. That’s where old coots like me earn our keep. We’re skeptics. We say, “Bull,” to manufactured corporate images.

Oh sure, CBS does care; they care about their ratings; they care about their ad revenue and most of all, they care about their bottom line. This doesn’t come through to us when we see them send an image across our TV screens of a lost puppy running to the open arms of a six year old girl with tears streaming down her rosy cheeks as the announcer says, CBS Cares. It didn’t work for Circuit City with their slogan, Just what you needed! Apparently we didn’t, and they went bankrupt. So did Lehman Brothers, who bragged they were, Where vision gets built! The vision turned into an illusion and investor’s money disappeared. 

I’ll confess; I’m overly sensitive to manufactured corporate images. I participated in creating a few over the years. I understand the process. It starts with the CEO.  It’s a money thing: ad revenues are off, viewership is down, ratings are slipping. The PR and Marketing VP’s are called on the carpet and the CEO says, “We need a better image! One that appeals to the “common man” and the hardships of this economy. Make it so!” Out in the hall the PR guy says to the marketing VP, “Oh sure. The cheapskate won’t pay for better programming, so it’s our job to save his career with a new slogan that improves our image.”

They get to work. A year of consultants, ad executives, psychologists, brain storming sessions, focus groups, viewer surveys, grilling by executive management and finally, CBS Cares is born. But, it was a long hard route to get there. The first draft was, CBS is interested and concerned with people and animals that are undergoing difficulties (can’t leave animals out, not today, not with PETA pushing for equality).

That one got laughed out of the room, and then came, CBS is focused on people and animals having a bad day. More chuckles in the board room, and then came version #3 – CBS supports and feels for people and animals in distress. And, then version #4 – CBS cares about people and animals.

“Better,” says the CEO. “Now get it finished.” More consultants are hired; focus group meetings and surveys are conducted once again. It gets no place. Finally, a group of old coots are brought in. “If an old coot gets it, we’re golden,” the PR guy whispers to the Marketing VP. The old coots tell them it’s too complicated, to make it simple. They do; the slogan is boiled down to a single thought, CBS Cares. Puppies and little girls are hired; the new slogan is launched; the public starts to believe that CBS really does care. But, not the old coots; we sit back and snicker. We know the con game never ends!    

March 9, 2016 Article

The Old Coot stifles a scream. Not!

By Merlin Lessler

A kid near me on the beach was making a racquet the other day. Yelps and screeches flooded the waterfront. Not a two year old. A ten year old! Some kids are like that. I call them screamers. You often run into them at the beach. Every splash yields a high-pitched scream. It’s worse when the tide’s coming in and a new wave rolls up every few seconds. Most kids play and laugh with each wave. Not a screamer. Every wave sends a screech across the shore. This kid’s mother and father were oblivious. Never a, “Stop that screaming!” or “If you scream one more time you’re going to sit on the towel for ten minutes!” Nothing! No consequences. Thus, a screamer was born and nurtured.

I happened to be fishing next to this one in the surf. He was screeching, so I said, “It sounds like you’re having a good time.” And, then shut my mouth. I wanted to say, “ Do you have to scream so loud; it bothers people. Your screech is like nails dragging across a blackboard.” Had I said that, he would have looked at me like I was crazy and yelled, “What’s a blackboard mister?” That’s because I’m in a foreign country - Modern America. It’s six decades removed from the land I grew up in. Each decade moves me 1,000 miles from shore. Right about now I estimate I’m someplace in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on a remote island. Populated with old coots like myself.  

I went back to my fishing, shoved a pair of noise canceling ear buds into place and listened to an electronic version of ocean waves. When you’re in a foreign land, you have to adapt.

The screamer will never know what it’s like to stand at a blackboard in front of the class, writing, “I will not scream in class,” 50 times. He’ll never experience a spank to the bottom to teach him not to bolt into traffic. He’ll never be taught to unloosen a nut by turning it counterclockwise. There are no timepieces with hands that circle a clock face in his land.

The land where I grew up was a land of consequences. I’m not mad; I’m jealous. I spent too many hours staying in school long after the dismissal bell rang. And, too many days in the cloakroom while my classmates were enjoying recess on the playground. I wasn’t alone; my friends were absent from playtime as well. Woody was sitting at attention at his desk, Buzzy was in the corner facing the wall and Cady was doing solitary in the hall. All serving a sentence for violating one rule or another. There were multiple mechanisms for behavior modification. Solitary confinement was quite effective, as was missing out on recess. They both worked miracles.

What’s my point? I’m not sure. I just get irked when a screamer is allowed to run free while I had to do the time. But heck, that’s what it’s like to be a visitor in a foreign land.

March 2, 2016 Article

The Old Coot isn’t a 24/7 guy.

By Merlin Lessler

I’ve had it with the term “24/7.” I’m sick of it. It’s lame. It’s been in use for more than two decades, but it’s older than that. It was first uttered in 1983 by LSU basketball star, Jerry Reynolds. He said it in a Sport’s Illustrated article describing his jump shot, “It’s good, 24/7.” It’s now a term in common use. Common OVERUSE! I look at it as an assault on the language, replacing words with numbers. Gone are the old phrases that served us well: every hour, every day – constantly – all the time. That’s bad enough in itself, but even worse, 24/7 is usually an overstatement, if not an outright lie. No one does anything 24/7 except to maintain a pulse.

We didn’t brag that we were on the job 24/7 in my working days. We bragged about our forty-hour workweek; we didn’t refer to it as “8/5. It was a big deal back then, the 40-hour workweek. It was a new standard. For the first half of the 20^th century, people worked 6 days a week, 8, 10 or 12 hours a day. But, even my “8/5” (forty hour work week) was a misnomer if you subtract the time I spent daydreaming, on coffee breaks and at the water cooler swapping gossip. It was more like 6/5.

It’s tougher in today’s work world. The 40-hour workweek has morphed into a 50 or 60-hour week, spanning six or even seven days, back to the early twentieth century standard, because corporations have workers by the short hairs, now that job security and job opportunity have become so fleeting. People are gently, and not so gently, forced to put in more and more time. Modern technology, E-mail and text messaging, make it harder to disengage from the workplace. To get away from the boss. 

Many of today’s workers are connected to the office with this electronic umbilical cord, yet their claim that they are on the job 24/7 is still an overstatement. Even if the time spent sleeping and eating is ignored there is still a lot of work time spent “occupying” a desk, not working. Especially when you deduct the time spent sending and receiving personal e-mails and text messages, playing Candy Crush and surfing the Web. 24/7 is in truth, a lot like the 8/5 or 6/5 of my employment era. In fact, us old coots probably put in more productive “work” hours than employees today. We were lucky; we weren’t interrupted by a Type A personality above us on the corporate ladder, constantly barraging us with texts and e-mails, asking for a progress report. We had the freedom to do our job. Today it’s a highly prized rarity.  

Back to my gripe, the overuse of 24/7. It’s at the top of my list of hip terms that should be retired. The old coot world I live in doesn’t fit an, hours/days, concept anyhow. Some weeks we’re productive 2/3. Even that’s a lie, because one of those three days is simply a repeat of what we did the previous day, and forgot. Like mowing our lawns two days in a row. The only thing we truly do 24/7 is to moan about the good old days, give updates on our physical condition and ask, “What was that guy’s name?”

February 24, 2016 Article

The Old Coot lowers the bar.

By Merlin Lessler

I’m ready for a girl’s bike. It’s been a long journey, from my first two-wheeler to this point. And, I better act fast or I won’t be able to find one. Girls don’t ride girl’s bikes! Not anymore. Old men ride girl’s bikes. Two years ago I discovered that I threw like a girl (sounds like a sexist statement, but I’m just reporting the facts). I was tossing a football back and forth with my granddaughter, Oriah, who was 8 years old at the time. I threw as hard as I could, but most throws were landing two feet in front of her. All her throws made it to me; some sailed over my head. I don’t play catch anymore; someone watching might say, “He throws like a girl.” My granddaughter moved on; she plays with kids who don’t throw like a girl.

Yes, a girl’s bike is looming in my future. They are so much easier to get on and off. I will no longer embarrass myself, falling off when I try to swing my leg over the bar to dismount and then rise from a tangle on the ground like a newborn colt standing for the first time. When I climb off a girl’s bike it will be as smooth as silk. Of course I’ll lie about it, “It’s my wife’s bike,” I’ll say. “Mine’s in the shop.” No different than when I tell Oriah my arm is too sore to play catch.

I hope my new bike will inspire my age mates to join me; then I won’t stand out so much. I started the long journey to a girl’s bike when I was seven and had to stand on the curb to get my leg over the bar on my first bike. Besides the bar issue, that bike was too big. Everything we got in that era was too big. “You’ll grow into it,” we were told. We didn’t reside on a pedestal, like today’s kids. We stuffed wadded up newspaper in the toes of new shoes to get them to fit. We rolled up the cuffs on a new pair of dungarees (now called jeans). We swam around in coats and shirts. And, new bikes were mounted from a curb. When I first started, my sister held my bike steady while I got on, and then rode ahead to catch me when I came to a stop.

I never understood the boy’s bike - girl’s bike thing. Why couldn’t both of them have a bar a person could easily swing their leg over? The “Google” informed me that the first “girl’s” bicycle was created in the late 1800’s, an era when women wore full-length dresses. Bicycles were a common form of transportation back then (a bike was a lot easier to take care of than a horse). The bar was lowered, so to speak, and the rear wheel was enclosed in a skirt guard so a dress wouldn’t become tangled in the spokes. It’s an idea that’s gone out of fashion. Equality has moved into the bike word. And why not? Women are allowed to wear pants, something that wasn’t done back then.  What a wild time we live in!

A “boy’s” bike, with its high bar, has a stronger frame. Girl’s bicycles aren’t recommended for rugged trails because of their weaker structure. That won’t bother me when I get mine. The only rough terrain I’ll encounter are the uneven, slate, sidewalk slabs in the village. A running start will get me over most of them. If I’m forced to stop and go around, I won’t fall getting off, because it will be a GIRL’S BIKE!  

February 17, 2016 Article

Some old coot makes a scene in the store.

By Merlin Lessler

OK, here it goes. Another Old Coot, pet peeve! Well, it can’t really be called a “pet” peeve since it is article # 652, all of which were some sort of peeve. They can’t all be Pet. I’ll just call this Peeve #652. It takes place in line at a counter. A check out counter; an ordering counter; a merchandise return counter. Any counter where humans line up.

The line moves along fairly well, with only the usual number of glitches: people who wait for the clerk to announce the cost before digging around for their wallet (like it’s a big surprise they’re going to need it), or people who change their minds and ask the clerk to remove an item from the total, or people with an expired coupon and the clerk has to ring for the manager, or the tape on the cash register runs out and has to be replaced. None of these delays push my peeve button. I  expect them and have set my temperament on tolerance instead of crabby.

It’s OK for a while, but little by little the irritation builds up. Maybe the “wallet-seeker” takes extra time getting into their wallet, or the coupon challenged customer has more complications than an expired coupon; they are also trying to use it on the wrong size item. Then along comes the TALKER.

She tells the clerk she likes her haircut, “Where did you get it done?” The clerk is hooked! Flattery gets you a conversation. “Over at Shear Paradise,” she replies. “Katie did it.” A conversation is unleashed. The customer says, “I go by that shop all the time; I’ll have to give it a try.” “You should,” the clerk responds. “They are all excellent stylists.” - “It goes great with your face,” says the customer. “Thanks,” replies the clerk. “I used to have bangs, but this style changed me. I love it.” Bla, bla bla, on and on go the Talker and the clerk.

Meanwhile, her groceries remain on the conveyor belt while some old coot standing in line holding a gallon jug of milk in one hand and juggling a Snicker’s bar, a tub of ice-cream, a bottle of Dr Pepper and a bag of chips in the other. He wasn’t smart enough to grab a basket on the way in. Why bother? He just came in for milk. (I refer to myself in the third person when I do something stupid.)

Here’s more of the stupid part. The conversation with the clerk follows an ebb and flow pattern. Just when it appears to be coming to a close, it shoots off in a new direction. Finally, the old coot, three back from the TALKER begins to weaken; his hands are cold, turning blue and cramping up. A rumble sounds and then the volcano erupts, “GET A ROOM,” yells the old coot and then looks around, as though in wonder. Everyone else in line looks at him. They know who said it. They would applaud if they could do it without joining his team. Finally, the line moves forward. The old coot gets to unload his items on the counter. When the clerk looks up he says, “I like your haircut; where did you get it done?”

February 10, 2016 Article

The old coot gets fashion tips from the news reporters.

By Merlin Lessler

I don’t know if you’ve noticed it or not, but most of the on-scene, TV news reporters have expensive scarves draped around their necks. At least the ones reporting with a winter scene as a backdrop. It’s this copycat syndrome that gets me the most about the national media. Watch any network and you’ll see the same stories, reported the same way, by people that for the most part, belong on a movie set, not in a news room. Even the same “cute” videos are used as a sign off at the end of the broadcast. The sameness drives me nuts. It’s probably why I noticed the scarf phenomena.

It all started, this use of a costume by on-scene reporters, with Dan Rather. He’d trot off to some hick town where regular Americans live to report on a local disaster and cover up his suit with a safari jacket. It was designed to make him appear as one of the common people. Then came the jeans and tan chambray military shirts. All the networks now do it. So do the politicians when they’re on the stump, but that’s an issue for another day. 

This year, it’s scarves. But, not any scarf. Not a scarf like the one you’ll find around the scrawny neck of an old coot like me. No, these are pricey, designer scarves. Much longer than the ones that hang on my hall tree. Long enough to be tied in a politically correct knot. I grew up with scarves. We used them for warmth, draped around the back of our necks to keep the nape warm, or when it got colder, wrapped all the way around with one end thrown back over a shoulder. When the mercury dropped into the teens and the wind kicked up, we pulled them up over our faces.  Today’s scarves are more decorative than practical. Especially the news reporter version.

I’m so out of it; I had no idea how complicated scarf wearing had become. I thought you just threw it on and went out the door. But, I noticed that the scarves worn by TV news reporters were carefully arranged. That’s when I started my scarf education and discovered there are over 25 fashion correct ways to tie a scarf.

Twenty-five! Just when I thought life couldn’t get any more complicated. The first, and the one I use, is called the “Modern Loop.” Once around the neck, no knot at all. Why it’s called modern is beyond be; it should be called the Old Coot Loop, but then what do I know about fashion. There is one called the Bunny Ear. It’s a knot that would take me an hour to duplicate. I wasn’t good with scout knots either. It ends up with two bunny ears pointing down in front. The Turtle Neck is what you see most TV reporters wearing. The scarf is looped around the neck twice and fluffed up to look like a turtleneck sweater. One end has to be shorter than the other according to the scarf tying web site!

Here are some of the others: the Infinity Loop, the European Loop, the Celebrity Loop, the Waterfall, the Magic Trip and the Braid. Look close and you might spot one of these variations on the TV news. I wonder what it will be next year. Earmuffs?