The Old Coot is a fire bug. Published October 16, 2024

 The Old Coot is a fire bug.

By Merlin Lessler

 It’s a lovely fall afternoon, as I sit here looking out the window, instead of reading the book on my lap. (The Thursday Murder Club, by Richard Osman.) The wind is gusting, blowing leaves out of the trees and across the yard. It’s blowing so hard, the leaves are whizzing by, twenty feet above the ground. It reminds me of the good old days, when that wonderful aroma of burning leaves surrounded the neighborhood where I lived amid a forest of trees that surrounded our house. There were so many leaves it was a struggle to wade through them to cross the yard. I raked up elephant size mounds and fed them into a small pile I’d set on fire. Eventually, I’d get impatient and get too many going at one time, sending a plume of smoke through the neighborhood. That’s when the neighbors called my wife and asked her to have a word with the fire bug burning leaves. I’d back off for a while and when I thought no one was looking, get the blaze going again. If I didn’t, I’d be out there all weekend. But that aroma from the burning leaves was oh so nice, on par with that of fresh bread baking in an oven.

 I glad I moved from that “leaf” house. I cannot imagine bagging the mountain of leaves I dealt with back then. When I moved to Owego and was clearing the back yard of several years of accumulated leaves, I decided to burn them to rid myself of the mess. Since it was illegal to do so, someone called the police, but luck was with me. The policeman went to the wrong address; I had time to quiet down the fire and he left without finding the culprit. Besides, my real problem was a giant Chinese gingko tree in the front yard. Its leaves fell in a single day, starting the morning after the first hard frost of fall. It looked like a winter blizzard when it happened. The real issue had nothing to do with the ban on burning.

 Those leaves wouldn’t burn anyhow. They were still green when they fell, packed with moisture and slippery as eels. So slippery, you couldn’t move them with a rake; you had to push them with a snow shovel. It took me the better part of two days to get them to the curb where a village worker came by with a leaf machine to suck them up. Then the machine broke and wasn’t replaced. We had to bag leaves after that. One fall I broke a record, ending up with fifty, 30-gallon bags, stuffed to the top. Each bag weighed a ton; I had to use a wheel barrel to get them to the curb. I’ve moved out of the “Gingko” house, but still like to walk by on the day the leaves come storming down. It’s not my problem anymore. Thanks to the new owners, Mike and Jennifer.

 I do miss the wonderful aroma of burning leaves swirled through the countryside. I guess I became addicted to it when I was a kid. My friend Woody and I cooked hotdogs over a leaf fire in the woods on South Mountain in Binghamton since we were seven years old. It was so easy: push them into a little pile, drop in a lit match and presto, you had all the fire needed to cook hotdogs on a stick. Every year, as the leaves start to drop, I’m tempted to build a small fire and become surrounded by that wonderful aroma, if just for a few minutes. So far, my willpower has held up, but who knows what the future will bring.

The Old Coot can't open anything. Published 10/09/2024

 The Old Coot is “opener” challenged.

By Merlin Lessler

 I can’t open anything! Well, almost anything. It’s not just because I’m an old coot. You know what we’re like – weak muscles, arthritis in the fingers, limited vision, etc. No, it’s not me, it’s the package and bottle makers. The latest manifestation I had with this issue was opening a bottle of water. Two issues there – the bottle material is thin, and the cap is so small it’s hard to grip. They are small on soda bottles too, but not that small, and not as hard to open.

Those water bottles get me every time. I grip on the tiny cap and grasp the body of the bottle which is made of ultra-thin plastic. So thin, it squishes in the middle, looking like an hourglass. I strain, grasp and twist, in what I think is a macho-man effort. When it finally does break free, a geyser erupts, spraying me and anyone nearby. It’s best not to do this on an airplane. I learned that lesson the hard way.

Those bottles are not the only containers that cause me consternation on a regular basis. Opened a can of Campbell’s soup lately? They now have a lift off lid with a tab attached to pull it off with. The company thinks a can opener is beyond our capability. The tab is tiny and hard to lift. When you do get it up and give it a yank, nothing happens. So, you give it a he-man yank. It breaks free of the can and the soup sloshes all over the place. It’s best to open it over the sink.

It's not just liquid products that I have opening issues with. Even a bag of chips causes me a problem. I have to use my teeth to break into it, or pull it from each side, getting a potato chip shower when it breaks apart.

My list of hard to open items is getting longer and longer. How about that little metal cover under the cap on a tube of toothpaste? It has a microscopic tab to pull it off with. I use the tweezers in my Swiss Army Knife. A handy tool that helps me survive in a world of irksome food and beverage containers. The first multi-purpose knife I had ended up in the hands of a TSA agent at the Elmira Airport. I hope he’s putting it to good use, opening his containers. Or better yet, he gave it to his favorite old coot, who will be forever grateful.

Comments? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com

 

Fast food isn't fast. Old Coot Article # 1099 Published 10/02/2024 in New York

 The Harris Dinner turns 100!  By Merlin Lessler

This article about the Harris Diner was first published on December 18, 2004. Nothing has changed since then, and last week the diner celebrated its’ 100th anniversary by using food prices from the 1950’s. I stopped in to join the crowd (and it was a crowd) and to congratulate Sam.

The Big Lie -Fast Food

“A Few weeks ago, I took three of my grandchildren, Jake –5, Hannah- 3 and Abby – 2, to MacDonald’s in Westchester County for lunch. It was the day Jake and Hannah’s sister Callie was born; my part in the process was to watch the kids while my daughter, Wendy, was at the hospital. I sat at the table trying to entertain the antsy threesome while Abby’s mother, Kelly, waited in line for our “fast food” order. It was the longest thirty minutes of my life. I like going to MacDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s and all the rest of the fast-food restaurants, but I think it’s time that they admit the obvious, and stop referring to themselves as “fast.” Fast applies to the service at Harris’s Diner; a small locally owned restaurant, housed in a cramped Quonset-like hut next to the fire station in Owego, the village where I live. It doesn’t provide customer parking, special menu items for kids or an indoor playground, yet it beats the pants off the international fast-food chains.

 I’m not a regular at Sam Harris’s diner; I only stop by every so often for breakfast. Once in a while I wander in at six, it doesn’t open until seven. The lights are down low, and Sam isn’t around, but there are customers hanging out at the counter and at tables in the back, drinking coffee, shooting the breeze and reading the paper. The coffee urns are full. The “regulars” made it. At 6:45 Sam comes in, trades insults with some of the rabble and goes into the back room to do some prep work. I sit at the counter with a choice seat near the grill, a cup of coffee before me, having been served by one of the gracious regulars. Sam flicks on the lights and fires up the grill. He starts things in motion by piling on a mountain of home fries and a dozen strips of bacon. He knows what the regulars want. Hazel, Sam’s faithful waitress, comes in at seven on the dot, ready to wait tables and bus the dirty dishes, a tough job for a gal well past retirement age, but one she does with class and a big smile.

 I sit with my coffee and watch the show. I don’t think there is anything more entertaining than a good grill man, and Sam is one of the best. He’s cracking eggs with one hand, flipping pancakes with the other and discussing last night’s Yankee game with a customer across the room. Regulars stream in, trade insults back and forth, head for the rack of coffee pots behind the counter and help themselves, some using their own cups, stored on a shelf above the pots. Hazel glides around exchanging pleasantries and taking orders, but Sam takes mine, since I’m right in front of him. The average time between giving your order and getting it is less than ten minutes. In my case, sitting at the counter, I get my two eggs over light, home fries, ham and toast in five. This is fast food! Hazel drops of the check when the food is served. You never have to wait for her to get around to it, like in many restaurants. A pile of bills and change lie in a heap next to the cash register. Customers settle up themselves, making changes and leaving the meal ticket as they pass the register on their way out. The “regulars” even go so far as to open Sam’s cash register when they can’t make correct change from the pile. I give my money to Hazel.”

Congratulations Sam! Thanks for keeping the tradition going.

Yard signs equal angst. Published Tioga County Courier 9/25/24

 The old coot is tired of being a referee.

By Merlin Lessler

Early voting is underway! Not with ballots, but with yard signs. Back in friendlier days, these signs were better tolerated. People even wore pins – “I like Ike,” for example, for us old coots. They walked around with little fear of getting a punch in the nose. A family would drive by a sign in the neighborhood and say, “Oh look, Bill is supporting John F. Kennedy. I’m a Nixon fan myself. It’s been a while since we’ve gotten together; we should invite them over for a backyard picnic before the weather turns cold.”

Not anymore. “Oh look, they’re supporting “What’s-its-name.”  What idiots!” – or – “Oh look, those morons are for Who-you-ma-call-it!” We are extremely divisive in our political positions today. Best friends no longer speak to each other. Family members disconnect. Thanksgiving gatherings turn into a food fight. Signs stir up the same animosity. We should go back to the days when folks didn’t overtly discuss religion or politics. In person, on their shirts and hats or the front lawn. Sure, it’s a right, guaranteed by the 1^st amendment, but now it’s approaching the “yelling fire in a crowded theater” level.   

We can’t look to our leaders for this guidance. We’ve got to get the ball rolling ourselves. Calm down on Facebook, all social media. Many of us like a little of the policies from each side; we’re middle roaders. But right now, it’s like we’re traveling down the road in different directions; any move to the middle causes a head on crash. Is it so hard to accept that others can have a different position? On issues and candidates? And not think of them as idiots? Maybe? It’s up to us to do it. We need a small child to lead us. The ones who learn in kindergarten how to get along. Afterall, who is more important in your life, some politician in the White house or your family, friends and neighbors?  

Comments? Keep them civil; I know I stirred the pot with this one. That’s what old coots do. Send them to mlessler7@gmail.com. Or, to the publisher of the paper you read this in.  

 

The Old Coot zeros in, Article # 1,097 Published 09/18/2024.

 The Old Coot wants to see the zeros.

By Merlin Lessler

 It’s time to bring back the zeros. These zeros – 000 and 000 and 000 and 000. All twelve!  The print media writes things like, “The senate passed a $1.2 trillion spending bill today.” We don’t blink an eye. What is a trillion? More than a billion, but what is it really? How about if they ended the shortcut and put it out there as - $1,200,000,000,000. That might catch our eye. It might make us wonder how we can afford it. How much more will “we” be taxed.

Even the TV & radio media drop the ball. $1.2 trillion. Ho Hum. How about saying, twelve hundred piles of billion-dollar bundles. Or better yet, twelve hundred thousand piles of million dollar bundles. It might perk our interest a little more.

They do this type of clarification all the time with the weather! “It’s going to be 86 degrees today, but the heat/humidity index will make it feel more like 100.” Or, “It’s going to be 16 degrees tomorrow morning, but with the wind chill factor it will feel like five below.”

Once the money that Washington and Albany threw around got to be more than a million, a disconnect occurred between the spenders and the people that pay the bill. A billion here, a billion there. We hardly knew the difference between a billion and a million after a while. It didn’t dawn on us often enough, that a billion is one-thousand million. Line up 1,000 millionaires, each sitting on a pile of one million, dollar bills, take a picture, and that’s what a billion looks like. A trillion is 1,000 times as much as that. Now you’ve got the average American’s attention. Oh yes, we need the media to pay as much attention to the politicians’ love of spending as they do trying to scare us about the weather, which is a trillion times less important.

Comments? – Send to mlessler7@gmail.com   

   

The Old Coot hates modern faucets! Article # 1096 Published September 11, 2024

 Old Coot can’t handle it!

By Merlin Lessler

I first aired this complaint in 2011. I’m still struggling with the issue - the shower and sink, water control joystick. A single handle controls temperature and flow rate and I can never get it to do what I want.

 I don’t know how long these things have been around. Probably decades. I avoided them like the plague, but they’re all over the place now. I wonder why. What was so bad about a separate cold and hot water knob? A set up where you had perfect temperature control. If the flow was a little on the hot side, you made a minor adjustment to either knob, that was it. You could even do it with your toe when the bath water started to cool down. When I try this with a joystick, the temperature shoots all over the place. When I want the water to be a tiny bit hotter, I overshoot and threaten to scald myself. When I go the other way, I get a blast from the Artic that sends my heart into atrial fibrillation. I’m capable of getting all hot or all cold, but the delicate balance of lukewarm or semi-hot eludes me. I know I just need to push it a slight bit, a right-ish or left-ish maneuver, but the “ish” part gets me every time.

 It reminds me of when I was 14 and driving my father’s car back and forth in the driveway, never sure what gear I would get when I moved the shift lever. Every once in a while, I ran it around the block, because I couldn’t find reverse. At least that’s what I told my dad when he caught me out in the street without a driver’s license. It’s the same with joysticks. I end up “going around the block.” I’m starting to get really concerned. These controls are all over the place, not just in sinks and showers.

 The kids that grew up playing video games are now old enough to be making design decisions for many products. They have put joysticks on tractors, riding lawn mowers and a whole slew of devices. The steering wheel is going the way of the dinosaur, being phased out, just like the hot and cold water knobs in sinks and showers. I’ll really be sunk if I don’t get the “ish” part down pat before they put them in cars! I’ll end up like the Chevrolet Corvair, that Ralph Nader claimed was unsafe at any speed. That’s what I’ll be!”

 Comments? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com

The Old Coot's phone took a train ride. Published Owego, NY - September 4, 2024

 The Old Coot’s phone took a train ride.

By Merlin Lessler

My friend Rick lost his cell phone the other day. I won’t mention his last name, but if you want your wood floor refinished, I’ll give you his number.

He was in a panic. Well, not actually a panic; he’s pretty even tempered. Let’s just say, he was concerned. He went through the house and his truck. No luck! Then he extended his search to the places he had been that morning. First, the grocery store. Nobody had turned it in. Over to Home Central - Not there. Then across the tracks to Scott Smith and Son where he had gassed up. Nothing doing! He knew he had it when he was there because he remembered checking his messages.

He did a lot that morning. A week’s worth of stuff for me. Finally, he went back home and gave it an FBI search. Nothing! He stood there scratching his head, “What am I missing?” Then it hit him, the chest freezer in the basement. He had put some groceries in there. Without much hope, he pulled up the lid. There it was, peeking out from under a package of ground beef.

We’ve all had this experience. Usually with a similar outcome. But not always! Sometimes it’s gone forever. I lost one on a train ride to Florida. I’d discovered it was missing when I got to the room we had rented. I knew I’d lost it on the train. I used my computer to track it down. Sure enough, it was on the train traveling north through Georgia. I called Amtrak. In hopes they could check the seat I’d been in and get it. I won’t get into what a nightmare that process turned into. Bottom line, I watched the phone go north to the auto-train station in Virginia, and then head south again. Then it disappeared. Lost forever. Wedged down in the seat cushion on an Amtrak train. I like Rick’s story better.