The Old Coot cleans up. (his car) Published July 24, 2024

 The Old Coot cleans up.

By Merlin Lessler

I washed my car the other day. Actually, it was my wife’s car – mine is in Florida, braving the hot muggy weather, much hotter and muggier than here. Which is why I cherish my New York State summer residency, in spite of all the state mandates we are forced to live with, not to mention the taxes. Anyhow, I hosed it off, then got at it with a sudsy mitt and a long handled soft bristle brush.

You don’t see many people in their driveways doing this anymore. It once was a Saturday ritual for many men, some women and teenagers lucky enough to have their own vehicles. According to “experts,” only 28% of automobile owners wash their own cars. It’s off to the car wash for them. It’s down from 50% thirty years ago. We’ve become a commercial car wash society, reported to be a 33-billion-dollar industry, with 60,000 car wash establishments across the country.

Waxing a car is something else again. I suspect the percentage of people doing that is pretty low. Even I gave that up years ago; clear coat finishes eliminated the need. Simonize wax was king in the old days. Applying it and rubbing it in took over an hour. The first time I waxed my father’s car when I was a teenager, I did the windows as well as the car body. I learned that lesson the hard way. He wasn’t very pleased when he turned on the wipers during a rainstorm to face a blurry mess out the windshield.

When I wash my car, I consider it an exercise session. A lot of bending, squatting, stooping, stretching and reaching and I pay myself the $20, a car wash place would have charged me. You don’t have to be an old coot like me to do this. Anyone can.  

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The Old Coot tips to the right. Published Tioga County Courier 7/17/24

 The Old Coot leans to the left. And the right.

By Merlin Lessler

 I have a balance problem. I’ve had it for years; I get along just fine with it. I often use a walking stick, the same one I used to hike up the high peaks in the White Mountains of New Hampshire with my daughters and son. It was a great adventure every year starting in the mid 1970’s and ending with my last climb when I turned seventy-five. Anyhow, the nerves in my legs have gone on strike; they tell my brain that I am tilting to the side, when I’m not. It makes me adjust to the “fake news” from below. My eyes recognize the lie and set me straight. In the process, I wander from vertical a bit.

 When someone asked me what was wrong when they saw me with a stick, I would go into a long windbag explanation of the balance issue. Now I lie, “Oh no big deal, I have a trick knee.” (Who doesn’t at my age?)  I had two reasons for the lie. When I had explained the balance quirk it was too much information and people’s eyes glazed over. And, their reply usually was, “I always knew you were unbalanced!”

 The other day I was walking along East Main Street; Sister Mary O’Brien was coming toward me on the opposite side of the road. “Hey Old Coot,” she yelled over to me. “What’s going on with the stick?” I couldn’t lie to her; she can spot a lie a mile away, so I went into the balance issue. She didn’t say it, but I could read what the grin on her face said, “I always thought you were unbalanced, ha ha!”

 I’m making this whole thing sound more of an issue than it is. It compromises my lifestyle, not at all. Except, there is always an exception isn’t there. Except, when I walk out of a bar or restaurant serving adult beverages, places I go without the walking stick. When I get up to leave, and have to weave through a crowd of people and around tables, I look a little tipsy. I get a look that says. “Look at that old guy; he’s drunk.” When I bump into people or a table, I quickly explain, “I’m not drunk; I have a balance problem.” I doubt if anyone believes it. But it makes me feel good. The only real danger I face, is getting stopped by the police and made to walk a white line. I’d fail. I’d have to sit in the slammer until a blood test showed my beverage of choice had been Pepsi Cola.

 Comments, complaints? – Send to mlessler7@gmail.com

Too much "sharing." Old Coot article published 07/10/24

 The Old Coot learned to share in Kindergarten.

By Merlin Lessler

 

When we are little kids, our parents strive to teach us to share. It gets us started, especially if we have siblings. We don’t especially like it, unless it’s our turn to be the one on the receiving end. The training really ramps up when we go to school, kindergarten in my day, pre-school these days. I still remember my first week in Kindergarten. My neighborhood friend, Woody, and I raced to the toy cupboard when our ABC’s and Shoe tying lessons were over. He grabbed a metal fire engine; I snagged an ambulance. Then, a giant of a kid came over, pushed us aside and grabbed them away from us. “You can’t play with these; they’re mine!” It was our first, of many to come, encounters with Butchy, a bully that harassed us for years, often sitting on his bicycle on the playground with a baseball bat resting on his shoulder. He wasn’t afraid to take a swing. Fortunately, he always missed; he was pretty uncoordinated. He didn’t learn to share. But we sure did.

 

Now, my issue is with the people who share too much. Like the loud guy (big mouth) talking into his cellphone in a restaurant or other public place. It’s even worse when he has his speaker on and we get blasted with both sides of the conversation. Also, the driver with an expensive stereo system, blasting so loud that anyone sitting near him at a stop light gets clobbered with noise. He’s “SHARING.” It’s so loud, that were he in a workplace, OSHA would deem it in violation of the 85 DBA noise limit.

 

How about the guy whose car exhaust system has been modified; you can hear him coming two blocks away. Some Harley motorcycle guys do the same, sending a blatting crescendo of engine noise across the roadway. “Look at me; I ride a Harley!” Most Harley riders, the ones with standard exhaust systems, resent the blatting rider too. It gives them a bad reputation.  

 

The world is full of oversharing people. The ones whose dogs bark all day long, the bands in bars and restaurants who crank up the volume so high you can’t talk to the person next to you. There are way too many sharers out there, including some of the advertisers on TV that raise the volume of their ads, in violation of the FCC rules; it appears that FCC is asleep at the wheel. My list of over-sharers is pretty long. How about yours?

 Comments? Complaints?  Send to mlesler7@gmail.com

 

 

The Old Coot takes his coffee black - Published 7/3/24

 The Old Coot takes his coffee black.

By Merlin Lessler

 I was sitting in the Owego Kitchen coffee house the other day and wondered where the coffeehouse concept came from. I wondered. Google answered. They (it) said it was born in the Mideast, in the 15th century and migrated to Europe and England in the 17^th century. It was a “gentlemen only” establishment.! All I know is, they weren’t around when, or where, I was growing up. Sure, old guys hung out in diners, perched on swivel bar stools, sipping oily, black coffee from china mugs, chewing the fat, as they called those mindless conversations loaded with guffaws.

 In my world, the modern version of the coffee house began as a hippy thing. I was around, but unaware, as the concept blossomed. My wife and I were otherwise occupied, with three daughters under the age of five and too busy to afford us leisure time to hang out in a coffee house, listening to dreadful, home-grown poetry.   

 At any rate, in spite of our lack of participation, those institutions gravitated across the country throughout the 1960’s. Few if any, turned a profit. But that wasn’t the objective for the long-haired men and long-skirted women who ran them. They were designed to enhance the anti-establishment movement; owners and patrons subscribed to the credo: “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” It was a place where people discussed life philosophies on overstuffed, well-worn couches and chairs. A random guy or girl was often hanging out, strumming a guitar and singing folk songs like “This Land is Your Land.” It provided a refuge for young adults, especially college students doing homework and escaping every-day life.

 Coffee houses still are around, run by independent proprietors, slugging it out against the giants: Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts and the like – Corporations run by people over 30, not to be trusted who figured out how to monetize the hippy version of a coffee house. Who would have thought customers would pay 5, 7, 10 dollars or more for a complicated beverage crafted by a mixologist (barrister) to start their day. Not me! I take my coffee black and often with a free refill and then overstay my welcome. That’s what old coots do. We’re lucky, here in Owego, to be blessed with four coffeehouses that big business hasn’t gotten their hands on. Bring your guitar and strum a tune or two.