Old Coot can't follow instructions. (Published 09/02/26)

 The Old Coot doesn’t follow instructions.

By Merlin Lessler

When you buy an item that requires assembly, you are going on an adventure. If you are lucky, the instructions will contain words. More often than not, it’s just a series of pictures. I have not assembled anything in this new world of instruction without “un-assembling” it a few times to get it right. And, what happened to screws and nails? I put some bookcases together last year that used fasteners I’d never seen before, taking me longer than I expected.

Some things today don’t come with any instructions at all. Most appliances seem to be like that, our Samsung range for example. It came with a QR code pasted to the oven door. We couldn’t figure out how to set the clock. Our daughter Alicia, with a chuckle, told us to just scan the QR code. We did. It took us to a website and instructed us to download an App. That’s how you set the clock, not on the range, but on the app. When we go from regular time to daylight savings time, it takes me forever to reset the clock because I can’t remember the name of the App or what it looks like. Multiple scrolls through the sea of Apps on my phone finally gets me there. (It’s called SmartThings, in case you were wondering. I thought Samsung was what I was looking for.) It should be called, “Instructions for Dummies.”

It’s just the opposite when it comes to automobiles. They come with a thick wad of instructions, often broken down into several booklets. You can’t use your instincts to work the smart screen or sometimes, to start the car, turn on the wipers and lights or shift from park to drive. You’re forced to dig out the manual, something you rarely did until twenty years or so ago. Back then, you could hop into any car and off you went. The controls were easy to find and use. Now, you need a lesson before you dare take off. What’s my point? Nothing! I’m just an old coot complaining about our modern world that continues to become less and less user unfriendly.

The Old Coot is losing his vocabulary. Published in the southern tier of ny..

 The Old Coot is losing his vocabulary.

By Merlin Lessler

There are certain words in the English language I can’t use anymore. It’s an old Coot thing. Words like “hop,” as in hop on a bike. I tilt mine at a severe angle, swing my leg so it barely makes it over the seat, straighten the bike back up so I can mount it and pedal away. But first, I feel for a pedal, push it up high, and then off I go, like a newborn colt trying out its legs for the first time. Another word is “dash.” If I applied for a Door-Dash job, they would have to replace the word dash with limp, shuffle and weave to the door.

Equestrian is another word I can’t use, not as it applies to me anyhow. I rode a horse on a trail in Utah at Zion National Park a couple years ago. His name was Frosty. It suited him to a tee. He was chilly, to say the least. He knew I was a hesitant rider and decided to make it my last time in the saddle. He kept trying to bite my leg and paid no attention when I pulled the reins. He bounced me along for more than an hour; I ended up with a nice blister at the bottom of my spine. I was never much of a rider anyhow. A horse I rode when I was a kid, bolted from the group, and galloped back to the barn. I ducked just in time to avoid smashing my head into the door frame. At my daughter Amy’s wedding, I led her on a white horse to an outcropping on a mountain in Colorado. The horse constantly nipped at and pushed me. No more equestrian antics for me.  

 

I can’t say “skip” anymore. Ten years ago, I got it into my head that I’d like to skip; it was something I loved to do when I was a kid. I skipped all over the south side of Binghamton. You can cover a lot of ground, and fast, when you skip. Close to running speeds. Ten years ago, it was still in my vocabulary. I tried it the other day. It wasn’t skipping; it was a jerk, wobble and stumbling kind of thing. Skip, as in skipping, is lost to my vocabulary. As is chin-up, hanging from a bar and pulling yourself up. That’s gone as well. I did 1/4 of one last week. What’s my point? Hang onto your vocabulary as long as you can.

 

The Old Coot looks back. (Published 08/12/2026)

 The Old Coot notices the old dress code.

By Merlin Lessler

Gerald R Smith, the former Broome County Historian and now Executive Director of the Tioga County Historical Society, had a column in the Binghamton Press a few weeks ago. It included a picture of a group of Endicott Johnson Shoe Company workers, circa 1935. The picture captured the images of fifteen workers and one foreman. The foreman was standing next to a rack of leather soles that the workers had carved out of thick, leather slabs.  He wore a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, a tie and suspenders. It kind of surprised me.

Then, I looked at the workers; even more of a surprise. All 15 were in collared shirts, protected by work aprons; nine of them had on ties; two wore bow ties. One worker wore a derby hat, another wore an old fashion golf cap, sometimes referred to as a news boy cap. This crew was better dressed than most people you see in church today. Even better than some people at wedding receptions who call their dress style, casual chic. I’m sure none of those guys took their shirts to the dry cleaners, nor were they made from permanent press material. You can be sure they were cleaned in a ringer washer, hung out on a clothesline to dry and as you probably guessed, ironed by their wives. That’s the way it was in circa 1935.

My grandfather was a foreman at EJ’s in the early 1900’s. My mother worked in an EJ office in the 1930’s and I worked there in my teens during summer break, pushing around racks just like the one the foreman in Gerald Smith’s article was leaning on. Years later, I acquired three of those oak racks that became available after EJ went out of business. I removed the glue that had layered up over the years and refinished them. They were unique shelves for books, quilts and other vintage items that we collected. The only one left is in my daughter, Amy’s house, holding up quite well after 100 years of service. What’s my point? People were better dressed 100 years ago.

 

 

Photo From Gerald Smith’s column

The Old Coot had phone fun. (Published 08/05/2026 in NY)

 The Old Coot made crank calls.

By Merlin Lessler

I love my cell phone. It makes life easier in so many ways. Even fierce resistors to technology can now be seen scrolling through their devices in public. Ninety-seven per cent of our adult population has a cell phone. It has saved lives and eliminated millions of inconveniences.

But, and there is always a but, we have lost some things in the transition from land lines to cell towers. Like the crank calls kids of my generation made. We’d call strangers and ask them, “Is your refrigerator running?” When they replied that it was, we’d burst into laughter and say, “You better hang up and go catch it.”

If a woman answered, we asked her if she was the lady who did the washing. If she said no, and she always said no, while breaking a gut we’d say, “Why you dirty, filthy thing.”

With cell phones you can’t listen in on a party line like we did in my day, where several households shared the same wire coming down the street. Only one household could use the line at a time. You had to wait your turn, or like we sometimes did, listen in and then break in to claim to have an important call to make or an emergency, and need the line. The only phone snooping we do today is when we hear one side of a conversation from a rude, loudmouth yakking away on his phone in public.

 You can’t slam down your phone when you get mad like you could with an old Bell telephone. If you do, you ‘ll demolish your expensive phone. If your phone battery is dead, or you forget to bring it with you, good luck finding a public phone or someone willing to let you use theirs. Even if you do, you probably won’t know the phone number of the person you want to reach.  You can’t hail a taxi either; you need your phone to catch an Uber. I think the people who miss the landline the most, are the men who sat in a bar in the old days and shouted when the bar phone rang, “I’m not here!” They can’t avoid their wives like that anymore.

You can’t call directory Assistance to get someone’s number anymore. I tried. I got an A/I voice telling me that directory assistance wasn’t available from my location. You also can’t get the satisfaction of making a free long-distance call, which was expensive in the old days, by having the operator place a “person-to-person” call to your house and ask to speak to yourself. When I did it, my mother would say, “Merlin isn’t here.” Then she knew I’d made it to my destination, and it didn’t cost her a dime! I do love my cell phone, but I also miss those things you could do with a land line. I’m sure you can think of many others.

The Old Coot is positive? Maybe? (Published 07/27/26)

 The Old Coot is Positive, Almost, Maybe, Sort of!  

By Merlin Lessler.

 

I’m positive,” is something we say when we’re young, a time when our memories are firing on all eight cylinders. As we get older and discover we are sometimes wrong, it gets modified to, I’m almost positive.  With each new decade, our statements lose their assurance. I’m almost positive evolves to, I’m fairly positive, and then to I’m somewhat sure. By the time we apply for Social Security, all bets are off; we qualify every statement, with things like: “Or so I’ve been told” – “At least that’s what I’ve been led to believe” – “According to so-and-so.”

 

Every time we are corrected, it decreases our use of positive statements, transitioning us to where we aren’t sure of anything. Our language proves it: “I think his name is Bill.” – “I’ve heard the Murphys and the Johnsons are back from Florida.” – “I guess that we turn the clocks ahead this weekend.” We don’t know anything!

 

Then, a magical thing happens. All of a sudden, we’re positive again. It’s not that we’ve gotten any smarter, just the opposite. We know less than we’ve ever known. It’s just that we’ve moved into our 80’s. It’s a wonderful time of life. We don’t care what other people think. It doesn’t matter that we are corrected when we say that Owego celebrated its bicentennial in 1985 instead of 1987. Or, when we are talking to Daphne and call her Darcy. We got the first letter of her name right and that’s good enough. Old phrases come back into our vocabulary: “I’m positive!” – “I’d bet my life on it!” – “There is no question about it!”

 

People who stop me on the street and ask for directions get a full dose of my know-it-all, cocky attitude. It doesn’t matter where they want to go. I give all of them the same instructions. I send them to the high school. That’s where most strangers want to go anyhow. With great assurance and positivity I tell them to turn left on George Street and then right when they come to the statue of an Indian on a horse, even though the statue was removed a few years ago. 

The Old Coot misses the bumper Published in NY (07/22/26)

The Old Coot Misses the Bumper!

by Merlin Lessler

 I first aired this gripe, in print, 24 years ago. It’s time to recycle it in modified form.

 The car bumper is history. That shiny, chrome, steel bar that once graced the front and rear of our Detroit dinosaurs has disappeared; it has been replaced with a plastic, bumper-like object that shatters when it “bumps” into something. Some pick-up trucks and a few SUVs still sport a metallic bumper, but not cars. It’s another change I didn’t notice taking place. Now it’s too late.

 It’s too bad. It’s not just the shine that’s gone; so is the pride that we took in slathering chrome polish on our bumpers to finish off a ritualistic Saturday afternoon car wash. We lost functionality too. Where are you going to tie the baby shoes and tin cans when the bride and groom drive away from the church? And, where are businesses going to wrap the thin pieces of wire that held their cardboard bumper ads saying, “We had a blast at Hershey Amusement Park,” or “I visited Howe Caverns?” There’s no place to wrap the wire. Where will you stand to pick apples from a farmer’s tree when he isn’t looking and where can you attach a piece of rope to pull a friend out of a ditch? It’s more than the shine that’s gone. It’s a way of life that slipped away. And nobody said a word.

 When I tell my grandchildren about my favorite childhood Halloween prank, tying a stuffed dummy to somebody’s car bumper when they stopped for a red light in downtown Binghamton, they won’t know what I’m talking about. “What’s a bumper,” they’ll ask? They won’t be able to understand how we got even with the “meanest” woman on the south side of Binghamton on a blustery fall day in 1956. - The stealth we employed to fasten a length of clothesline to her bumper while she was in her backyard hanging out clothes to dry. -The care we took to cover the rope with leaves so we could connect it to her garbage can without it being visible. - The patience we exhibited as we waited for more than an hour in the shrubbery before she finally came out of her house and drove off. She turned left on Pennsylvania Ave, hell bent to get to a sale at Fowlers Department Store, oblivious to the racket she was making, oblivious to the now empty garbage can bouncing, rattling and leaping in the air behind her. My side still hurts from that laughing fit so many years ago.

 The kid who also blew a gasket laughing while hiding in the shrubs with the rest of us, the kid who had tied the rope to his mother’s bumper, turned to me and said, “Now let’s do it to your mother’s car!” It can’t be done anymore. There is no bumper to attach to. We’ve lost a lot more than a shinny piece of chrome. We’ve lost a way of life. Let’s take a moment of silence for another passing, “The car bumper is dead!”

The Old Coot can't whistle. (Published in NY 07/15/2026)

 The Old Coot can’t whistle.

By Merlin Lessler

I was riding on my old friend, a 1984 Sears, Free Spirit bicycle the other day and tried to whistle. I thought it would help with the “Open Mouth Syndrome” that I’d recently noticed and have been trying to correct. It’s not good to go around with your mouth wide open; it ruins your image, especially when you are trying to look cool. I thought whistling would help, by exercising my mouth and jaw muscles. But I couldn’t whistle. I’d lost my embouchure. (*)

I tried to blow into a trumpet a few years ago. I thought it would be easy since I’d played the trumpet in the sixth grade and later moved on to junior high where the band instructor switched me to a French horn; too many trumpet players signed up to try out for the band, and I was the worst of the bunch. The French horn section was short a player and no one tried out, so I filled the void. I wasn’t even sure which valves to push to get the correct note. It’s similar to a trumpet, but some notes are different. I tried out by faking my way through a practice piece and somehow made the band. I was assigned to the fourth seat, at the bottom end of the pecking order where I wouldn’t be called on for solos or duets.

I spent three years dragging around that heavy French horn through school halls and home on the bus. I hated it. It shouted, “Nerd!” My image was as bad as that of the guys who carried a briefcase. There were no bookbags in those days and only a few students in the entire school used a briefcase. The rest of us (boys) carried our books and notebooks under a single arm. Girls used two hands and cradled their books in front of themselves.

 So, now with my weak embouchure, I ride my bike and whistle; it comes out more like a whisper than a whistle. I pretend it’s a supersonic sound, above the human hearing range that only dogs can hear. But no dog has reacted to it as of yet.

I recently discovered I can fake a whistle through my teeth if I clamp them down and grin while blowing. But that’s not the whistle I want. I want a real lip whistle. If you see some goofball riding around town appearing to whistle and you don’t hear anything, that’s me. But at least my open-jaw syndrome won’t be on display.

 (*) embouchure – is the use of lips, facial muscles tongue, and gums when playing a wind or brass instrument. (or whistling!)  

The Old Coot won't go out on a limb. Published in NY on 07/08/2026

 The Old Coot won’t go out on a limb.

In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin in a damp New England kitchen while also attending to her 6 children. The book caused the greatest stir in American literature since Thomas Paine’s, Common Sense, selling 300,000 copies in its first year.  It received an even bigger reaction in Europe, causing over half a million women in England to sign an anti-slavery petition. She attended crowded receptions, first in England and then with an extended stay in France. 

She particularly loved sitting beneath the trees in the Garden of the Tuileries in Paris, watching families come to spend the day, while legions of boys and girls were frolicking, racing, playing ball, etc. without making a hideous racket.  Unlike what she experienced in America. (*)

Now to my point, if I could, I’d say to Harriet, “Nothing much has changed in America; it has gotten even worse. You can't go to a beach or public park without loud yelps and screams filling the air. (Now, accompanied by barking dogs). Just the other night we were having dinner on an outdoor patio at a restaurant. Two kids were running around, fighting, yelling and screaming. Where were the parents? Inside, sitting at the bar, totally oblivious.

 I've experienced noisy kids running in a disturbing and noisy way for decades. Always asking myself, “Why don't the parents do anything about it?” I know enough not to scold a kid myself. I don’t want to climb out on that limb. I’d end up with a black eye or being escorted away by a police officer. And, be labeled an “Old Foggie.” My deepest sympathy goes to the teachers who deal with this modern-day version of undisciplined offspring. 

It wasn’t always a bad as it is today. It’s been a gradual change over time. When I grew the whole village (or neighborhood) not only helped raise us; they disciplined us as well Many times I was scolded by a stranger or felt the vicelike grip of a little old lady on my earlobe. The most effective of all was being told, “Young man, if you don't behave, I'm going to tell your mother!” That would do it. You didn't want to hear your mother say, “Wait until your father gets home!” In my case, I didn’t have to wait; my mother handled it right then. A slap on the back of the head, a switch to the legs follow by being sent to my room. No TVs in kid’s rooms; no cell phones or electronic devices. Hearing a parent say, “Go to your room,” was the worst punishment of all for kids who wanted nothing more than to be outside.

(*) The Harriet Beecher Stowe information came from “History Matters” quoting David McCullough from an essay called “The Unexpected Mrs. Stowe.

The Old Coot got a new TV. Published (7/1/2026 in NY)

 The Old Coot got a new TV,

by Merlin Lessler

We acquired a new TV to replace our old one; it got a little cranky, limiting what we were allowed to view. First, with a light gray shadow down the center of the screen. Slowly it darkened and was joined by a mate on the left side of the screen. A golfer on the PGA tour would strike a putt toward the hole and it disappeared behind the censored center of the screen. A baseball player would send one flying toward the fence and it was blocked from our view. The final straw came in the Nick’s basketball game 4 in the finals. The tip-in that won the game with just over a second on the clock didn’t make it to our screen. It had to go!

Sounds simple doesn’t it? Unplug and unhook the old; plug in and hook up the new. Off you go. NOT ANYMORE! Not like the old days when our TVs were dumb. Step one, close out all the streaming Apps on the old TV. They don’t like to be disabled; they hide the exit button deep in the setting’s menu. That wasn’t too bad, except that the spot to click on the exit button was behind the fog on the left side of the screen. I had to get up repeatedly and go up to the screen to see it. All in all, it took 20 minutes to “unhook” it.

It was an even longer process to find and/or add streaming Apps on our new “Mr. Smarty-pants TV,” It required entering our user-names and passwords for each App, using an alphabet screen where you find and click on each letter and number.

All in all, it took the better part of an hour to change TVs. And, mucho bucks to pay the monthly cost of the Apps, which we are forced to sign up for if we want to watch certain shows or sports events. The General Electric Company once had a slogan, “Progress is our most important product.” Oh, how I long for that kind of thinking. It is so lacking in today’s appliances and vehicles. If they keep progressing, or I get any dumber, I don’t know if I can survive.  

Comments? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com

The Old Coot is a scribbler Published in Owego NY and elsewhere on June 24, 2026

 The Old Coot is a scribbler.

By Merlin Lessler

I’m typing this article into my computer from scribbles in a notebook that are barely legible. The scribble comes when I write fast in a vain attempt to keep up with my thoughts. It’s not real writing; it’s connected printing. It’s not my fault. Let me explain. We learned to write the alphabet in kindergarten, circa 1948 at Longfellow Elementary School on the south side of Binghamton. Upper and lower case. It was really two distinct alphabets. Then in first grade, we took on writing, now called script or cursive. We had writing class every day, to develop the skill to connect letters in a continuous flow of loops and swirls. We practiced swirls and other shapes, filling page after page. We didn’t write the ABC’s until we could do the exercises properly. Only then were we allowed to take on the Palmer Method of writing.

The teacher collected a sample of our writing at the end of the term and placed it in a Student Writing Folder, for review by Elizabeth J. Drake, the Director of Writing for the Binghamton School System. She visited every elementary classroom, in every school in the city. That was a big job, since grade schools were scattered all around the city within walking distance for almost every kid in town. There was only one bus I know of, for kids living near the Vestal town line. When we graduated from sixth grade, we were given our writing folder. I still have mine. It wasn’t good enough to receive a gold seal on the certificate like some kids did, but it was good enough.  

Writing class stopped when I moved on to West Junior High School on the west side. When I was in Broome Technical Community College, as it was called at the time, one of my classes was in technical drawings, part of the electrical technology curriculum. We were taught a rigid style of printing that produced crisp letters, worthy of being placed on engineering and architectural drawings. That training was as rigorous as the training we had in grade school. I learned it and stopped writing from then on.

I’ve printed for well over 60 years, but since I “write” articles all the time, I’ve ended up a scribbler; my rapid printing doesn’t keep up; my hand and mind are out of sync. As a result, I can hardly read what I write. Eventually, I get it into my computer. Then, for a few hours over the week, I edit it into some semblance of sensibility. Sometimes it makes it; sometimes it doesn’t.

The Old Coot Swallows the scam. Published 6/17/26 in Owego, NY

 The Old Coot explains FCMB&B.

By Merlin Lessler

In between the ambulance chasing lawyer ads, and prescription drug ads, that dominate the TV screen today, are ads for nutritional pills and supplements to extend your life and keep you healthy (without FDA scrutiny). Eat fruit and vegetables? Why bother, just take two pills with all the contents packed into little pills - a pile of beautiful looking vegetables and fruits condensed and crushed into a pill. Other ads focus on the digestive system. If you take all this stuff, can you live to 150?   

There are also ads for pills that focus on the brain, helping to avoid Alzheimer’s and a bunch of pricy salves, some made just for men, that eliminate bags under your eyes and wrinkles. The before and after pictures prove it. If you believe them.

 I try to go to the other end of the spectrum, and eat real fruit and vegetables. Then along comes an article in the Wall Street Journal, warning of the pesticides in tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, and other grocery store fruits and vegetables.  If you don’t take the pills and you can’t eat the store-bought fruits & vegetables, what are you to do?  

I try to relate today’s advertising world compared to what it was like when I was growing up and we got our first TV. My father put up an antenna and we received three channels, sort of. Often with a snowy picture on the screen. Many people had indoor, rabbit-ear antennas; they required frequent twisting and turning and were often decorated with pieces of tinfoil to improve reception. TV ads were few and far between. Usually at the beginning of a show, in the middle, and at the end. A thirty-minute time slot had 27 minutes of show. The average show today is 20 minutes long; you are forced to suffer through 10 minutes of ads.

Pills and the like were mildly advertised back then, but not prescription medicine. There were ads for Carter’s Little Liver Pills a tonic called Serutan (natures spelled backwards) and Geritol. That’s the only ones I remember. The rest of the ads were for cars, toys, kitchenware and other products and services. There was no big push to sue somebody or shove medicines down our throats. Except cereal. We were instructed by Mister Wizzard, on his weekly science show, to start our day with FCMB&B. Fruit, Cereal, Milk, Bread & Butter. A hoax imposed on us by the Kellog’s and Post cereal companies. It became ingrained in me. That’s because I’m an old coot with decades of FCMB&B under my belt.  

The Old Coot pans book jackets. (Published June 11,2026 in Owego, ny)

 The Old Coot dislikes book jackets.

By Merlin Lessler

Book Jackets? Boo! – Awful things -taken off immediately by me. Made for the bookshelf – to make the book look good. Take it off and the cover is naked, plain, no words, no pictures, just the title and author on the edge.

As I write this, I’m reading a book put together by the daughter of David McCullogh – a collection of his speeches, tributes, essays and interviews. David was a famous and gifted (hard working) historian who died in 2023.

The book I’m reading, “History Matters, has a plain cover under the jacket like the rest of them, but the inside cover, front and back, are far from plain. Each contains a watercolor painted by David. He was a top-notch artist in addition to being an important writer and historian.

What a wonderful surprise, perfectly placed. So different from the dull outside cover. Publishers take little pride in their product’s exterior, and leave the art work to a cover designer, probably now an A/I computer program. I bet the editor cringed when McCullogh’s daughter insisted on including his two watercolors.

I should put my money where my mouth is and strip the jackets off the books in my personal, modest library. I’m going to try it on one shelf as soon as I finish this essay and see what I see. It will be what a doctor sees when examining a patient, down to their bare essentials. A position most of us find uncomfortable. We can’t wait to get back into our “jackets.”

Comments? Send to – mlessler7@gmail.com

The old coot is"unyoung."

 The Old Coot is unyoung.

By Merlin Lessler

I just noticed that the official media, TV and radio have started referring to homeless people as “Unhoused.” It might have been going on for some time, but I’m slow to notice changes in language by the politically correct crowd.

Unhoused? If those “experts” who correct our vocabulary considered homeless to be a cruel term, then why not force on us a nicer designation: CAMPERS! TRAVELERS! Not UNHOUSED.

I don’t get it. But there it is, a new change in language. It just makes me wonder, who is it that decides these things? Is it an organization? A secret cabal? A branch of the federal bureaucracy? Who?

I’m an old coot. I know it. I’ve been labeled as a Senior Citizen. But, call me what I am; an old man. I don’t know who came up with that one; it’s been around for decades. I find it insulting, like us elders are too fragile to be called what we are. And please, do not evolve the language into a new term, the UNYOUNG. Old geezer is better than that. It gives me a chuckle.

This politically correct policing has been going on for decades, getting more intense every year. Some of it was overdue, but these days it is taken to extremes. Like when listening to Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, defend spending $189,000,000 to provide internet enabled tablets for all the prisoners in California prisons. But he didn’t refer to them as prisoners; he referred to them as Justice Impacted Individuals for whom he was providing digital equity.     

I am fearful of this revisionist labeling because I have a balance problem, unfixable, but easy enough to deal with. If the bureau of political correctness took that on I would be called Unyoung and Unbalanced. Please, just call me Old Coot.

Comments? Complaints? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com

The Old Coot should shut his mouth? (published in Owego, ny on 5/20/26)

 The Old Coot should shut his mouth?

By Merlin Lessler

There is a side benefit to the cameras on everyone’s phones; we get to see candid photos of ourselves every once in a while. We are often surprised at what we see. In my case, an old guy with his mouth half open. Apparently I have a case of “Old-Man-Jaw-Drop Syndrome.” I walk around without knowing that my mouth is open. That’s OK when I’m asleep on a bench in the mall or in a seat on an airplane. People expect you to have an open mouth. Everybody does it, but not when they’re walking around or peddling along on a bicycle. It makes you look stupid; it’s another of those old age things. Things drop. I have foot drop in my left foot. It drops when I lift my leg. It would trip me if it weren’t for a little device I wear on my ankle with a strap tied to the lace near my toe; it holds my foot up and keeps me from tripping. A life saver for twenty-five bucks.

But, I don’t want to be fitted with a similar device to keep my jaw from dropping. I’ve devised my own physical therapy; I constantly repeat to myself, “Keep your lips together! Shut your mouth!” The latter being something I’ve never learned to do. Yet, it’s important that I do; I have an image to sustain and not make my fellow octogenarians look bad.

I practice keeping my pie hole shut when I’m taking a walk, riding a bike or anything else in public view. Unfortunately, when I’m doing those things I go off into a trance and quietly whistle a tune. It’s a weak, almost silent sound. I think I lost my ability to whistle, but that’s a story for another time. I can’t use that trance state I go into as an excuse; I’ve got to stay in the moment and keep my mouth shut.

I need to remind my fellow old men to do the same. If I see a young guy with his mouth open, I’m going to keep mine shut. I don’t want a punch in the jaw and end up with my mouth wired shut while it heals. Although, that is another way to deal with the jaw drop syndrome.

Old Coot knows your age, not your name! (Published in NY on May 13, 2026)

 The Old Coot knows your age.

By Merlin Lessler

I bumped into this guy (not literally) in the locker room at the YMCA a few weeks ago. He came ut of the gym; I came out of the pool. We were in sort of an undeclared race to get dressed. He was pretty nimble, impressively so. I asked him how old he was. (It’s considered OK for old guys to ask other old guys how old they are.)  “Eighty-eight,” he responded.  I told him I was 83 &1/2. He said, “You look pretty good for your age.” I said, “You look pretty good for your age.” It’s a rule; us old guys say this to each other. It makes us feel good.

A week later, I ran into him sitting on a bench, leaning down and putting on his socks. Not an easy task. I said, “Hi eighty seven.” He said, “I’m eighty eight.” I said, “Now I remember.”  I knew it would be much easier to remember a number than a name. I came close. When I meet an old guy like this, it’s what I do. Trouble is; they have a birthday and I have to expunge the old “name” in my head. But, we don’t care if we get or give the wrong age or name. It’s no big deal. We know each other’s brain compartment that holds names is slow on the uptake. There is a young guy (in his thirties) in the locker room eating an apple every day. I never asked him his name; I just started calling him Apple-Boy. He chuckles every time I do that.

Us old guys aren’t the only ones who use age to identify people. You can’t get to see a doctor without reciting your birth: day, month and year. Even the YMCA uses that to identify you. I went to the desk to add three months to my membership. When I started to say my name; the clerk stopped me and said, “We don’t have members listed by name; we have them listed by their birth date.” I kind of wondered if they ever had two members born on the same day? If they do, and it’s the same date as me, I won’t say anything; I’ll let him pay for my membership. 

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The Old Coot pens an article. Published in Owego NY on May 6, 2026

 The Old Coot pens an article.

By Merlin Lessler

All of a sudden, I noticed my pen supply in the kitchen was nearing extinction. No problem. Or so I thought. I’ll just go to my office and grab a handful; they probably just migrated there. Guess what? That pen holder was also down, only two pencils and one pen. I checked the garage, no help there. So, where are the pens? I’m sure I had an overflowing supply of pens. Someplace.

It’s quite irksome, especially since I’m a hog when it comes to free pens. Like at the bank, when the clerk says to take a couple. I do, but more than a couple. Some banks fasten their pens to a chain. I’m not getting to many places that hand out pens. It’s my own fault. I do most of my banking online or at an ATM.

Doctor’s offices don’t give away pens; they do let you borrow one to write a note to yourself. For me it’s usually a doctor’s name. I can’t remember it ten seconds after I hear it. The receptionist acts as a chain connected to the pen in those places.

Now, I’ll have to buy some new pens. Probably several six packs at the Dollar store. That, and I’ll be on the lookout for freebies. Beware to places with a bunch of pens out in the open for customer use. An old coot is on the prowl.

Ps. I bought two packages of pens at the dollar store. One had four pens with a nice rubberized grip.  The other package had six red colored pens. Great! I told myself; they will stand out when I drop one someplace around the house. Then my wife asked why I bought so many pens with red ink. (Because I didn’t read the label on the package, is what I should have said. But, I do that all the time and don’t get what I think I’m getting.) Instead, I said I like red ink a lot.

PPS. – I found the missing pens. I’d collected some of the excess pens a few months ago and put them in a place where “I’d never forget.” But I did.

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The Old Coot sliced on a slant. Oops? Published in Owego NY on 4/29/2026

 The Old Coot pans the diagonal cut.

By Merlin lessler

I just finished a stressful computer glitch the other morning, I needed some comfort food. I decided on a slice of toast. I ran the bread through two cycles, to get it dark, but not quite charred. It reminds me of making toast over a fire in my camping days. It’s a tricky task to get it just right. I put it on a plate in front of me; buttered it and cut it in half. For some reason, unknown to me, I cut it on a slant. Something I rarely do.

I usually cut things in two, on a line that is parallel to the sides. It’s one of those things you do without thinking, like putting on shoes and socks. You usually do the same foot first, slip on the sock and then either the shoe or the other sock. Some people slip on both socks first, then their shoes. It’s the same sort of thing with pants and shirts: right leg first, right arm first or the opposite. Whatever, you usually do the same thing every time when you get dressed. When you do think about it, you get confused.

So, there I was with a piece of toast that I’d purposefully cut on a slant. Some people always do a slant cut, some always do a straight cut, converting a square into two rectangles. Other people don’t cut toast or sandwiches at all. They eat them intact. I don’t know what to say about people who cut off the crust; that’s the best part.

When I was a soda jerk in high school at Soldo’s Rexall Drug Store I learned the quarter cut. That’s how we made a BLT. We cut the finished product on a slant, twice, stuck a toothpick into each quarter and set them on a plate with potato chips in the center. To me, it was a work of art. Every once in a while, I do that myself every once in a while on a trip down memory lane to my high school days.

But, back to that slant-cut piece of toast. It’s not a good way to cut when you want to dunk the toast into a cup of hot chocolate. It won’t fit properly; just the tip. That’s all I’ve got. I just talked myself into two more slices of toast and a cup of hot chocolate. No slant cut this time. Why not, I’m a skinny guy, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t gain weight. I’m not complaining, or bragging, just stating a fact. I can’t hop, skip or jump either. That’s the stuff that happens when you’re an old coot.

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The Old Coot has coffee elbow. Published 04/22/2026 in upstate NY

 The Old Coot asks, “Tennis anyone?”

By Merlin Lessler

 I’m sitting on the patio at a Starbucks in Ormond Beach, watching two little birds hop around picking crumbs from the cracks between the tiles. Not too exciting you say. You’re wrong. It is. For an old coot, anyhow. It’s a nice distraction from a changing world. When you’re young, you can’t wait for change – to graduate from school – to get a job – to get married – to get your own place – to buy a new car. Eventually, you go the other way; you don’t want change; you want things to stay the way they are. That’s when you officially become an old coot. You’ve decided that most changes are not for the better. (for me)

 It means another friend has moved away. It means your favorite restaurant went out of business. It means you’ve heard yet another clerk say, “They don’t make that anymore.”  You just want to cover your ears and block out the changes that pop into your life in an endless parade: eggs are bad for you, coffee is bad for you, meat is bad for you, your mower can’t be repaired, and the new ones won’t start unless you squeeze the handle.  CHANGES = UGH!

 Today’s change is my elbow. The right one, to be specific. It hurts. It’s a new pain; I never had it before. So, I sit here drinking coffee with my left hand, dribbling a few drops on my clean shirt, distracting myself by watching two little birds have their breakfast. Eventually, I’ll have to get back to the elbow and try to puzzle it out, to wonder why I didn’t appreciate it last week when it felt so good.

 When I’m asked what I did to cause the problem, my answer will be the same answer I’ve had for every other new issue. “Nothing!” I did a couple of push-ups. I took out the garbage. I hosed off the car. I raked some leaves. I really didn’t do anything to it! I hate this conversation because it always ends up with the same response from everybody: my doctor, my wife, my friends. “You’ve got to expect that at your age!”

 I’ve learned to deal with these things. I’ll tell people it's tennis elbow. I won’t mention that the last time I played tennis was in 1991 when my 17-year-old daughter, Amy, beat me for the first time. That’s when I invented tennis elbow and used it as an excuse to save myself from further embarrassment. Now, the pain that I faked so long ago has finally arrived. I think I figured it out as I sat here watching the birds. The pain comes from constantly walking around with a container of coffee in my hand. My elbow finally gave out. I have coffee elbow!      

The Old Coot doesn't cross at the corner. Published 04/15/2026

 Where did the Old Coot cross the street?

By Merlin Lessler

Most mornings I leave the coffee group I hang out with, walk a quarter of a mile through a parking lot at a shopping plaza and then half way across a busy four-lane street to a small island space between the two lanes going north and the two lanes going south. I wait there, and when no cars are coming, I hustle the rest of the way across. I use the word hustle loosely, because my stride is anything but.

Anyhow, from there, I walk back toward the intersection that I avoided by crossing in the middle of the block, take a left down the sidewalk to the beach and then onward, either north or south for a half-mile or more, depending on what the tide is doing. When it’s low tide, the beach is wide and flat; at high tide it’s narrow and on a slant, not a good way to walk for an old coot. That’s what dictates how far I will go.

I cross paths with an old guy on my walk; one day I found him crossing the road in the same spot I do. (He’s 90, so I can call him an old guy.) We’d nod and say good morning most times, but that day, I said, “Jack, I see you cross in the same spot I do.” He smiled, and said “Oh yeah; if you cross at the traffic light, even with a green pedestrian arrow, you can get run over by a car turning right on red.” Drivers only look to the left to make sure no cars are coming, and then bolt to the right and into the crosswalk.

Us old guys know how to cross. Everyone is taught to never cross in the middle of the block, always at the corner. Jack and I figured out it is outdated advice, and wrong. Downright dangerous! It’s a safety rule that hasn’t been brought up to date; it doesn’t take the “right-on-red” rule into consideration. A lot of people have been hit, hurt, even killed, crossing at the corner. My friend. Daren got dumped off his bike by a right-on-red turner; he was just sitting there with the front wheel in the crosswalk, waiting for a chance to go. I’ve had a few close calls myself. But not anymore.

 The problem is even worse, now that pedestrian crossing lights have been installed at hundreds of thousands of intersections across the country. Part of a federal pedestrian safety effort. People push the button, wait for the “go” signal, and think it’s safe to cross. It is, until a right-on-red driver is sitting at the stop light and in a hurry. The rule that a pedestrian has the right of way, is no longer in play. It’s been replaced with, “Walker beware!”

The Old Coot gets off track. Published in Owego NY 04/08/2026

 The Old Coot gets off track (as usual).

By Merlin Lessler

I write to laugh at today’s world and my ineptness to adapt to it. Sometimes I get off track and stuck on grievance, again and again, but eventually that helps me accept it. I kept getting stuck on how hard it is to open things sealed in plastic or bottles with tops that are too small to grip. I’ve aired those complaints so often the issue has become an amusement. When I’m confronted with it, I laugh out loud as I struggle to open something.  

I also write with a “Pass-the-Wisdom-along,” theme, in an attempt to give people headed toward old age a glimpse of the issues they will face, a roadmap to help prepare for the inevitable. And, to learn to laugh at themselves rather than fret over it on the steps along the old age path.

The old age journey is much easier in Japan where the elderly are respected, even revered. The journey is different here in our youth-oriented society. Old coots are either invisible to young people or a joke. We learn to laugh at ourselves along with them, knowing their day will come. If you laugh at life in general and old age in particular, the journey in all its absurdity is a more pleasant way to travel.

I stumble around with a lack of balance caused by neuropathy in my feet and legs. But I do get around, and pretty well. Especially if I’m using a walking stick or simply touching something nearby. Any stable object or a person’s shoulder will do. I learned that technique from my friend Doc Williams, who gave a talk on balance at a Rotary meeting several years ago. He especially stressed using a stick rather than a cane, so you walk upright.  

I’m scratching my head at this point, wondering what I was trying to get at in this article. You would think that after writing over 1500 old coot essays, I would be able to stay on track, but I can’t. I put a pen in my hand, grab a piece of paper and off I go. Often not knowing where. The stuff spins out on its own and I take credit for it. Sometimes something good, sometimes something bad, and often something I never expected.

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