The Ladder People - October 2, 2019 Article

The First Old Coot article – Invasion of the ladder people.

By Merlin Lessler

I took a sabbatical last month – no old coot articles for 4 weeks, ending a string of 827 articles in a row. Now, I’m starting over, resubmitting that first article that was published November 27, 2002. I hope it’s the restart of something good.

If you walk down the pleasant streets of Owego, you’ll notice a proliferation of ladders leaning against historic clapboard homes. At first blush, you might think the homeowners of our quaint village are an ambitious lot, tackling one restoration project or another on their 150-year-old houses. You’d be wrong!

I stroll through town every morning, on a meandering route to Dunkin Donuts or the Awakenings Coffee House and back home again, sipping coffee and listening to Imus on my Walkman. I do an inventory of the projects underway in the village, mostly looking for techniques to keep my 197-year-old house in good repair with minimal effort. I’ve learned that the ladders are props, a last-ditch effort by the male occupants of the dwelling against which they lean to avoid a job that’s been held off for two years or more. And, husbands are not the only ones guilty of this rouse. Many home repair contractors employ the same tactic.

Husbands resort to this “ladder-lean” strategy at the end of a protracted domestic conversation that goes something like this.

(September, year 1) - “Honey, the east side of the house is starting to peel. Do you think you should paint it before it gets worse?” (reply) “Yea, I guess. But I don’t want to do it till spring. Why have the new paint face six months of bad weather?”

(April, year 1) – “Honey, are you going to start painting the house?” (reply) “Yea, but it’s too damp and cold. I’ll get to it when it warms up a little.”

(May, year one) – “The weather looks good now honey; are you going to start painting?” (reply)  “Yea, but not till after Memorial Day.”

(June, year one) – “Honey, Memorial Day has passed. Why don’t you get cooking?” (reply) “I want to wait till the kids get out of school. The school busses spew out a ton of diesel soot starting and stopping in the neighborhood; it will ruin the finish.”

July – too hot.

August – too muggy.

September – after Labor Day.

October – too cold at night; the paint won’t dry properly.

(May- year two) – “Honey, the house is a disgrace! The paint is coming off in bushel basketsful. I’m embarrassed to go out and get the mail!” (reply) “I’m on it babe. I just need a few weeks to figure out what supplies I’ll need to get it done. You don’t want me to do a slip-shod job do you?”

(June – year two) – “Honey, the kids can’t play in the yard anymore and there are so many paint chips on the lawn that the dog refuses to leave the house. Are you going to paint the house, or do I have to call a professional?” (reply) “I’m starting it this weekend. Jeesh, give me a break, would you!”

On Saturday a ladder gets placed against the east side of the building. The project has officially begun, but other than setting up the ladder, no actual work has taken place. A new line of dialog begins; the ladder buys another year of inaction, two if the husband is a clever old coot.

A similar exchange takes place between homeowners and home-improvement contractors, but the game is initiated with a sign, not a ladder. The second the contractor gets the job he puts his sign in front of the house, announcing, “Another quality remodeling job by Cracker-Jack & Sons Inc.” The sign is the only activity for two months, in spite of twenty heated phone calls from the homeowner. Then, the ladder ploy is used; followed a month later by scaffolding and miscellaneous equipment. At the peak of the conflict, the contractor arranges for lumber to be delivered, usually in a manner that blocks the driveway. This trick is designed to prevent the homeowner from hiring a new contractor. It takes two letters from an attorney before a single board is cut. The job then goes forward in spurts: three days of intense activity, two weeks of no activity, sixteen angry phone calls, and a repeat of the pattern until completion.

There are many variations of this construction-delaying tactic: blue tarps on roofs, an “X” taped on a broken window, three rows of new siding installed; it’s running rampant in many towns across America. Psychologists call it “male performance deficiency syndrome.” I call it, “The Invasion of the Ladder People.” Take a walk through your town. You’ll see what I mean. 

Comments? Complaints? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com

We need a new Dept. of Transportation (August 28, 2019 Article)

The Old Coot travels outside the lines.

By Merlin Lessler

This is a repeat rant. Sorry! But I’ve spent yet another summer, dealing with cinders, broken glass, face slapping overgrown branches and DOT “Work Zone” signs encumbering the space alongside the road while riding my bike. It’s a war zone out there. 

DOT does a good job, for the most part. State roads are well taken care of. Take a short ride over the border and I’m sure you will agree. So no, I don’t have an issue with the auto, truck and motorcycle component of their function. My issue starts just off the edge of the travel lane, the shoulder of the road, where pedestrians, bicycle riders, skateboarders and the like, wend their way. Oh sure, there’s a bike lane here and there, a narrow space between a painted white line right next to the lane where 4,000-pound SUV’s fly by as though racing in the Daytona 500. I’d like to see a new state department established, the DOPT, Department of Pedestrian Transportation (meant to include pedestrians, bicycles, skateboarders and other forms of non-motor vehicle transportation). The DOPT would have exclusive authority over the travel zone alongside the road. 

The first mission of the DOPT would be to clean up this travel space, to sweep off the sand and salt after a cruel winter, the debris that has fallen off commercial transporter’s vehicles and the limbs and weeds that encroach into the pathway. Not everyone commutes in a motor vehicle; a lot of people can’t afford or choose not to. They travel on foot or under some form of human power - to get to work and other places. Another bunch of us do it for pleasure and health benefits. An unobstructed pathway would be greatly appreciated.

Once the DOPT improves the side of the road, they can address longer-term safety issues, creating truly safe places to walk and bike, protected from the distracted drivers who are running us down at greater numbers every year. The money wasted on those cross walk signals the DOT is installing across the state in places where hardly anyone crosses would be better off in the hands of a DOPT. It’s true, we’re a small portion of the population, but our numbers are growing as the benefits to good health (physical and mental) and a smaller carbon footprint are adopted by more and more people. I grew up in a world where it was safe to get around under human power, on sidewalks or safe spaces next to the road. We traveled on foot, on bicycles, pogo sticks, stilts and roller skates without incident. It would be nice to progress back to what once was. And, a DOPT would help get us there.

Dizzy isn't as much fun as it used to be. (August 21, 2019 Article)

The Old Coot is unbalanced.

By Merlin Lessler

Most old coots are balance challenged. Not all the time. Some days we hardly totter at all. But, when it hits, we go reeling. For me, it’s to the left – an awkward step or two before I right the ship. I found a secret solution the other day, while walking into town. Walk faster! My slow pondering pace has me wandering side to side and tottering every once in a while. Then I sped up the pace, and presto, my line straightened out and the tottering subsided.

Then, I stubbed my toe, and went reeling again. “Pick up your feet, stupid.” I scolded myself, remembering my mother often saying that to me when I was a kid, minus the “stupid.” Back then, the issue was being too excited to get somewhere, shooting here and there, my body ahead of my feet. Now it’s the opposite – my body comes lumbering along after my feet choose a route.

My friend Don is balanced challenged too, even more than me. We are quite a pair, reeling around on a golf course (at least when we’re having a bad balance day). My favorite image out there is when he gets off a huge drive. He’s the longest ball striker in the group. Zing it goes and then he staggers back several steps to the edge of the tee nearly toppling over. “Where did it go?” he asks, never getting to see those great shots.

Sometimes, on a super “unbalanced” day, he sports a cane. I’m less obvious, I just hang on to my club after a shot and lean on it if I need to. George (the young guy in the group) usually chides me, “Why don’t you put your club back after you take a shot? Tom (the oldest of the group who doesn’t appear to have any balance or other issues) cleans his clubs and puts them away, making my “hang onto the club” habit stand out. I don’t care. I just say I like to maintain a close relationship with my irons. That’s about as lame as the excuse I give when I go reeling down the sidewalk in the village. In that case, I blame it on the uneven sidewalks, especially those old slate ones. 

Us old guys don’t mind these balance issues. We spent our childhood on spinning rides and turning circles on the lawn until we got dizzy and then staggered around, laughing our heads off. Dizzy was fun! We had to work to get it then. Now, it comes for free.

Comments and complaints can be sent to mlessler7@gmail.com

We blew our brains out with a drink from the hose (August 14, 2019 Article)

The Old Coot Knows How to Beat the Heat!

By Merlin Lessler

We’ve “endured” a long stretch of hot weather lately, mostly in the 80’s. Whenever there’s a hot spell, a flock of “experts” swarm to the media to offer advice on keeping cool. The cat and dog people step in with their advice too. Us old coots get a chuckle every time the weather advisors take the stage. Our society can’t deal with the environment anymore. We’ve been spoiled by air conditioning. It’s everywhere: in our cars, our homes and the places where we shop, dine and work. We’ve lost the ability to cope with summer. When we were kids (in the good old days) we got a drink from a hose, not from a bottle of chilled water from France. Our parents warned us when we did, “Be careful. Don’t blow your brains out!” Of course, it never worked. We’d put the hose in our mouth and trusted that our friends would turn it on gradually. Instead, they cranked it up to full blast. It’s why my generation is so dumb. We blew our brains out getting a drink from a hose.

It was a lot harder keeping cool in those days. People didn’t have air conditioning in their houses or pools in their back yards, except for those metal framed, canvas, kiddy ones that were one-foot deep. We didn’t care that our legs hung over the side; we’d lie down in the tepid water and pretend we were swimming at the lake. It wasn’t too exciting, but it cooled us off. It didn’t take much to entertain a bunch of kids who had blown their brains out with a hose. We’d also spend hours running around under the sprinkler or taking turns soaking each other with a hose, a pail of water or squirt guns, the kind that had to be refilled after about ten squirts. We would have killed for one of the half-gallon soakers that today’s kids have at their disposal.

You had to learn to sleep “hot” in those days. Sleeping “hot” was an art. You had to fluff up the sheet just right, so it didn’t cling to your skin and turn your pillow over every half hour to get to the cool side. You never fell into a deep sleep on a hot night back then. You just made the best of it.

We may not have had air conditioning when I was a kid, but we had something better, Kool-Aid. Nothing was quite as satisfying as a glass of frosty Kool-Aid on a dog day afternoon. Especially the way we made it, with a full cup of sugar, two if mom wasn’t watching. Some lucky folks had a second-floor back porch. It was a perfect place to slumber on a narrow cot or a hired man’s bed on a hot night. People bragged if they had a sleeping porch, not unlike they do today if they have central air. We didn’t need “experts” to tell us how to cope with the weather. Ours was a self-reliant society. We didn’t complain about it. It was what we waited for all winter. It’s why you see us old coots outdoors when the temperature heats up. We enjoy it, those of us who aren’t intimidated by the media alarmists. Of course, we don’t know any better; we blew our brains out drinking from a hose when we were kids!

Comments? Complaints? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com

The old coot takes a new view. (August 7, 2019 Article)

The Old Coot isn’t himself.

By Merlin Lessler

I stopped in at my friend Nick’s house to mooch his copy of the Sunday NY Times Magazine the other day, so I could make another futile attempt to complete the crossword puzzle. He answered the door and said, “How’s Merlin?” Then laughed. “He’s good,” I responded, warming to the idea of speaking in the third person about this old guy, who’s aging body I’m forced to get around in. The deficiencies are easier to take when I talk about “Merlin” as though he’s just some guy I hang out with and not me.

“Yea Nick, he’s OK; he’s having a problem with his right leg at the moment. He and his doctors are in the process of unraveling the mystery but I think he’s milking the issue – asking people to get up and get him things across the room, avoiding household chores yet finding a way to play golf, take bike rides, walk up Davis hill, go to coffee every morning, swim at the high school pool and other activities that miraculously don’t appear encumbered by his issue.

You can be more critical of yourself, more objective when you step into a third-person narrative and say things like, “Who does he think he is to write his lame opinions on every subject imaginable, with a lot of focus on the aging process, like he’s the first person to confront the situation.” [We all know in an abstract way that one day we will get old, but still, it’s a surprise when it really happens. Mostly, it’s so gradual we don’t notice, then something comes along to slap us upside the head, shattering the denial process.]  

I’ve written about many of these head slaps -  the day my 11-year-old (at the time) granddaughter, Oriah, and her nine year-old brother, Atlas and I threw a football around in a game of catch and they had to move closer to me because I couldn’t throw the ball as far as they could – and then their older brother, Wylie, could no longer accept any footwear hand-me-downs from me because his foot was bigger than mine – and the horseback ride I went on in Zion National Park that left me lame and limping - and how I moved up to the senior tees on the golf course, then the ladies tees and now sometimes  I just tee up in the middle of the fairway -and then a few weeks ago when I announced transitioning to a girl’s bike.

So, back to the third person frame of mind, The Old Coot is adjusting and just wants to report back to you youngsters in your 40’s,50’s and 60’s, that old age is inevitable; you will face it soon enough, sooner than you think, but embrace it. And, try not to complain about it as much as I do. I mean, the Old Coot does. Use the third person and nobody will know that you’re talking about yourself. The guy who wrote this did.

Complaints? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com

The Old Coot Checks again and again. (July 31, 2019 Article)

The Old Coot checks again and again.

By Merlin Lessler

Six months or so ago I wrote about the check lists that old coots use before leaving the house: are your shirt buttons in the right holes? -  is your sweater on the right way, or backwards? – remember not to yell Ouch and Oops in public – did you take your pills? - pat your pockets to be sure you have the keys, phone and wallet. Those sorts of things. I’ve since discovered a need for another checklist, one to cover myself when I’m out and about. It started when I took the train from Virginia to Florida. I was in such a hurry to get off, I didn’t make sure I had everything I boarded with. As a result, I lost my back-up cell phone. I filed a claim with AMTRAK and then tracked the phone’s movement on a computer.  It headed north and traveled all through the night, getting back to Virginia at 9am the following morning. So, I knew it was on the train and no one had found it. Then it headed back to Florida, but the battery died and that was the last I heard of it. AMTRAK never found it.

Then it happened again, but this time it was my primary phone that got lost, at one of those fancy, modern movie theatres where you plunk yourself down in a luxurious, reclining chair with a food and beverage tray attached at the side. The space between the rows of seats is so wide you don’t have to get up to let others pass by to their seats. Admission was $15, which is why it was my first experience in a modern movie theatre, being the cheapskate that I am.

The seat was comfortable and the light level so low I had trouble staying awake. I didn’t want to sleep through my $15 investment; I strived to remain conscious. It didn’t work, but my wife, Marcia, saved the day; she gave me the elbow every time I started snoring. When the movie ended, we got up and walked out of the theatre and down a long corridor to the building’s exit. I fumbled in my pocket for the car keys and discovered I didn’t have my cell phone. Did I bring it with me? Of course I did, it was on my “leaving the house” checklist. I hustled back to theatre #8 to retrieve it from the seat. The cleaning crew had already gone through that section and claimed they hadn’t seen a cell phone. I checked anyhow, and there it was, out of sight, wedged deep down between the seat and the arm rest. A light went off in my head, “I need an “out & about” checklist!”

When I get up to leave a restaurant, movie theatre, park bench, emergency room lobby, police station and the like, I go through the list:  keys, wallet, phone, etc. Now, if I could just figure out where I put the list; I thought it was right here in my pocket.

Comments?  Sen to mlessler7@gmail.com