The Old Coot wants out! An article published on 01/25/2023

 The Old Coot wants out!

By Merlin Lessler

 “Outside!” Was my favorite place when I was a kid. My generation wanted “out” – rain or shine, hot or cold. My favorite sound was that of the screen door slamming shut behind me as I ran out the back door. I usually headed to a swing, made from clothesline and scrap lumber that hung from a tree at the edge of our yard. Beyond it was a woodlot next to an abandoned, overgrown farm field. The rusted hulk of an old farm truck was in a thicket, a few feet beyond, the swing. It had a bench seat and a steering wheel, a perfect venue for a young kid to play in. I put a lot of mileage on that baby, “driving” all around town (in my mind). A small pond sat a few yards into the field. It was where kids in the neighborhood scooped out clumps of frog eggs and watch them turn into tadpoles in jars on their dressers. When the legs began to appear, they returned the tadpoles to the “watering hole,” as we called it, when playing Cowboys & Indians in the field.

 My friend Woody lived one block from me. We started trekking back and forth through neighbor’s yards to each other’s houses when we were four years old. Our mothers were not concerned for our safety; we traveled around the neighborhood with my dog Topper and Meg, a beautiful Irish Setter that lived up the street from Woody.

 The urge to be outside grew stronger as we grew older. It was an endless playland out there, providing a place for ball games, hut building, hot rod riding, biking, cowboy wars with cap guns and BB guns, sword fights to defend the castle, tree climbing, roller skating and exploring the mountain that rose above our neighborhood. We hiked up the mountain with peanut butter & jelly sandwiches packed in army surplus knapsacks, with metallic tinged milk carried in war surplus, metal canteens.

 As soon as supper was over all the kids in the neighborhood started campaigning to get back outside. We all had the same curfew, “Come home when the street lights come on.” Sometimes we gathered on “Junk Street” for a game of bat-ball. It was called Junk Street because it was full of junk – piles of left-over materials from houses going up in our neighborhood during those postwar days when housing was in short supply. We played in those houses as they went up, and “borrowed” some of the material laying around to build our tree huts with. But, only from the scrap piles, (for the most part). Playing ball or playing Tarzan, swinging from the rafters in newly framed houses, it didn’t matter. All that mattered, was that we were outside.

 Comments? Send to mlessler@gmail.com

The Old Coot suffers with web program changes. Article # 1011, January 18, 2023

 The Old Coot dreads “new and improved!”

By Merlin Lessler

 Every time I turn around, one or another of the web pages or Apps I use is revamped. “Improved!” They claim. “Ruined,” in reality, for the users who figured out how to navigate the old program. Two of my banks did that to their web sites and Apps during the past year. They hid some of the functions I use in new sub-menus. Stuff that used to be in plain sight on the home page.  That was one problem, but they also rename some of them. The techies that design these things live on a different planet than old guys like me. I’m pretty tech-savvy, yet I get bamboozled by the new programs.

 Microsoft was the first company to change and mess up their programs; it affected millions of users – which is why you might hear me mumble under my breath, “I hate Bill Gates,” every time I encounter a change on a computer program. I don’t hate him, but I do hate how he made this process commonplace across the industry. He’s retired, but his legacy lives on. I used his “Word” program to write with since the 1980’s. Every time it changed, which was just about every year, it was radically different, and confusing. He really put it to the test when he made us push “Start” to stop the program. I know he was messing with our minds with that one. Over time they’ve changed the Word program so many times I’m a novice when I use it now. I can’t figure it out when it used to be so simple. It’s also become very bossy, correcting mistakes that aren’t really mistakes. Half the time I don’t notice it changed something, making me appear more stupid than usual.  

 I think the trouble is caused when the design teams use each other to test the new (and improved) programs. Even when they get users involved in the test process, they won’t allow old coots like me to participate. 

 The web-site revamp situation is even more exasperating when the change is caused because the company I was a customer of is bought out by another company. This happened to me last year; our local water company was bought out twice. I can’t even keep track of who I’m doing business with which makes it hard to  find them on the web and the old App doesn’t work at all. That’s a lot of crabbing, but I bet I’m not alone. It’s why you hear old coots like me say, “Leave things alone.” We hate change. (For good reason). The words I dread the most are, “our web page (or App) won’t be available this weekend so we can install a new and improved version.  Oh no; here we go again!

 Comments? Complaints? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com

The Old Coot is anti-modern speechmaking. January 11, 2023

 The Old Coot isn’t a fan of modern speech making.

By Merlin Lessler

 The two worst inventions of the 20^th century were: the teleprompter and the power point computer program. The teleprompter is used (most often) by people who don’t really know what they are talking about. It makes them appear knowledgeable, articulate and smarter than the rest of us. They stare at a point just above the camera, or over the heads of an audience. Every so often they stumble over a sentence in the prompter, not sure what it means and have a hard time getting back on track. It proves they don’t know the subject matter, or haven’t taken the time to rehearse. The presentation is fluff! Proof of that becomes evident when they open the floor to questions.  Typical responses include: “I can’t get into that now.” – “That violates the privacy laws.” – “That’s protected by the secrecy regulations.” And when it gets a little too sticky, you get, “That’s all we have time for today.”

 Politicians and news anchors are guilty of using teleprompters and not knowing what they are talking about, but corporate executives do it as well.  What you often get is a committee crafted speech that’s been sanitized by a legal team and polished up by a public relations crew. Once in a blue moon you get surprised, and find out the speaker really does know the ins & outs of the subject matter.     

 Power point presentations are another animal altogether. Presenters DO know what they are talking about.  -IN DETAIL! - TOO MUCH DETAIL! -My issue with these speeches comes when the screen is loaded with a plethora of bullet points, followed by lines of text that take me less than a minute to read through. I’m ready for the next page, but the speaker hasn’t even covered the first one or two points. Off I go into dream land. These speeches get pretty long because it’s easy to load tons of info into a power point computer program. The principle of “Less is More” is disregarded. So is the “KISS” principle (Keep It Simple Stupid!) Most of us are good listeners, for 5 or 10 minutes, then we start to lose our focus. By 15 minutes, the whole audience is off gathering wool. We ask questions at the end of the talk, often information that has been thoroughly covered when we were away in dream land, making us look stupid, but who’s fault is that?  

 Speakers who talk from the cuff, from their heads and hearts and keep it simple, are the successful communicators. If you avoid the temptation to use a teleprompter or an overloaded power point program you’ll do fine when it’s your turn at the podium. Just remember KISS.

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

The Old Coot is a "short" talker - A Tioga Courier and Owego Pennysaver Article of 1/04/2023

 The Old Coot is a short talker.

By Merlin Lessler

 I was with an old coot who started to share a recent event in his life and began by saying, “In 1962, I had blah, blah, blah” That’s where I stopped him. “This is 2022; we don’t have time for a story that starts 60 years ago and works its way to the present. You’ve got three minutes to get to the point!” This is how you have to treat a “long-talker,” even though the tale probably will be fascinating, but us “short-talkers” have something we want to say too. If we don’t stop him, we’ll never get a turn. Short-talkers spit out their tales like ads on TV that cost millions of dollars per minute. We get to the point! If someone wants more than we covered, they can ask. This abrupt interruption of a long talker is the only way you get an opportunity to get your oar in the water. 

 Old guys are famous for parading out an extensive discourse, but should know better than to go on and on so long they get interrupted by a short-talker like me, asking, “Is there a point to this?” Or, by the body language from everyone else, that screams, “Enough already!” Some long-talkers don’t even notice that their audience is shrinking. People slinking off when he’s looking the other way. I say, “Sorry, have to go, I have a dentist appointment.” It seems I go to the dentist a lot.

 It’s even worse when a long-talker gets stuck on a detail that has no bearing on his ramblings, and starts talking to himself.  “It was on a Tuesday - no, it was a Thursday - no, it had to be a Wednesday because everyone kept saying it was Hump Day.” WHO CARES?  Did the guy who fell off the ladder get hurt, or not?

 This is the world of old coots I live in; you do too I suppose, just not as bad as mine. It’s worse for us old guys who are short-talkers, who keep bumping into long-talkers. I wish you luck in surviving the Long Talkers in your world. At least with long-writers you can stop reading any time you want. We’ll never know, and you won’t have to suffer. This was written in the Owego Kitchen three month ago, but got lost in my notebook. I think it was on a Monday? or a Tuesday? maybe a Friday?...........................................?

The Old Coot is an Early Bird. A Tioga Courier and Owego Pennysaver Article of December 28, 2022

 The Old Coot is out of time.

By Merlin Lessler

 Our clocks were set 20 minutes ahead when I was growing up. My mother didn’t want us to be late: for school, for church, for doctor’s appointments, for city busses, for anything. She started this time trickery at 5 minutes; when we caught, on she moved it up another five and finally ended it at twenty minutes.

 My sister and I looked at the clock and subtracted 20 minutes. A lot of families set their clock ahead, though I think our twenty minutes was at the extreme end of the spectrum. It was a be-on-time era. Punctuality was highly valued. I still have an ingrained impulse to deduct 20 minutes when I look at a clock, I have to consciously turn it off, even though it’s been 60 years since I left home. I’m still stuck with the “be-on-time” mentality. That never left me. Most of the time I’m early. It goes along with the aging process. That old adage, “The early bird gets the worm,” is a credo for old coots. 

 If you have a party that’s scheduled it for 7 pm, you can expect the old coots to show up at seven on the dot. The rest of your guests, the polite ones, arrive at 7:15 or later. That punctuality mentality and clocks set ahead worked for us when we were kids growing up. We didn’t have smart phones or smart watches. Our watches were dumb; they didn’t keep good time, especially when we forgot to wind them. We relied on house clocks set 20 minutes ahead.

 My mother’s generation wasn’t alone in her quest to control time. Today’s population does it too, using the invention of the snooze button on alarm clocks in the late 1950’s, to gain that same 20 minutes my mother was after, but for more sleep. Off goes the alarm - you hit the snooze button and get five more minutes of sleep. You do this four times in a row. Welcome to my 20 minute world! How about the time-shift sham we adopt by setting the clock an hour ahead every spring, to pretend the day is longer. It makes my mother’s paltry 20 minute shift look lame by comparison.

 My wife, Marcia, and I recently crossed the Atlantic on a cruise ship from the Mediterranean Sea to Fort Lauderdale. Every night we were told to set our clocks back an hour. It was great! We got an extra hour of sleep every single night, for five nights in a row. That was the best snooze alarm ever!

 Comments, complaints Send to – mlessler7@gmail.com

The Old Coot saved his sight. Tioga Courier and Owego Pennysaver of 12/23/2022

 The Old Coot didn’t shoot his eye out.

By Merlin Lessler

 I didn’t shoot my eye out. Not with a BB gun anyhow. And, not in one of the many BB gun wars we waged in the cow pasture to the west of Denton Road on Binghamton’s south side. (The area is now populated with houses, but back then it was a war zone in the summer, a toboggan & ski resort in the winter). No, I did it much later in life, when a tree branch shot back into my eye on a riverbank in Owego. But that’s a story for another day. An old coot story. This is a kid story.

 My, didn’t shoot my eye out story took place after I’d paid my dues for years and finally waited expectantly, like Ralphie in A Christmas Story, to find a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun under the Christmas tree. I’d posed for dorky Christmas cards with my sister Madeline, year after year. I’d forgone my desire for a BB gun and asked for eye safe toys: footballs, sleds, board games and electric trains. But when I turned 10 in 1952, I decided it was time to launch the campaign. Woody, my friend from the next block, had access to BB rifles and BB pistols. I used him and his gun friendly parents as the centerpiece of my case. But, things looked pretty glum. My mother batted every pitch I threw her way out of the park. “Woody has one, why can’t I?” - “Because you’ll lose an eye!”  This was before the term “shoot-your-eye-out” came into vogue. You lost things in those days. Your eye. Your arm. Your life.

 “No I won’t! Woody didn’t!” She pointed out that Woody wore glasses; his eyes were protected. Something I knew all too well. Especially after so recently doing the dishes for 25 cents every night until I’d earned three dollars to pay for the pair I’d broken in one of our backyard disagreements.

 “We don’t shoot at each other. We just pretend to shoot,” I argued, lie that it was, with me sporting a tender, red-rimmed pockmark from taking one in the leg just that morning.

 “We only shoot at stuff,” I said, adding to my lie. She was too smart for that one. She was as concerned for the “stuff” as she was for my eye. She knew the stuff included dopey robins that sat still while enduring shot after shot. Squirrels that scampered back and forth making the game even more exciting. The glass window pains in Mr. Soldo’s garage, Mrs. Bowen’s tulips and the Merz’s dog. But, I had an answer for all those damaged goods. It was home made arrows that errantly misfired in a game of cowboys and Indians. “A BB gun is accurate; it would never damage stuff, ” was my weak-brained argument.

 The whole thing was of her making anyhow. She’s the one who dressed me in cowboy suits since before I could walk, who equipped me with 2 six-guns and helped me mount a wooden rocking horse in the driveway with my faithful dog Lassie at my side. How did she not see this growing into lust for a weapon that could really fire? A BB gun!

 Christmas finally came, in those waning days of Truman’s presidency. It took what seemed like years, those four weeks following Thanksgiving, when the count down started. But it came, and on Christmas morning, under our tree was a three-foot long, slender package with my name on it. I saved it for last. I unwrapped the mittens knitted by my aunt in Connecticut. And, like the other pairs she sent every year, they were too short and would leave me with red, raw wrists when I played outside in the snow and cold.

 Next came a pair of ski pajamas, the fashion rage of the day. Then, a big surprise, a radio of my own. A radio for my room, so Woody and I could listen to Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, Suspense and The Shadow in private. Finally came the long skinny box. I tore off the paper. The carton underneath didn’t say Daisy Air Rifle: it was unmarked. I didn’t care; I’d settle for an off brand. I pried open the lid and pulled out the weapon. A single shot, ping-pong ball rifle! You gave it a pump and it hurled a ping pong across the room.

 My chagrin lasted less than an hour; I found the lemonade in the lemons. I could shoot at people. I could shoot at stuff! I no longer have that eye-safe, engine of warfare from the 1950’s, but, I do have a BB gun, a Daisy Red Ryder Carbine, No. 111, Model 40. My wife, tired of my complaining, found it in an antique store and gave it to me for Christmas, the same year A Christmas Story aired and Ralphie got his. It’s a little scuffed up and the squirrels laugh out loud when I stand guard at our bird feeder, but it shoots just fine. And, I haven’t shot out my eye out! Now, if I could only get the old south side warriors together, the Almy, Burtis and Spangoletti brothers, Woody, Warren and Buzzy, for one last BB-gun battle, my story would have a perfect ending.

The old coot has good medical input. A Tioga Courier and Pennysaver article of 12-14-2022

 The Old Coot wants his Doctorate Degree!

By Merlin Lessler

 This is how I think the medical system should work: - A three -legged stool. One leg is the delivery system – doctors, nurses, PA’s, NPA’s, X-ray technicians, pharmacists and the like, trying to help us through a condition or to prevent one. The second leg is the research system – universities, pharmaceutical labs, specialized hospital centers, scientists and out of the box thinkers, coming up with how the body actually functions down to the microscopic level and developing drugs, mechanisms, diets and surgical interventions to help manage a person through a condition or to avoid one.

 The third leg, the missing one, is us, the patients. We have valuable input that never makes its way into the system. If the delivery system (doctors) asked their patients what they have done or are doing, to cope with a chronic aliment, they just might uncover a valid coping mechanism that could be passed on. For example, if they asked, “How are you managing the arthritis pain and swelling in your fingers? Have you found a way to reduce or eliminate it?” They might stumble onto a new technique. - “I cup my hands under a hot water faucet and work my fingers around for a full minute or two. The pain level goes down and flexibility improves.” That sort of intelligence might get into the system.

 Patient input could be uploaded into a computer system, gathering “home remedies” from millions of patients for a variety of conditions. Research teams and statisticians could then compile, analyze, evaluate the input and then pass it back to the delivery system. And, also produce PSA’s (public service announcement) for the media dissemination. Us old coots have a wealth of untapped, out of the box, coping strategies which we share with each other. But, we’re the only interested parties, because we know the value of hard earned coping wisdom. A huge wealth of practical medical information is contained within the entire patient base, yet it never enters the delivery system. This missing leg is a big loss to society!

 Comments? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com