The Old Coot is a cave man. Published 4/17/24

 The Old Coot is a cave man.

By Merlin Lessler

 Neanderthals - a branch of the human family tree that was thought to have died out over 35,000 years ago. A dead end on the evolutionary ladder. We were told they were no match for us humans, a smarter and more civilized branch of the evolutionary tree. But Not True! Scientists experienced a shock wave, forcing them to reprogram their gray matter and recalibrate their text books.

 The shock was generated when anthropologists examined human DNA and found our genome contains Neanderthal DNA. Anywhere from two to twenty percent. And, then they were hit by another shock wave. A discovery that proved cave men weren’t as stupid and oafish as previously thought. It was a piece of string that did it. Archeologists unearthed a remnant of string in a 35,000 year old Neanderthal tomb, uncovered in 2022, in southeastern France. The string was made from short strips of hide, sinew and hair, woven into a pattern that transformed the short fibers into a long and useful cord. String is an important tool of early man, something we take for granted today.  

 I always suspected that there were Neanderthals among us. Not necessarily sporting a receding forehead and protruding brows, but exhibiting oafish behavior. Like bullies and other thoughtless, selfish people. Perhaps those people’s genomes contain large amounts of Neanderthal DNA.

 Unfortunately, I think I’m joining that group. I thought the transformation I’ve been going through these past twenty years, was just the normal aging process. I now think I was wrong. Maybe, the Neanderthal genes are taking over, causing my cranky, old coot attitude. I’m becoming a caveman (in addition to being a dinosaur). I just hope I can keep it under control and limit the focus of my yelling, to yelling at the TV, and not friends, neighbors and the general public.

 

The Old Coot promotes newspaper readership. Article # 1075 (Published 4/10/17)

 The Old Coot has a message.

By Merlin Lessler

 My daily newspaper has two features I never miss: “Today in History” and “Birthdays.” I usually go through “Today in History” first. There are always some interesting historical events. Today it included eleven items, but what interests me the most, are the events that occurred during my lifetime. Every year, more and more of them fall into that category. In today’s addition, only two of the eleven items took place before I was born: the birth of John Sebastian Bach in 1685 and the day Persia officially changed its name to Iran in 1935. I was alive for the other nine. It’s a nice trip down memory lane, but a brutal reminder of why I never got the date right on history tests in high school.    

 In the “Birthdays” section, I first look to find people older than me. Then, for a moment, I’m not the oldest guy in the room.” Sometimes, no one is older than me; every single one is younger and that confirms my normal status. To make it even worse, I’ve never heard of most of the younger people. I face an increasing generational gap that’s getting wider than the Grand Canyon. They say age is just a number. But the Gannett Corporation doesn’t have to throw it in my face, every single day.  

 A similar disconnect greets me on the comics page. I read every strip when I was a kid. Little by little, my old favorites have disappeared: Little Lulu, Mutt and Jeff, Gasoline Alley, Popeye, Li’l Abner and the like. Today’s paper had 33 strips, but only 17 that interested me. Some have been with me for ages, like Dagwood and Blondie. You’re never too old to read the comics. (I call them the Funnies) Not only are you guaranteed a chuckle or two, but also, a good dose of wisdom. And, a little humility, like I get, when Earl, of the Pickles comic strip, makes yet another old coot social blunder. My favorites, besides Pickles, are Zits, Peanuts, Curtis, Shoe and BC. What’s yours? No answer?  Then turn to the Funny Pages every once in a while. It will perk up your day.        

 All I can say is, “Support your local newspaper, for the comics, the news and the obits, but more importantly, to sustain the one institution that keeps the government’s foot to the fire. Without them, we become Russia. There is nothing funny about that. 

The Old Coot speeds through time. Article # 1,074 - published 04-03-1924

 The Old Coot speeds along!

By Merlin Lessler

 I just cut my nails. I’m always surprised, it seems that I just cut them. But no! It’s been weeks. Time goes so fast when you’re an old coot. As you go through life, your “time passing” speedometer speeds up. It’s not fast enough when you’re young. A seven year old, sitting at the Thanksgiving table, thinks, “This might be the year I get a bicycle for Christmas.” So excited, until they hear their mother say to their father, “Where did the year go? Only four weeks until Christmas!”

 Four weeks? That’s a lifetime to a seven year old – an eternity. You live for the future when you’re a young kid. And, can’t believe it when you graduate from high school. A surprise that the future snuck up on you and slapped you in the face.

 Not us old coots. We live in the moment. Unfortunately, not the present moment. We look longingly to the past. (Before the world went nuts. Ha Ha) We start many, too many, of our sentences with – I used to…. I once could……When I was a kid… The only people who will listen to topics introduced in this manner are other old coots, but only so they can chime in with their “good-old-days” tale.

 Eventually, our conversations turn to memory issues, since most of our reminisces are rife with - I forgot the name. What-cha- ma-call- it. Thing-a-ma-jig and the like. One of us will shift the conversation to a confession of the things he recently forgot. “I put my wallet down when I came into the house; it was two days before I found it.”  - “I spent ten minutes yesterday, searching for my glasses; my wife pointed out that they were on top of my head.” Then comes the big liar in the group, claiming his memory is just fine. He shuts up when he’s told his shirt is on backwards and he forgot to put on one of his socks.”

 What’s all that got to do with time? You might be asking at this point, especially if you are in your 40’s or 50’s, living on the cusp of old age. Well, you’ll get there too. It’s just a matter of time. Even now, your Time-Passing speedometer is edging over the speed limit. As for me, my memory is excellent, I think, yet I wrote this a month ago and just discovered it in my notebook today.  

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The Old Coot misses rotten tomato throwing. (Published 3/27/2024)

 The Old Coot misses the rotten tomato era.

By Merlin Lessler

 We once were blessed with an effective (and fun) mechanism to express our opinion of politicians. Even, a Broadway performance, or anyone making a public appearance. It was the “Rotten Tomato Era.” A political hack, laying it on thick, could expect to be showered with a barrage of rotten tomatoes. It was such fun to deal with politicians in those days. Sometimes, a voter would run up to the podium and introduce a banana cream pie to the gas bag’s face. Actors and actresses, which for some reason, (I never got the memo), we now are forced to call actors, could also expect a showering of rotten vegetables from the audience when their performance was severely lacking.  

 Not anymore! Our right to free “rotten tomato” speech is a criminal offense. To even touch another person without their permission, can get you arrested and charged with disorderly conduct or assault. We’ve lost such a delightful free speech mechanism. Yet, we still do it mentally, at least I do, every time I watch the news and hear a bloated bunch of malarky from a corporate executive, politician or even an advertisement that I know is a lie. It makes you wonder what happened to the truth in advertising rules that were enacted five decades ago? The consumer protection czar is asleep at the wheel and most certainly deserves a pie in the face. 

 And, what about the American Bar Association? It once restricted its members from advertising their wares. It was a matter of professional ethics. That tradition sure has evaporated. The members who run the ABA deserve a double, whip cream pie in the face, along with the CEOs of pharmaceutical companies. Can you imagine how nice TV watching would be without ads from ambulance chasing lawyers and drug pushing corporations. Ads, that consume ten minutes of every 30 minute time slot. Sometimes the best way forward is to go back. It sure would be nice to get those rotten tomatoes moving once again.

 Comments? Complaints? Send to – mlessler7@gmail.com    

 

       

The Old Coot get's distracted by a paper bag. Article # 1022 Published March 20, 2024)

 The Old Coot gets lost in the past.

By Merlin Lessler

 My wife bought a jar of honey the other day. The clerk put it in a craft paper bag that reminded me of the ones I took to school when I was in junior and senior high. In elementary school, we walked home for lunch, but once we made it to 7^th grade, we rode a bus from our elementary school, across town to junior high with a bag lunch in our grasp. We carried our books under our arms, covered in craft paper that matched the lunch bags. No book bags or back packs in those days. I guess I grew up in the dumb generation.

Our school had a cafeteria, but many of us, either couldn’t afford, or couldn’t stand, to eat the slop that the lunch ladies plopped on your plate. The only thing I purchased in the cafeteria was government subsidized milk, and once a week, a sliver of ice cream, served on a cardboard dish for ten cents.

Things changed in senior high. There were no school buses. You either took a city bus, walked, or were lucky enough to have some older kid in the neighborhood with a car who would get you there and back for a buck a week. At 25 cents a gallon, it was a profitable venture. If you played sports, with after school practice, you walked home or bummed a ride. Hitch hiking was another way of getting around in that era.

The other change in senior high, was where we settled in to eat our lunch. There was a bakery just a few steps from school and for reasons unknown to me, they let us crowd in to eat, even though most of us just bought a container of milk. It was a mob scene, so crowded that it was hard to get from the front door to the beverage container in the back. We stood around like munching cows in a pasture. My bag usually contained three sandwiches, a boxed snack pie and an apple. I’d weigh 400 pounds if I ate like that today.

When I made it to eleventh grade, my lunch room shifted to the pool hall down the block. I learned more there than I did in class, but the subject was street smarts. It cost ten cents to play rotation or eight ball, a penny a minute for straight pool. Those games were fairly innocent. It was the money games that improved our street smarts, nine ball and six ball. We had an hour for lunch; it was enough time to lose a week’s allowance with a missed shot on the money ball. The Lotis brothers, who owned and ran the pool hall, collected a fist full of dimes and got a garbage can full of empty paper lunch bags as a reward. Oh my, all that from a jar of honey in a paper bag.          

The Old Coot gets a workout. #1071 Published 3/13/24

 The Old Coot gets a workout.

By Merlin Lessler

I was recently on a cruise in the Southern Caribbean. It wasn’t my first rodeo. I’ve been on a ship or two or three over the last 30 years, but I was a youngster when I started, in my early 50’s. A lot has changed over those 30 years, but this isn’t a documentary about the evolution of cruising. I don’t know what it is. Anyhow, I’m usually off my leash in the early morning hours. I’m at breakfast as I write this. It’s a cafeteria deal, with islands of food items, not one long line. You scramble from place to place. Cereals here – custom cooked eggs there – meats at another station- toast and bread off to the side.

You weave through a mass of people like an NFL running back trying to avoid tacklers. No small feat for an octogenarian with balance issues. On this day, I actually remembered to grab a silverware pack (knife and fork wrapped in a cloth napkin) and shoved it in my pocket. Unlike the day before, the several days before, when I located an empty seat, sat down to eat, and realized – NO UTENSILS!

This day, with a knife and fork in my pocket, I headed to the toast station where you wait while the bread you select runs through a car wash like toaster conveyor. I decided to come back in a few minutes and moved on, grabbed a juice at the beverage corral, found a table and plopped down my stuff, marking my turf. End of trip #1.

 Then, I grabbed a large plate and a bowl and put the bowl on the plate. Did I mention that there are no trays to purvey your selections? Not anymore. I went to the cereal station and deposited a splash of Cheerios into the bowl- then to the fruit island to add watermelon, cantaloupe and two strawberries to the plate the bowl sat on. My solution to the no tray situation. I put the goods on my table. End of trip #2.  

Trip #3 - back to the beverage corral to snag a coffee and said, “Sorry,” to the nice little old lady I nearly knocked over when my balance issue hurled me into her. I sat down and breathed a sigh of relief, opened my napkin and discovered just a knife and fork, no spoon. This started trip #4. I went back to the cereal island and grabbed a spoon, thinking, “This is it; I can finally eat my breakfast.” Oops! Not to be, I had forgotten to pour milk on my cereal; grabbed the bowl of Cheerios and went back to the cereal station where there were pitchers of milk and cream. Trip #5.

I‘d forgotten to pick up the toast, but decided I’d had enough exercise for one morning. Maybe tomorrow. I hadn’t tripped or bruised too many passengers in the process. Someone is sure to ask what I did on my cruise. I’ll simply say, “Had a good breakfast. And, got a lot of exercise.”       

The Old Coot rides down memory lane. (Article # 1,070 - published March 6, 2024)

 The Old Coot rides down memory lane.

By Merlin Lessler

 I was on a 12 lane, 70 MPH highway the other day, 6 lanes going north, six lanes south. The way cars wove in and out was amazing. It was like being in the Daytona Five Hundred. I did OK, for an old guy. Did some weaving myself, though I felt like I should do what an 81 year-old is supposed to do, and go to the center lane, stay there going 45 miles per hour with my left signal blinking. Just to add a little drama to the symphony between the lanes.

 It's an ugly mess, compared to the road trips my sister and I took in the back seat of the family sedan, a 1950 Hudson Hornet, gazing out the window counting cows. Cows on her side versus my side. And, reading billboards, twenty feet in the air and Burma Shave signs at street level. There were only two lane roads where we lived in those days. The speed limit was 50 MPH, but you could rarely go that fast for very long. You got stuck behind a truck inching up a hill or a family in a Buick sedan taking a Sunday Drive, and no straight-a-ways long enough to pass them.

 We were never bored; when the cows were gone, we played the Alphabet Game – be the first to spot a letter on a sign, working through the alphabet in sequence. Alice’s Diner” would start you off with an “A.” No matter how far ahead you got, the “Q” would slow you down. The first eagle-eye to spot an antique shop usually won, but a “Z” could be a show stopper too.    

 Time went by pretty quick, between the alphabet game, watching and counting farm animals and the odd sites along the way, like a mailbox 15 feet in the air with “Airmail” stenciled on the front. Our dog spent the whole trip with his head out the window, his ears flapping in the breeze. Dad’s arm hung out his window. Mom made sure ours were inside the car. No seat belts, no air bags, no air conditioning. But we were lucky; we had an AM radio, tuned to a station that played the Lone Ranger and Suspense. The adventure in those days was getting there. I miss it.  

 Comments? Complaints? Send to – mlessler7@gmail.com