On Tuesday, March 4, the Old Men of the Mountain met at the Blue Star Restaurant in Schoharie, and it was another cold morning. This scribe generally does not mind winter, but enough already.
This scribe has enough information in his little notebook to cover three weeks of columns. Notes like wacky weed, lungs, bears and bees, finding money, animals and cold, scams, computer time, eBay, running out of wood, medical proof, egg yolks, mirror on the wall, bats, lime and cloves, and one more this scribe can’t read because the scribe tried to squeeze it in and now can’t figure out the dumb word, and then this scribe really ran out of room.
Needless to say, only a few will be expanded upon.
The first one will be the mirror because it is a short anecdote. An OF sometimes will see himself in a mirror at a mall, or even reflected in the glass of some of the stores in the malls and he is taken back because the OF doesn’t recognize the person he is looking at.
He says to himself, “Who is that OF in the window?”
It takes a little time for it to sink in, but it is the OF. Some of the OFs say they sometimes jump at the reflection and become scared because they think it is their old man.
Scams foiled
The OFs started talking about these phone scams that are a big problem. The OFs thought that these problems were in large metropolitan areas. Not so. Two of the OFs have been approached in two separate instances and both were radically different.
One OF reported that the phone rang in his living room and his wife answered it. The person on the other end of line said that they were calling from Georgia, and that their granddaughter (and they gave her name) was in jail in Atlanta from being at a party.
They said that someone from the attorney general’s office would call at a certain time the next day. They had all the particulars, but did not ask for money.
The next day, at the time they said they would call, they did call. The man said he was from the attorney general’s office in Atlanta and that they needed $2,000 to take care of their granddaughter’s expenses, and that she recommended the OFs, who were her grandparents, because she did not want her mother and father to find out.
The OF said it all sounded very professional except that he could tell it was a foreigner on the phone because he did not sound like he was from the Atlanta area, or anywhere else in the United States.
The OF told the gentleman calling that he would have to make arrangements to get the money and he would contact them when he did. The OF was given a phone number in Atlanta to call.
The OF said he hung up and called his granddaughter on her cell phone and she did not answer. So the OF became concerned and called her parents.
The parents told him where she was (she was in school) and she was probably in a class and this school does not allow cell phones in the class. Sure enough, a while later the granddaughter called and said she was in class and could not use her cell phone.
By the way, the granddaughter and her parents live nowhere near Atlanta. So a happy ending with no money being sent to a fake address to a fake attorney general and, when the OF told the fake that he recognized a scam, the fellow hung up on him.
The other OF related his very recent encounter with the same type of scenario only this one was by e-mail. The OF received an e-mail saying one of their friends (and it named the friend) was in trouble in Indonesia.
These friends of the OF are world travelers and are now living in the West and this was plausible. Without going into the whole e-mail, the OF was asked by his “friend” if the OF could e-mail $2,000 (note the similarity in monetary request) to a specific destination so their friends could get out of their predicament.
The OF’s wife did not go any further. The OF’s wife fired off a letter to the friend by snail mail, because the OF did not want any electronic connection to their friend. A few days later, the OF received a phone call from the friend who said that, up to that point, 17 people had reported to them they had the same electronic communication.
The friends of the OF wondered how the people who sent the scam obtained the OF’s e-mail because the OF was not on their e-mail list. The conclusion was that, not only did they work on the friends of the OF, but the friends’ friends list, and the OF must have been on one of theirs.
This is getting too scary. From what the OFs understood, in both situations, there is no way yet to catch these guys or round them up and stop them — these scams are worldwide. One OF thought we have no jurisdiction in other countries and that might be the reason these types of scams continue. The other thing we noted is that Berne, Knox, Middleburgh, and Schoharie are not metropolitan areas, but that doesn’t seem to count anymore.
Mosquitos foiled?
Spring may get here with the black flies, then summer with its mosquitoes. The OFs have a trick to keep mosquitoes at bay when eating out in the backyard.
This tip came from Georgia. Take a lime, cut it in half. Take some cloves and, at each joint in the lime, stick a clove there. Then brace it up in some water so the flat side is up, place it at the center of the table, and voila — no mosquitoes.
Of course, none of the OMOTM have tried this to see if it works because it isn’t summer yet, and maybe by summertime the OFs will forget all about it — forgetting is a common trait amongst the OFs. But the OF who played Heloise on this one said his daughter swears it works.
The OFs who met at the Blue Star Restaurant in Schoharie, and who can’t wait to see if the lime-clove mosquito chaser works were: John Rossmann, Frank Pauli, Harold Guest, Andy Tinning, Roger Shafer, Miner Stevens, Jim Heiser, Robie Osterman, Dick Ogsbury, Mark Traver, Glen Patterson, Chuck Aleseio, Otis Lawyer, George Washburn, Roger Chapman, Steve Kelly, Lou Schenck, Jack Norray, Henry Whipple, Gary Porter, Mace Porter, Ken Hughes, Jim Rissacher, Elwood Vanderbilt, Gerry Chartier, Mike Willsey, Harold Grippen, Bill Rice, and me.
Location:
All the Old Men of the Mountain who ventured out Tuesday morning wound up at the Country Café in Schoharie. This scribe wondered why, early on, the original cast of characters picked Tuesday as the day to get away. That was many years ago.
This past Tuesday the breakfast was Feb. 25. (It is about 40 weeks until Christmas; better plan now.)
One OF made a normal statement that many of the OFs make and that statement was: “Believe me.”
This started a conversation on “trust” and “believe.” The OFs came to the conclusion that whenever the words “trust me” or “believe me” are said in a sentence, the warning antennas should pop up like on My Favorite Martian.
“Trust me; would I lie to you?” Whoa, back up, because now is the time to listen carefully. Generally, a fib is hidden there somewhere.
The other expression the OFs mentioned was: “Believe me, this is going to work.”
This should have “Danger, danger, Mr. Robinson” stamped all over it.
One OF said, if it is necessary to ask for trust, then it is a good indicator that the person or persons have not been too trustworthy in the past, or they are using the word “trust” as a word shield to hide some real hanky-panky tucked in there someplace.
“Yeah,” an OF said, “real trust comes when someone says it for you. For instance, ‘You can really trust Joe Blow — he doesn’t say much but, when he does, he knows what he is talking about.’”
Another OF opined, “My frustration is hearing the words, ‘Believe me.’ Too often. I have been told ‘Believe me, that is not going to work,’ and so many times I back off and don’t finish the project I started. Then, later on, I try it my way again and the project works just fine.” The OF continued, “Why did I listen to the OF who told me it wasn’t going to work in the first place?”
“Well,” one OG said, “I guess forewarned is forearmed but I bet we all will make these same statements at one time or another.”
Tough OGs
Most of the wounded OFs have returned to the breakfast, and rather quickly this scribe may say.
The OFs — by virtue of being OFs — are tough or they wouldn’t have made it to being OFs. Even at the ages of this group of senior citizens they still maintain that degree of toughness.
It stands to reason that the OFs discussed their recent bouts with the knife and subsequent body repairs and one OF reported that his blood work showed he was low on iron.
So the OFs bantered on about iron pills and foods high in iron and finally one OF said that low iron was not even mentioned when he was a kid.
To which one OF replied, “When you were a kid, they didn’t even know what blood was.”
Undaunted, the OF continued, “We had a woodstove in the kitchen and there was a fire in that stove even in the summer.”
The OF pointed out his mom cooked in cast-iron pots, and in cast-iron skillets, and the top of the stove was cast iron.
“Ya know,” another OF said, “we did the same thing. I bet you are right, you OG; when we were young, we got real iron right from the pots and pans, and veggies from the garden, not processed. And our own butchered meat and chickens, none of this chemical feed stuff.”
“How about what we hunted and brought home and ate,” another OG said.
“That’s full of lead, you OF, not iron.”
“Oh, yeah,” the OG said.
Beating cabin fever
Some of the OFs say that getting out to the breakfast is a good break from cabin fever. Cabin fever seems like it is a problem this winter with all the cold.
The OFs are beginning to add cold to their litany of complaints, especially this winter. One OF mentioned that he has learned to live with many of his aches and pains, plus not being able to do what he used to do. The OF said this year he has to add the cold weather to not being able to do what he used to do.
This OF liked to cross-country ski and snowshoe, but now with the cold air, both of these activities have had to be curtailed. This OF wants to hang in there until March 20, the vernal equinox, when spring is supposed to start.
That is only a few days away and, to this OF, it looks like it is going to be, “Spring? My foot.”
According to the weather guys, it appears that, in our little section of the world, the thermometer will still be registering in the 20s until late March. These guys can be wrong quite often and we might only make the high teens in that period of time.
One OF said, “They can be wrong the other way, too. We can be in the high 30s.”
“Well, let’s hope so, I am running out of birdseed.”
The OFs who grumbled all the way to the Country Café because of the weather were met by a cheerful young waitress with coffee carafes in hand saying “Good morning, gentlemen, regular or decaf?” and those OFs who answered her were: Mark Traver, Otis Lawyer, Chuck Aleseio, Dave Williams, Frank Pauli, Karl Remmers, Robie Osterman, Andy Tinning, Miner Stevens, George Washburn, John Rossmann, Harold Guest, Jim Heiser, Roger Shafer, Glenn Patterson, Roger Chapman, Dick Ogsbury, Don Wood, Mace Porter, Lou Schenck, Garry Porter, Bill Krause, and me.
Tuesday, Feb. 18, the Old Men of the Mountain met at Mrs. K’s Restaurant in Middleburgh.
Right off the bat, this scribe must report that he was not there, but assistant scribes were assigned to gather names — one OF for the early birds and one OF for the late arrivers. When this happens and the appointed scribes do not accrue much information, this scribe is forced to go to his little red, or black, or blue book and look up old notes on conversations that were deemed too racy, too redundant, or, in this scribe’s opinion, not too interesting.
Sometimes, the problem is too many notes (all good) but they would fill half a page of the paper if this scribe used them all. That would make the OFs rather boring, so this scribe eliminates some of the varied conversations.
Occasionally, the OFs talk about upstate-downstate and how there is such a large difference in the two sections of the same state. In the all-knowing Times Union (ooh, my cheek hurts) there was an article of a movement afoot about having two New Yorks. Wow! What a novel idea.
This has been mentioned on and off for many years, and quite often by the Old Men of the Mountain. The OFs, as a rule, when discussing this issue, use Route 84 as the cutoff point. The TU mentioned Westchester County as the cutoff point. The OFs feel there is more money in 10 houses in Westchester County than all of Montgomery County, and the OFs think this is also another electric railroad debacle.
The OFs wonder if those in Westchester County, and New York City, and Long Island even know what the rest of the state goes through in the money department. To the OFs, many feel that downstaters think $1,000 is like $10 to those of us above Route 84.
One OF said that many of them have no idea where milk, meat, eggs, and veggies come from. This OF thinks that they imagine it all comes from the grocery store and “they” (downstaters) have no idea how it gets to the store. This OF assumes that many believe the items just sprout on the shelves.
Another OF thinks New York City is nothing but one big sponge that sucks up all the state resources to keep it going, and leaves nothing for those of us upstate.
Another OF took the opposite tack and opined that upstate cannot stand on its own. This OF feels that we need New York City in order to keep the state solvent. For instance, this OF feels there is not enough tax money upstate to support our portion of the state’s transportation department, or the university system, or maintain the Adirondack Park, and support our portion of the State Police. To this OF, the idea of a separate upstate-downstate sounds good, but he doesn’t think it would ever work and he feels confident enough to say it can’t work.
No fancy funerals
The OFs have an undertone conversation that crops up often. This time, it was on the number of people that the OFs know who have passed on in the last few months. It seems the wave of life the OFs are on is beginning to crash upon the shore.
This time, the OFs mentioned the type of funeral they would like, but the cost of dying is like everything else — getting out of hand. Many OFs say, “Just stuff me in a pine box or the crate the fancy coffins come in — that is all I need.”
One OF said, “Me too, and have the funeral from my living room, with family and friends gathering afterwards right in the house.”
Another OG said, “For me, no organ music. Those dirges sound like you are at a funeral.”
To which two OFs in unison said, “You OB, you are at a funeral, and it is yours.”
The OF that started this little part of the conversation said, “You know what I mean. Play some good old country music, like Hank Williams Jr.’s song ‘There’s a Tear in my Beer,’ or the song by Garth Brooks, ‘Friends in Low Places’; that’s my kind of funeral music.”
Another OG said that he is not going to have a funeral; he is donating his body to science, and bypassing “Digger Odell” altogether.
“Come on,” one OG said. “Science is not going to want your saggy old body; it is all used up. What will they have to experiment with? You are nearly blind; you can’t hear with or without hearing aids; one shoulder, one hip, and two knees are nothing but metal. You might just a well sign yourself over to the scrap yard at the port.”
“Look who’s talking,” the OF answered. “When they place your lard butt in a coffin, they won’t be able to get enough pallbearers under it to pick it up. A hearse will be out of the question for you; they will need a pickup truck and a crane.”
This same topic has been covered before, and will be again, but the scenarios change sometimes from the same OFs. One OF mentioned awhile back that he was going to be cremated, and his ashes put on the manure spreader and spread on the fields of the farm.
Another OF told him that would be a good idea because at least, for once, he would be doing some good.
“Like we just talked about a couple of weeks back,” one OF interjected. “Once we are gone, we won’t have a clue as to what goes on. We will be gone. The family may join in the funeral one-upsmanship, just like weddings, no matter what we want.”
“I can just hear the kids saying, ‘I don’t care what the OF wanted, my dad isn’t going to be buried in a pine box,’ and the kids will go for a casket that costs as much as a car.”
“Not my kids,” one OF said, “I may have a preplanned funeral, and they will take that money, and then wrap me in a sheet, get a shovel, dig a hole and dump me in, and that will be it.”
“Smart kids,” came a remark from a corner of the table.
All the OFs who are still breathing came to the breakfast at Mrs. K’s Restaurant in Middleburgh and they were: Henry Whipple, Andy Tinning, Roger Shafer, Chuck Aleseio, Mark Traver, Glenn Patterson, Robie Osterman, George Washburn, Jim Heiser, Otis Lawyer, Steve Kelly, John Rossmann, Bill Krause, Jim Rissacher, Don Woods, Ted Willsey, Harold Guest, Jack Norray, Ken Hughes, Lou Schenck, Mace Porter, Garry Porter, Harold Grippen, Elwood Vanderbilt, Mike Willsey, and not me — but I am still breathing.
To this scribe, the time to report on the doings of the Old Men of the Mountain seems to come closer and closer. This scribe feels like he just finished typing the previous one and now it is time to type another and this one is for Tuesday, Feb. 11.
On Tuesday, the Old Men of the Mountain met at the Middleburgh Diner in Middleburgh and it was cold again, but by now most of the OFs are used to it, except those with stents; that cold air gets to them.
To continue with the complaint that has been growing with the OFs, and that is keeping the home warm and how much it is beginning to cost, one OF mentioned that he does a lot with solar energy. His panel system puts out 6,000 watts (if this scribe understood him correctly).
So this OF could make coffee, 200 watts; make toast, 800 to 1,500 watts; have the refrigerator running, 600 watts; have the furnace running, 800 to 1200 watts; fry eggs and bacon in an electric frying pan, 1,200 watts; and do a load of laundry 500 watts; watch TV, etc. and have wattage left over. Not bad and all free energy.
The energy is free, but the solar system is definitely not. Eventually though, there will be a payback and, if it were started when the OF was a YF, he may make it. Then again, at what age does it mean you are an YF? As the OF’s age, the YF age seem to become older.
The discussion on energy suggested that somehow we (meaning the country) have to wean ourselves from fossil fuels, or natural gas and propane, just for heating homes, businesses, and domestic use. The OFs think this would free up oil and propane for running equipment such as trucks, ships, trains, and planes and subsequently lower costs.
The OFs started talking about co-gen plants that burn everything from tires to rice hulls to generate electricity, and, if we can get electric power down to something reasonable in price, we could return to using that.
One OF complained that he signed up for 100-percent wind power and pays a premium per kilowatt on his power bill and yet his bill jumped by 80 bucks. This OF is wondering why is he paying for the propane-usage fee if, in essence, he doesn’t use it.
“Something is wrong here,” this OF said.
This energy movement isn’t going to die; it is becoming a real problem, according to the OFs, and, as mentioned last week, they fervently believe it is all a scam.
Star struck
The OFs talked about the movie, Grumpy Old Men, with Jack Lemon, and Walter Matthau. What brought this discussion up was that one OF visited friends in that part of the country and this OF visited the motel that these two stars stayed at while they were filming in Minnesota.
The motel has pictures of Jack Lemon and Walter Matthau with some of the staff at the motel. The OFs talked about how funny a movie Grumpy Old Men is and some of the OFs fit right in with these two.
If you haven’t seen the movie, you might want to know much of it is about ice fishing, and the movie is something like Lawrence of Arabia. In the Lawrence of Arabia movie (about half-way through), the people in the audience felt like taking their shirts off. In Grumpy Old Men, the same audience wanted to put on another coat.
One OF said that, if you ask an OF to bundle up and go out and get the mail on a cold, blustery winter day, there may be an argument. Ask the same OF if he wants to go ice fishing, the OF has his gear on before the suggestion is over. Go figure.
One OF said that Minnesota has more lakes in it than the rest of the country combined. This scribe thinks this OF might mean “more than any other state.” The word “combined” would mean an awful lot of water. (Google it coming on).
Tough to top
Those OFs who watched the opening ceremonies to the Winter Olympics were duly impressed. The ceremonies were spectacular, especially the ending with the twirling dancers that looked like fireflies.
The OFs were wondering how they could do that and not fall over. One OF said he got dizzy just watching them.
The OFs mentioned the little 11-year-old girl who was dreaming the dream that the whole show was based on. She was flying through the air during the opening show (after breaking her arm in rehearsal) and she still went on with her performance at the opening ceremonies. A real trouper.
One OF mentioned this is like the game “Can You Top This.” The next opening of the Olympic Games is going to try and be better or more outlandish; however, this one is going to be tough to top.
Finally, the OFs talked about this good, old-fashioned winter with all the snow on the ground and buildings. (At our ages what’s so good about it? Let’s just call it an old-fashioned winter.) This winter is not going away because of the cold.
As one OG said, “The snow does not melt and make room for more; it just keeps piling up.”
This OG said he still has snow from the first snowfall. The guys who plow driveways with their pickup trucks are having a heyday this winter.
“Yeah,” an additional OF said. “If they don’t wear their trucks out before the winter is over.”
Those OFs who were at the Middleburgh Diner in Middleburgh, and a few who still do their own plowing were: Mark Traver, Glenn Patterson, Otis Lawyer, Andy Tinning, Steve Kelly, Miner Stevens, Harold Guest, John Rossmann, Frank Pauli, Robie Osterman, George Washburn, Roger Shafer, Chuck Aleseio, Bill Rice, Bill Krause, Lou Schenck, Jack Norray, Mace Porter, Gary Porter, Ken Hughes, Henry Whipple, Ted Willsey, Jim Rissacher, Elwood Vanderbilt, Harold Guest, and me.
Location:
On Feb. 4, the Old Men of the Mountain met at the Hilltown Café in Rensselaerville. For a brief few hours in the morning, the sun shone and the OFs enjoyed a beautiful sunrise, though it was short.
The weathermen, with their voices full of glee, were broadcasting a winter storm warning for later on that Tuesday evening into Wednesday, Feb. 5. The OFs are happy they made the trip Tuesday morning up to Rensselaerville and the Hilltown Café.
This cute little place, which was once an old school (and the school bell is still in the restaurant) is perched about 1,650 feet up in the Helderbergs.
Energy scam?
The OFs were ready to chew nails and spit rust over the bill increases from National Grid. The OFs say everyone should smell a scam from the beginning. (They can.)
We have had much worse winters, and, when Niagara Mohawk supplied our electricity, none of this happened. Under Niagara Mohawk Power, the prices were high, but in line with other utilities, and we had no ridiculous price hikes like what is going on now.
“Yeah,” one OF said, “and, with the ridiculous hike, comes the ridiculous lame reason.”
A second OF opined, “One real reason is because Niagara Mohawk was an American company, and this National Grid company is English and they don’t give a rat’s patootie about the customers.”
Another OF said that, coupled with the false claim of no product, National Grid can push through the hydrofracking by claiming, if they had more product, they would not have to raise prices.
“BS,” he added.
Then, one OF said that the state isn’t saying anything because it is in cahoots with National Grid. The whole thing is a scam.
Still another OF believed that the natural-gas suppliers have learned well from OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries), and how the oil people carry on their scare tactics and false shortages to get the prices of oil up. Now, with the price of oil joining the ridiculous category, it is causing the price of everything to skyrocket, and the government seemingly goes right along with it.
“You got that one right,” one OF said, “because, when things cost more — and taxes are a percentage based on the selling price right down the line — the state and federal governments rake in big bucks and they don’t care if gas is ten bucks a gallon, or a tire is five hundred dollars, or a crooked, knotted, two-by-four is twenty bucks.”
“We are in a Catch-22,” one OG added.
However, this OF thought we always have been in situations like this one way or another. This OF said the country has gone through this type of “spin” as long as he can remember, only today the numbers are higher, which makes this time around more alarming.
This OF continued that this might cause people to think about driving and building huge houses with four bedrooms for two people, and more bathrooms than a football stadium.
“Think that one through, Buddy,” said an OF. “You’re saying that then only the rich people can go see Aunt Tillie whenever they want and the poor people would really have to plan, and maybe not be able to afford the trip if Aunt Tillie kicks the bucket.
“The National Grids, the oil companies, and many banks don’t care about the people getting by on darn little, and throw in day care for families where both parents work and therein lies a bigger problem than I can get my little pea-pickin’ brain around,” said the OF.
One OF said (and this scribe knows this has been said before) the OFs have lived in the best of times. This OF thought we should bring back Ronald Regan and Bill Clinton — these guys knew what they were doing.
Going back to the power price hikes, the OFs did agree they think this whole power situation is phony — there is no shortage. It is just a way to increase pricing and exploit the hydrofracking situation in favor of the gas business and to heck with the environment, or any other damage it may cause to people’s lives.
Wow, this scribe wondered: How many sides can there be to a discussion?
Dressing habits
The OFs are of an age where they can just hang around the house if they want to — and, many times, that is what the OFs do. So what do the OFs wear while doing this strenuous activity?
Some don’t even bother to get dressed until noon. One OF said that the invention of sleep pants is great; they are nothing more than a heavier fabric pajama, which doesn’t look like pajamas.
“Heck, I even wear them out,” one OF proudly stated.
“I like sweats,” one OG said. “A sweatshirt, and sweatpants and I am all set,” he said “Put that together with not even bothering to shave and the day is great,” the OF continued.
“Well,” one OF answered, “I hope you bothered to shower but, knowing you, probably not.”
“Showering is one of my favorite things, wise guy. I make sure there is heat in the bathroom, and the hot water heater is up to snuff.”
“Maybe so,” the other OF came back with, “but I have been in your bathroom and all the towels are gray.”
“I like gray,” the OF retorted.
The OFs have talked about getting dressed before, and they consider this to be their daily exercise, but this time the OFs were talking about how they are finding they can put on one sock easier than the other and putting on socks is the hardest part of getting dressed.
One OF said he finds he has to sit down now to put on his shorts and pants because, when he raises his right leg to stuff it into his pants, he feels like he is going to fall over, and he can’t raise the leg high enough, or it may be that he can’t bend over low enough to the right. Going to his left is no problem; he can slide that leg right in.
This was strange because many of the OFs go through the same thing, only describing different body parts they are forced to use.
One OF said, when he puts on his coat, it has to be on his left because, if it is on his right, he can’t get it on.
Another OF said he has a similar problem with gloves. If he puts on the right glove first, he has trouble getting the left one on, so he takes the right glove off, puts the left one on, and then puts the right one back on.
This scribe pondered, are we all that weird?
What happened to the rat farm?
A few of the OFs talked about the rat farm that used to be in Altamont. One of the OFs said he worked there, and another OF said his dad worked there, and another OF said his mother-in-law worked there.
One OF said he thought some outfit in Ohio bought it but he really doesn’t know what happened to it after that. One OF questioned if the new owners just opened the cages and let all the rats out.
Those OFs attending the breakfast at the Hilltown Café, in Rensselaerville, and finding out that some other OFs got twisted around taking short cuts to find the restaurant (like an earlier car load did once) were: Miner Stevens, Andy Tinning, Robie Osterman, George Washburn, Harold Guest, Frank Pauli, John Rossmann, Steve Kelly, Roger Shafer, Bill Krause, Lou Schenck, Gary Porter, Mace Porter, Glenn Patterson, Mark Traver, Henry Whipple, Bill Rice, Elwood Vanderbilt, Gill Zabel, Ted Willsey, Harold Grippen, Jim Rissacher, and me.
Location:
The Old Men of the Mountain met at the Home Front Café in Altamont on Jan. 28, and the OFs are becoming a little bit tired of this cold. Thank goodness we are almost through January and, when The Enterprise hits the newsstands, it will be February. The OGs are just about ready to start complaining.
The OFs had a discussion Tuesday morning on something they are quite familiar with since some (not all) of the OFs were around when there were dinosaurs. Some of the OFs were on a personal basis with these creatures; many of the OFs were here to show God how to make dirt.
Quite a few of the OFs were farmers and had firsthand knowledge of how to make good dirt because to feed those dinosaurs was going to take some fast-growing plants, and plants like this need good dirt.
This scribe made a note on the dinosaurs and is scratching his head to try and remember how the OFs started talking about these ancient animals, amphibians, and birds in the first place. Of course, the more well known beasts of these periods came up. T-Rex came up, so did the Pterodactyl, and, of course, the long-neck Barosaurus.
The OFs wondered how many bales of hay it would take to feed one of those long-neck monsters if these creatures were around today and if it would take a whole cow to feed a T-Rex. One OG thought that, if a Pterodactyl flew over and pooped on your shoulder, like a seagull, it would probably knock you to the ground.
It is hard for the OFs to conceive how Adam was able to name all the animals, and did he speak Latin? Were there even cows, as we know them, in the Triassic or Jurassic periods?
Who called the first cow a cow, and a dog a dog, and why aren’t dogs still called wolves, and then there is the whole cat enigma, and did Adam’s descendants speak Latin.
It seems the OFs should know these facts because, of course, they were there. The OFs are getting in rather deep here.
On Jan. 21, the Old Men of the Mountain met at the Duanesburg Diner, and it was another cold Tuesday morning. Most of the OFs left home and found zero, or a tad below, was the morning temperature — not a good way to start the day.
As this scribe renders this report to the computer screen, it is not any warmer. This scribe also wonders what the future generations will do to keep warm in the cold climates when the fossil fuels run out. They are not infinite, you know.
Speaking of the future generations, the OFs began talking about making plans from when they exit this world and go to the next. One OF said he wonders how many times we have done that.
Another OF said he may have been walking this planet as a cow, and, when that cow died, he came back as a fly, and, when the fly died, he came back as this OF. Whoops! The OMOTM’s first whacko.
In reality, the OFs were talking about how they will leave their personal information like wills, or no wills, things that they would like to see passed on, and to whom. They need to have the next of kin know where they have their personal papers in case the wife has already passed on, or they should both be killed when their motorcycle went off the road.
Some of the OFs haven’t done a thing because it is too scary to think about and these OFs don’t want to do it.
Others have everything organized and explained to the kids so there will be as little of a hassle as possible for them when the OF kicks the bucket and his toe doesn’t hurt. A couple of the OFs have their plots and headstones bought and paid for.
One OF had the kids come and put stickers on what they want, and let them hassle it out now before the OF is gone, and what they don’t want can be auctioned off, or sold at a garage sale, or hauled to the dump.
The OF said, “I’m dead so how can I care? I won’t even know if they speak good or bad, for crying out loud, I am dead, no skin off my bones what they say.”
Another OF said, “I can add to that, my kids can’t even get along while they are alive; their squabbles are a pain in the butt. I am going to leave everything so screwed up that it will take those two years of hassle just to straighten it out. And I don’t care if they wrap me in a sheet, put me on the manure spreader, and spread me over the field. Like you say, I’m dead — I won’t know.”
Knox, RIP
Talk about dead — that is what the town of Knox is. What it was just a few short years ago, and what it is like today; there is a big difference.
The OFs from the Hill all remembered Si (Stevens) and the gas station, the country store, and going to the post office, all gone now, and so far replaced by nothing. One OF commented the only thing in the town of Knox now is the church.
“But,” said one OF, “There is still the town park, the fire department, and the Taj Mahal-Town Hall.”
The OFs were remembering Si and the gas station, and the people visiting on the porch covering the day’s events and some of the OFs joining in. They mentioned Si and the penny candy and how she scooped out the ice cream and hand-packed it.
One OF mentioned how Si went to the garage to get kerosene for them and you couldn’t help her with it even if you wanted to. “Don’t you touch it,” she would say, “I will do it.”
What happened? Did it all just find a sinkhole and disappear?
The OFs said what they have said many times: “We think we have lived through the best of times.”
One OF said that what the town of Knox needs is four large tombstones with “RIP town of Knox. Beware of the Ghost of Years Gone By.”
One OF said, “Don’t be too hasty. Towns and cities have ways of coming back, just like the movie The Lion King where the moral of the movie is the circle of life. Again we can’t improve anything by being negative.”
“Spoil sport,” was the retort.
Wish on STAR
The OFs had some conversation on the STAR [School TAx Relief] program, and in this group almost all are qualified for this program. The forms, though they are short and do not ask for much information, are quite confusing to the OFs.
There is one rule in the third paragraph of the Renewal Application which states: “All owners, including nonresident owners, must attach a copy of either their 2012 federal or state income tax returns (if filed). (Tax schedules and tax form attachments are not routinely required.)” Duh. Which is it? Must attach, or not routinely required? Another duh. There appears to be something left out here. Or maybe the OFs are old and have lost the art of reading between the lines.
This scribe checked, and the answer is, yes, send a copy. The second part about “not routinely required” is for all the extra stuff that goes with many tax forms; all they want is the front page. They are just looking for proof that whoever is applying made under 80-some thousand dollars. Not to worry for most or all of the OFs.
Some of the OFs who watch the news remembered hearing discussions about people taking advantage of the STAR program and were wondering if the new forms were an attempt to plug some of the holes. The OFs just didn’t know and there wasn’t any cover letter explaining the forms.
The forms looked the same, but to some of the OFs read differently.
One OF remembered his brother-in-law telling him at one time that, when people did not understand his directions, or instructions, it was not their ability about understanding — it was his inability to communicate the instructions or directions sufficiently enough so there would be no misunderstanding. It is not the hearer’s or reader’s fault; it is the communicator’s fault for not being clear.
“Amen to that,” the OFs said.
Those attending the breakfast at the Duanesburg Diner in Duanesburg, and getting out on another cold day were: Steve Kelly, Roger Shafer, Robie Osterman, George Washburn, Glenn Patterson, Mark Traver, Otis Lawyer, Jim Heiser, Chuck Aleseio, Roger Chapman, Miner Stevens, Bill Krause, John Rossmann, Harold Guest, Frank Pauli, Lou Schenck, Jack Norray, Mace Porter, Andy Tinning, Harold Grippen, Ted Willsey, Jim Rissacher, and me.
On Jan. 14, the Old Men of the Mountain met at the Blue Star Restaurant in Schoharie. The contingent of Old Men that attacked the Blue Star was large in number.
The OFs thought it was the good weather that brought so many to the breakfast, or maybe it was just timing. One OF started counting backwards the last three or four Tuesdays, and recounted the temperature for those Tuesdays, and it was zero or below.
Tuesday was 40 degrees when most of the OFs started out. This OF, too, may be right — it could be the weather.
The OFs started talking about how the concern for our country’s past is quickly being lost by many of our young people because of the desire for the dollar.
So much of the country is being bought up and torn down to build this mall or that mall, or this housing development or that development, or this parking lot or that parking lot; soon all the young people will have to remind them of their heritage will be photographs.
The OFs said that many developers will destroy a historic building to build a mall when two miles down the road is a mall that has been abandoned. The OFs can’t understand this, and the thinking of the town fathers that let it happen.
“It all comes down to greed, and greased palms,” one OF said.
“And who owns what,” another added.
The OFs mentioned two barns that are in good shape coming down. The key word here is “good” shape. The OFs agreed that, if something is ready to come down around its ears, tear it down before someone gets hurt and replace it with something useful. So often that does not seem to be the case.
Maybe it is because the OFs are antiques themselves that they are concerned with preserving antiquity. It is thought that thousands of people travel thousands of miles to countries abroad to see, touch, and feel buildings, streets, and communities of old, and here, in many cases, we bulldoze the same things down.
Moldy material
The OFs discussed the newer composite decking material that was supposed to be the best thing since sliced bread. Some of the OFs who have used the material say there is, in a short period of time (depending on location), mold that appears quite quickly on this material.
These OFs said that, once the mold does occur, the material becomes very slippery. One OF went so far as to purchase a pretty good-sized pressure washer to wash the mold off.
One OF also said, the older the material is, the quicker the mold reappears. None of the OFs knew why this happens or if it is something they missed in the instructions.
For instance, should their deck be located where it receives a lot of sunshine? One OG said the stuff is expensive, and he is stuck with it now.
“Oh well, live and learn,” one OF pined.
Better doesn’t always win
One OF mentioned that his kids gave him a new iPod. (This scribe thinks this is right.) And, if this scribe understood the OG right, this new piece of technology does not work with the other computer equipment he has, like printers and scanners.
Kodak found that having a proprietary product does not work, and so did Beta way back when. Beta had the better product but it only worked with Beta.
The OFs think that there should be ways that, if some company comes up with a great product, that company should allow for connections to all the other products that pertain to that product instead of making it so the purchaser of that product has to go and buy another printer, scanner, or whatever to work with that product. This would make the connections and compatibility universal.
“Nah, too simple,” one OF said.
Eventually, in many cases, the better product will go the way of the Dodo bird just like Beta.
Tapped out
Most of the OFs have received their power bills and were ready to take what muscles they have left and attack the power company. Of course, this would not be a fair fight because the power company employees wear hard hats.
Then the bills came from the fuel oil companies with their outrageous price for home heating oil.
“No wonder,” one OF said, “couple these charges with the taxes and anyone can see why so many are leaving the state.”
One OF said, “When the last one leaves, will they please close the door and turn out the light?”
One OF commented he hears one legislator wants two billon dollars for this, and another wants a billion for that, and yet another wants a billon so his yacht club can have another ramp.
The OF chuckled and said, “I just made that last part up.”
But, by golly, the scribe bets it is true and this money could be hidden somewhere in all these billons of dollars.
The same OF said he remembers when a hundred bucks was a lot of money. The OF continued with the key issue, “Where in h--- (fill in the blanks with letters of your choosing) do they think the money is coming from? I am already tapped out just from paying those ridiculous power, heating, and gas bills, let alone my meds. And I am getting tired of eating peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches with a cup of soup day in and day out; there is nothing left in my pockets but lint!”
(What is a billion? This number gets thrown around like chump change. A billion minutes ago, Jesus was alive and the Roman Empire was in full swing. A billion hours ago, we were in the Stone Age.)
Those attending the Blue Star Restaurant in Schoharie and becoming really concerned about the health of some of the OFs and their wives were: Kenneth Parks, Jim Heiser, Mark Traver, Miner Stevens, Robie Osterman, George Washburn, Steve Kelly, Roger Shafer, Otis Lawyer, Glenn Patterson, Andy Tinning, Harold Guest, Frank Pauli, John Rossmann, Dick Ogsbury, Roger Chapman, Chuck Aleseio, Jack Norray, Lou Schenck, Mace Porter, Bill Krause, Bill Rice, Don Moser, Don Wood, Henry Whipple, Elwood Vanderbilt, Ted Willsey, Harold Grippen, and me.
On Jan. 7, the Old Men of the Mountain’s first breakfast of 2014 was at the Country Café in Schoharie, and it was cold. The OFs were talking about how cold it was and that most of the OFs have experienced colder weather than this but, for some reason the air on Tuesday, was cold.
One OF remembered the real temperature, not this wind-chill thing, on the Hill was about 20 or maybe even 30 below. This, the OF thought, was in the mid 1980s to early ’90s. (With the OFs, time is so irrelevant that they may say something happened a couple of years ago when, in fact, it would by more like 10 years ago. So the ’80s or ’90s could be a tad off. )
Back to the conversation.
“At that time,” the OF said, “the coldest temperature in the nation was announced on the radio to be in Canajoharie, N.Y.”
This OF said, on that particular day, he was supposed to go to Utica, N.Y. and, as he drove up the Thruway towards Utica, the OF noticed the highway was like a tractor-trailer parking lot. All along the Thruway, the big rigs were brought to a standstill by the fuel gelling, even with additives.
This OF said he got off at Canajoharie just to see what the coldest temperature in the nation would be like. The OF reported it was no different than the 20 to 30 below on the Hill.
When it gets that cold, cold is cold!
However, this same OF said that the cold walking up the sidewalk in Schoharie to the Country Café, was cold and he noticed it. Some OFs wondered if it was because back then the OF was about 45 years old, and now he is 80.
“Well,” the OF said.
Then another OF said, “We are not used to it; we have not had a real cold snap like this in years.”
“Whatever…” the OF was sure glad to close the door behind him as he went into Country Café.
News stays the same
This scribe is reviewing his notes taken at the breakfast, and the list runs from bottom to top, cars, kids, stories, pigs, cows, health, who you know better than what you know, and reporting the news. Much of that is redundant like cars, kids, pigs, cows, and especially health, which leaves the talk of who you know better than what you know, and reporting the news.
A little clarifier here, many of the OFs do not watch the news, but, when they do, they find that the news doesn’t change. One OF mentioned that, if he catches the news one day, and then does not watch it for a couple of weeks, and happens to catch it again, it is the same news; just the names and locations are different.
Another OF said, if something really spikes his attention, he will become interested and watch it until that event plays out. This OF mentioned the 911 attack on our country, and another news episode was the landing of the plane in the Hudson River.
One a disaster, the other a miracle, and that is about it.
One OF said that he gets really ticked when he does catch the news and can understand why people who watch it on a regular basis are so stressed out.
Another OF made only one brief comment. He claimed that so much of the news is slanted one way or the other and the newscasters act like they are holy. Whichever way the station is bent, they think they have the solution to the problem, when, in his opinion, they are the problem.
“Conversely,” an OF commented, “I watch the news all the time. How do you guys know what’s going on? How do you know what the weather is going be?”
“You believe those guys; I just look out the window,” said another OF.
Give me a newspaper any day, get one paper leaning one way and another paper leaning the other and somewhere in the middle they just may be right and there is always the funnies to balance it out. Any way the paper bends the news, “Pickles,” “Pearls,” and “Speed Bump” are great stress relievers.
Getting somewhere
Many of the OFs think this is too true. You might have the solution to solving the most demanding problem going, like curing cancer, or a propulsion system that does not require fossil fuels, and, if you do not know the right people, it goes nowhere.
One OF asked the rhetorical question: How many of the OFs got their first job from someone they knew, or someone told you that so-and-so was looking for somebody to do a certain job?
It was interesting how many wound up working at a job that, in their formative years, the OF was not even trained to do. Because someone recommended the OF and the someone the OF was recommended to had a matching karma, that OF turned out doing really well at whatever it was.
In college, it is quite often said, the contacts made are better than the education.
“Yeah,” an OF said, “but, even then if you are a wise guy and a slacker, that trait will come through and the contacts will not be worth anything because that is how you will be remembered.”
“You’re right,” a second OF said. “I guess the real approach is to try and do your best all the time.”
This OF said he wound up working at a position that was nothing like what he studied for and did very well. One thing the OF did in college was learn to adapt, and to study, and to retain what he studied. Life is funny that way.
Those gathering at the Country Café in Schoharie and having the Hungry Man Special, which should hold anyone for a week, were: Glenn Patterson, Jim Heiser, John Rossmann, Roger Shafer, Mark Traver, Harold Guest, Robie Osterman, George Washburn, Roger Chapman, Lou Schenck, Mace Porter, Gary Porter, Jack Norray, Elwood Vanderbilt, Harold Grippen, Ted Willsey, Jim Rissacher, and me.
On New Year’s Eve 2013, the Old Men of the Mountain met at the Middleburgh Diner in Middleburgh. Winnie, one of the waitresses at the Middleburgh Diner who has been waiting on the OFs for many years, decided she had had enough of us and thought now would be a good time to retire, and she did.
Now the OFs at the Middleburgh Diner have to break in another waitress — or in some cases breakdown. The OFs wish Winnie well in her retirement and hope she enjoys it as much as most of the OFs enjoy theirs.
In the town of Berne, a new sewer system is being installed, and, in the village of Cobleskill, the sewer and water is being extended along Route 7 towards Central Bridge. One thing these contractors are running into in both cases is rock — deep, solid rock.
The OFs talked about the machines that are used to break up this rock so the pipes can be buried. In the town of Berne, it is this solid rock that many of the homes are built on. The pounding by these machines actually follows the rock and vibrates the homes.
The OFs think, by the time this is done, these same homes will have doors that don’t shut and windows that won’t open, and these windows will leak air. One OF thinks that the dust in their attics is now in their cellars.
So the conversation continued along the rock line, and how the hills of the Helderbergs are basically rocks. The most miserable spring farm job, for many of the then-YFs was using the stone-boat and picking rocks.
Before quick disconnects on plows were invented, plowing back then and snagging a large rock would bring the front of the tractor right up in the air.
“When the OFs were YFs,” one OF explained, “we learned quickly to hold on the wheel of the tractor with both hands so, when this happened, we were not tossed off the tractor.”
It was like riding a bucking bronco, plowing with a two-bottom plow, an old (back then not-so-old) steel-wheeled Fordson tractor. When the OFs plowed with horses before they got tractors, they would just plow around the big rock.
Then the “young-uns” on the farm would get bars and roll the rock to the top of the ground and this rock would eventually be rolled on a stone-boat (whether it was brought up with horse or tractor) and hauled off the field to the rock pile, or stone fence, along with the rest of the picked rocks.
The OFs continued to talk about rocks and stone-wall fences. Not only in the Hilltowns of the Helderbergs but in many farming communities in the Northeast stone-wall fences can be seen running through the woods. The OFs said that, at one time, these stone fences were an indication that on one side or the other — or maybe both sides — of the fence there must have been fields.
Think of the work. The trees had to be cleared, the land had to be worked, the stones picked, the fence built, and then the land could finally be used for crops or pasture.
One OF wondered how many pinched fingers and sore backs were encountered by our founding fathers after all this work. Now these fields have long been abandoned and nature has taken over with more trees, brush and vegetation, but the stone fence is still there, meandering through the woods to nowhere.
Nature prevails
The same vein of conversation prevailed with the OFs saying it will not be long before all the hard work we do as humans (if left unattended) is quickly taken over — grabbed back by nature.
One OF said, “Just look at your own driveway; how soon the ants have worked their way through four inches of blacktop, or how soon weeds starts showing up in a parking lot that has not been used for a little while. It doesn’t take long for the larger brush and trees to take over after that.”
A second OF opined, “There is a lot of power in one little acorn.”
Another OF said, “That is the case in many areas of the world where there is plenty of moisture. This causes the plant life to get started. However, in other areas, where it is dry, the process doesn’t start and that is why archeologists can find dinosaur bones, and remnants of ancient civilizations.”
What makes the floor move?
Many times, the OFs talk about how they worked when they were younger and why the OFs are even here. Some OFs maintain we all should have been dead long ago.
This time they were talking about how they used to climb on ladders and scaffolds, and go 40 to 50 feet in the air and think nothing about it. Building chimneys, working with hot tar on roofs, the OFs doing their own roofing on barns and sheds and their own homes was normal. So was climbing up the slippery ladder of the silage chute to get to the top of a freshly filled silo and throw down the ensilage and then climb back down.
“Not now,” one OF said. “I think twice before stepping on a stool. It must be the inner ear that let us do all that climbing without even thinking.”
A second OF said, “I have such trouble hearing I think that is what makes me think that sometimes the floor is moving.”
“Nah,” another OF said. “It has nothing to do with your ears, the floor wouldn’t move so much if you spent more time being sober.”
The OFs never attempted to sing “Auld Lang Syne” and that was a good thing. The Old Men of the Mountain wish all a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year.
The OFs who braved the cold and made it to the Middleburgh Diner in Middleburgh, and started breaking in a new waitress were: Roger Chapman, Roger Shafer, Mark Traver, Glenn Patterson, Jim Heiser, Harold Guest, Steve Kelly, Mace Porter, Robie Osterman, George Washburn, Don Wood, Bill Krause, Ted Willsey, Jim Rissacher, Mike Willsey, Gerry Chartier, Elwood Vanderbilt, Harold Grippen, and me.