Should opening the plastic bags provided in dispensers in produce sections of supermarkets be an Olympic sport?
If Dallas Townsend were still with us would he be a whiz at tweeting? Dallas, anchor for years of the CBS World News Roundup, had his own abbreviation system and back in the 1980s might have handed in copy that read: “T Pres speaks in Wash tdy to the AMA convention, a group tt has soundly criticized his health spending plans.”
Should baseball bats be placed near the dispensers of plastic bags in produce sections of supermarkets? Why, you ask? For use on the dispensers by those who fail week after week in opening the @#$%^Y&*()_+ bags in a timely fashion.
How many times a night does a normal 83-year-old get up to use the bathroom? Nine? 19? Five? Thrice?
If we had never shopped at LL Bean or Orvis and they had never sent us catalogs, how many trees would have been saved?
When a trainee at a physical therapy facility stretches my legs, one at a time, and puts a knee near a vulnerable part of my body, should I say “be careful,” close my eyes and pray or start singing, “Yes, we have no bananas”?
I don’t butt dial as much as I used to and for that my kids and grandkids are grateful, or say they are. What are the chances I’ll soon be able to remember where the volume control is on my cellphone? And if I am successful in recapturing that information, will I also be able to find out what I’m doing wrong that turns the volume to such a low setting only a librarian could hear it?
Do most people know they have an iliotibial band or is this a revelation doctors only spring on you when you become a senior citizen? Can those senior citizens who know they have one, spell it?
After January 20th next year will I still be yelling at the TV when we’re watching news or opinion programming? Do others have as much trouble as I do separating what is news from opinion programming?
Why is it harder to read an analog clock at 3 a.m. than it is at 3 p.m.?
Is writing advertising copy for the internet fun? The other day the subject line on an ad in my spam folder read: “Larry, get your body back.” I resisted the temptation to click on it. I mean, where had my body been? Did it enjoy itself while away? Was it with someone smart and pretty? Is Irene going to ask me a lot of questions about where I’ve been?
My morning walk frequently takes me by a dog park where people are always throwing tennis balls for dogs to fetch. How does a dog learn that a tennis ball isn’t something he should eat?
I write down things I hear or see that might be fodder for an essay. The website of my favorite Austrian jam maker, Darbo, recently featured the headline “A Fruit-Filled Life.” Am I going to be able to resist doing something stupid and trying to wrap some prose around that statement? If I do write something, will it be one of those pieces I don’t dare show to Irene for her opinion?
Many mornings there’s a guy on a unicycle in the park where I walk. In February when there’s snow on the ground, does he have a snow tire for his unicycle?
How much longer am I going to get notes from UPS, Ford, FedEx, Coca Cola and others saying they have seen my resume and want to interview me? Wouldn’t I have to get my body back before I could do an interview?
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WORDS AND A FLAG, NOV. 2, 2020
“Criminals always figure a way out when they’re in trouble.”—A line from a 1941 movie “Whistling in the Dark” with Red Skelton shown today on TCM.
“A decisive day not only for the U.S. All people I know here – and I think most Germans – keep fingers crossed and hope for Biden to win. I hope and wish the election and the outcome will proceed peacefully.”—Email from a friend in Munich.
“Born amid made-up crowd size claims and “alternative facts,” the Trump presidency has been a factory of falsehood from the start, churning out distortions, conspiracy theories and brazen lies at an assembly-line pace that has challenged fact-checkers and defied historical analogy.”—Analysis piece by Peter Baker, White House correspondent of The New York Times.
“Dear Mr. McCoy,
"Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. While my staff works to ensure your concerns are addressed, I want you to know that I am fighting every day for you and your American Dream.”—Part of standard White House response to my email last weekend, which, among other things, said that Trump claiming we were “rounding the corner” in the battle against COVID-19 reminded me of Dean Rusk saying there “was light at the end of the tunnel” in the war in Vietnam. Neither was true.
On the ride back from my morning walk in a park, there were a few American flags flying outside homes in East Rockaway, New York. One of them was upside down.
“Scholars warn of collapse of democracy as Trump v Biden election looms“—Headline in piece from The Guardian sent to me today.
“This man has no soul. He has no conscience.”—A line from the 1941 movie “Whistling in the Dark.”
I’m 83 years old. I don’t recall ever hearing that stores were being boarded up before an American presidential election and that one of the candidates was proposing to go to court even before the voting had ended. Where am I? Who are we?
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(Posted November 2, 2020)-0-
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It Was No Vandals. It was Jim and Me
Those of us who do a little writing are starved for feedback, and welcome it even when it’s a long time in coming. Forty-four years ago the Los Angeles Times printed a piece I wrote about Halloween. The feedback came a few days ago.
First the essay, which carried the headline above, then the feedback.
Running was what Halloween was all about when I was a kid. Almost a quarter of a century has gone by since then, but I’ve never found anything that matches the gasping, gurgling joy of running away from something you shouldn’t have done: “sticking” a car horn, soaping a store window, slinging a garbage can lid on a neighbor’s front porch. Nowadays many kids don’t know what walking is, let alone running, and I suspect they have a lot less fun than I and my buddies did back in the 50s in Indiana.
Halloween of 1952 stands out in my memory as the best of all. The morning afterwards there was a brief story on the front page of the local newspaper under the headline “Vandals Let Down Streetlights.” It wasn’t no vandals. It was Jim Painter and me.
The two of us had nothing in common except an around-the-clock devotion to horseplay. Jim was two years younger, five inches shorter, 15 pounds heavier, and a good half-inch thicker across the eyes which from time to time were shielded by the worst-fitting pair of glasses ever made. Alone, we were both reasonably intelligent. Together, we had a collective IQ of six. Six-tenths.
While the report in the Frankfort Morning Times was factually correct about the streetlights being messed with, it captured none of the excitement of the deed. What we called a streetlight in those days was just a light bulb at the top of a wooden pole with a metal replica of Buster Keaton’s hat as a shade. If the bulb burned out, the street department came along, lowered the light and screwed in a new one. It was easy. A chain running up to the shade was held in place at about chest level from the ground by a ring which hooked into a catch device.
It doesn’t really matter who let the first one go—although I have always thought it was Jim—what’s important is the wonderful sensation it created. The light came plunging down, and we ran like hell, convinced it was going to be smashed to pieces. We didn’t know that the city fathers had planned it so there was less chain than pole. The light bounced and jangled to a halt about three feet above the pavement. Even without eyes in the backs of our fleeing heads we realized we had discovered a great sport, and we scampered across the south side of town, letting down every second or third streetlight. We didn’t hurt anyone. We didn’t break anything, and frankly it was two of the most exhilarating hours of my life.
A year later Jim and I were back in action. By this time we were hanging around with guys who had wheels. Three carloads of us had set out from the drug store for a bit of cruising. Our usual tour—from the Square to Art’s Drive-in and back—took us through a residential area loaded with jack-o’-lanterns on the doorsteps. Someone dared someone else to run up and steal one, so he did and then we all did and then we drove around some more—11 jackasses in three cars full of jack-o’-lanterns and no one with the foggiest notion of what to do with them.
Jim Painter to the rescue. “Let’s dump’em on Old Howard Crouse’s porch,” he said. A sensible suggestion unless you were aware that Old Howard Crouse was our high school principal. Sensible or not, it was an idea, something we were always short of. Mr. Crouse may have had the status and money to afford a house in one of the nicer neighborhoods, but he had an awfully small front porch to handle 70 to 80 pounds of crushed pumpkin gracefully.
Of the 11 Future Failures of America who participated in the night’s festivities, I was the only one who got a view of the carnage in broad daylight. Unbeknownst to the staff of the Frankfort Morning Times, one of the new members of their paper boy tribe had been attacked on the front page a year before as a “vandal.” I had a good arm and prided myself on getting the paper on the porch for all my customers—a category which included Mr. Howard Crouse. This was not the morning for exceptions or anything suspicious. Catfish Hunter never fired a harder one than I did into that orange goo. I’m sure Mr. Crouse didn’t bother to try to extract the paper from the pumpkin or vice versa.
My Halloweening career ended the following October in complete disaster. Before Jim Painter and I had a chance to combine our talents, I went out with my brother looking for what most of us in the 50s thought was “action.” About six blocks away from home, I grabbed a garbage can and was about to heave it and its contents against the front of a house when the door opened. There stood Mrs. Gray, a dignified, charming widow with a 20-year-old son in college. She was marvelous. She ignored the garbage can in my hands and casually asked if we would like to come in for a glass of cider.
We must have been inside for an hour and a half. I can’t remember what we talked about, but I do know it was all so very pleasant and civilized. After the cider and conversation, my brother and I walked straight home, not saying a word.
I think we were both depressed that someone had finally assumed we were big enough to be treated like young men and not boys. I went to bed that night reminiscing about the fun and glory of my youth and wondering where it had all gone. I was 16.
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The other night while watching the Yankees lose to Tampa Bay I checked my email, and there was a note from a woman who wrote: “I’m Old Howard Crouse’s daughter. My parents and I enjoyed your story for many years. I just found several copies of it after going through Dad’s things. He passed away in 2013 but he loved telling your story. Hope this finds you well and not out smashing pumpkins on someone’s porch this Halloween. 😂👻🎃”
Cathy Crouse was three years old in 1952. I sent her a thank you note and assured her I was trying to behave this Halloween. If my math is correct, “Old Howard Crouse” was in his early 30s when crushed pumpkin appeared on his porch.
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Author’s note: It was my older brother Jim I was with on the night of the encounter with Mrs. Gray. Why I didn’t give his name in the essay is a mystery.
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On Being 83
I take nine pills at breakfast and five pills after my afternoon nap. Or is it the other way around?
Newsday prints lists of celebrities’ birthdays, and most mornings I haven’t heard of half of them.
There are more noises in my pants than there used to be, especially after meals. The noises are also louder. Who says I don’t hear as well as I once did?
My two little fingers could be described as deviated digits. They both point toward my thumbs. No, this is one thing I don’t blame on the current occupant of the White House.
I was washing my hands frequently, way before the CDC recommended it. I’ve been doing that for years because I urinate more often than most people.
It takes me a while to lift a leg high enough to get on my bicycle.
My toes have moved. When trying to touch them with my fingers, they are farther away than they were when I was 73.
Nearly every day I discover a new bruise somewhere around my expanding stomach. At times the middle of my body looks like a paint chart at a Sherwin Williams store.
Ten minutes is longer than I remember it being or at least it is when I’m on an elliptical machine at a local park.
I have trouble holding on to things, be it coffee from the deli or my house keys. When leaving the house, I have dropped my keys so many times I just consider bending over to get them an addendum to my morning stretching routine.
The dictionary I keep by my computer, “The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language,” is heavier than it was five years ago.
I need a training bra if they still sell them.
I watch too much television.
Only about half the actors currently making films and videos enunciate. All the British crime shows my wife Irene watches should automatically come with closed captioning. Could the British be putting us on, making a mumblers’ version of all their crime programs and selling them only to the States?
Some of the analysts on cable TV “news” look so young I don’t understand why they aren’t studying for their SATs.
I know what “woke” means but frankly don’t want to know what Generation X, Millennials and all those other categories are.
I could live to be 183 and would never understand why you need both a password and a passcode for some of these new devices.
We don’t have all that much money in the bank, so I don’t see why the kids were upset after I told them I had changed my bank PIN from 1234 to 4321.
I left journalism 14 years ago and still have a recurring dream about failing to write enough stories to fill a newscast. Do retired sex workers have dreams about their work? Is there video of them talking about this? What channel is it on?
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Shameless self-promotion: You might want to click on the Buy A Book tab.
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(This appeared in Newsday Sept. 6, 2020.)
MY NEW GYM IS HOME; IT WORKED OUT.
The gyms may be reopening, but I’m not going back to mine. I don’t need it anymore. Before COVID-19, I went to the gym six days a week. Now, I have my own home-workout program. It’s demanding and free, if you exclude the cost of a snack here and there.
My workout begins outdoors around 7:20 a.m. with the rapid lifting and lowering of the garage door. I do this many times, getting in 20 to 30 reps of stretching and bending. This is a pretty noisy activity, and, although the neighbors may object, I figure it’s time everyone was out of bed.
From the garage I go to the basement where I put a bowling ball in my knapsack, put the knapsack on my back and head for the attic. That’s three flights of stairs. I try to do this 15 times every morning, stopping only for a drink of water in the kitchen and perhaps an Oreo or a handful of Sun Chips. Here is another reason I don’t need the gym. It doesn’t offer either Oreos or Sun Chips.
Next up is the bike in our bedroom. This is not a bike with audio and video of a half-dressed instructor yelling at you to step it up a notch. At my age, 82, you don’t have notches. Flab, yes. Notches, no.
This machine weighs approximately as much as a refrigerator and has to be maneuvered away from a bookcase before it can be mounted. To accomplish this, I use several muscle groups—biceps, quadriceps, fingerceps, in fact, all the ceps.
I ride for about 20 minutes, sometimes reading a newspaper, other times wishing I had never learned to tell time because it is taking so long to get to the 20-minute mark. This boredom is eased if I’ve slipped at least one Oreo into my pocket during my last breeze through the kitchen.
I’ve never done much for my upper body, but now if I’m in the mood I will use what is at hand in the kitchen—a piggy bank packed with pennies that must weigh 6 pounds. Standing with feet wide apart, I lift the pig over my head 10-15 times. On days when I’m ambitious, I will thrust the pig into the air with my left arm while my right raises a Pringles container loaded with, yes, more pennies. The container is hard to grip because it’s perpetually greasy.
It’s now time for breakfast. After my cereal and toast, I need to shower and shave. Sometimes I feel I’ve earned a nap, so I take one. By the time I wake up, it’s time for lunch. Since I’ve napped after lunch for years, my second snooze of the day comes before a shower.
By 3:30 p.m., I’ve showered, put on clean clothes, and I am raring to take on the world. When I was a gym rat. I was out of the shower and on my way home by 9 a.m. My new routine is much more relaxing, and I’m no longer cheating my body of all the sugar and sodium it craves. I’m respecting its wishes.
I hope my doctors are proud of me, but I don’t dare ask them.
#
(Posted September 8, 2020.)
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BREAKING IN THE NEW GUY
(This was first published on the website of the Great South Bay Magazine.)
The dentist I’ve seen for more than 30
years retired recently, and I’m about to make my first visit to the guy he shared an office with. I had a routine going with the older dentist, a routine based on sarcasm.
When Dr. B completed work on a filling, he’d ask, “How’s that feel?” I’d usually respond with something like, “Surprisingly, it doesn’t feel all that bad. It’s amazing you still have a license.” He played along, laughing. “I know, I know. I’ve been watching YouTube videos to see how real dentists do things.”
After I found out he had retired, I sent an email saying, “I knew you didn’t have any stamina.” Dr. B quickly replied, “As old as you are I never thought you’d still have teeth left, let alone a memory.”
Unless there’s a serious problem, I don’t think medical visits should be all business and no horseplay. How do I break the new dentist in? Here are a few opening lines I’ve thought of using:
“A gown? Is that something new? Dr. B never bothered wearing one.”
“I’ll warn you. I always get a terrible case of the hiccups when my gums are touched.”
“Is that my blood or yours on your finger?”
“Are you wearing gloves or are your fingers always blue?”
“If this is going to hurt would you switch the TV to one of the news channels? I like to get all the pain of the day out of the way at one go.”
“I hope you know—it should be in my file—Dr. B always knocked me out with some happy juice even if he was just doing a cleaning.”
“Wow, with all that stuff you have on around your head, I can’t decide if you’re a dentist or a beekeeper.”
“There’s a dentist at the gym who gets teased all the time that he wasn’t smart enough to become a real doctor. Do you feel that way about yourself?”
“Are you aware that Dr. B never charged me? In place of money, I gave him copies of my books. He claimed he used them as door stops at his place in the Poconos. I think he was dead serious.”
“I’m just here for a circumcision. This is the right place, yes?”
Of course, I could try to play it straight on my initial visit, but that would be so out of character. I wouldn’t want him to get the wrong impression, to think I’m just an ancient citizen who’s barely with it and isn’t up to pestering everyone every chance he gets.
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(Posted August 13, 2020)
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Shameless self-promotion:
http://covenantbooks.com/books/?book=grandma-told-me-to-never-believe-anything-grandpa-says
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DON’T FORGET TO SIGN THE SIGN-UP SHEET
Some of us who write books will do almost anything to try to attract attention to our work. That includes going to open mic sessions at libraries, coffee shops, car washes, wherever. The organizers usually schedule two or three published writers to read before offering the mic to anyone in the audience.
At times there will be a couple of poems or stories that hit home, but these outings are not always free of pain. For example, four years ago:
One featured reader was a short, energetic lady. After offering several poems, she turned on a music player and started dancing, both on the small stage and down the main aisle of the room. There were people clapping in time to the music and laughing. Larry McCoy was not among the clappers nor the laughers.
Dressed in black slacks and a flaming red blouse, she did pelvic bumps with her arms extended in front of her as though her nails were wet. I had signed the sheet to read but wasn’t aware I was expected to dance too.
Another scheduled reader was an interesting young man who began by saying he was a big fan of Beowulf, who I believe was a distant relative of Wolf Blitzer. The guy had some good, sharp poems, meaning I could understand them. He closed with a song—a chantey, he said—lasting about as long as the final two minutes of an NBA game. In other words, when the chantey began you could have put a roast in the oven and by the time it ended your supper would have been ready.
After a break, the open mic part began. One of the first up was a guy who had been at previous readings with poems I don’t understand because I’m unfamiliar with about every other word in his vocabulary. But he’s forceful and has a good delivery. He closed with a poem he said he had written that day. He started reading, stopped, read to himself and then said, “Ah, yes” and resumed reading to the audience. While he had his “ah, yes” moment, I haven’t a clue what the poem was about.
Next to step forward was an older woman who sang “The Way We Were,” stopping occasionally to clear her throat. The song was followed by a recitation of several of her medical problems and a story or two about her mother.
I was waiting my turn, worried that I was unprepared with no dance routine or song ready to go. Hell, I didn’t even have a list of my medications to share with the crowd or perhaps a touching story about the time I set my mom’s hair on fire.
A middle-aged fellow who writes funny poetry read some and then sang “Deep In The Heart Of Texas” with lyrics he had written about Donald Trump.
Another open mic participant was a young man who read everything off his cellphone. He was sort of the Dennis Miller of poetry, using lots of obtuse and underused words. (Underused words are probably underused for a reason, no?) He writes short pieces and numbers them. “Pick a number between one and 109,” he asked his audience and scrolled on his phone to whatever number was called out.
As far as I’m concerned his most impressive feat came before he started talking. While still in the audience, he took his right arm and extended it way down his back. As someone who had two torn rotator cuffs, I found this both wonderful and painful to watch.
When my name was called, I read something from my book about grandkids—a chapter about a grandfather who can’t behave in restaurants and embarrasses his grandkids by insisting they play games, such as sticking the paper covers of straws under your nose to make a mustache. To be honest, I was disappointed that no one there seemed authorized to immediately buy the movie rights to this epic.
Although the library allotted two hours for this event, it lasted two hours and 40 minutes. It seemed like two days and 40 nights.
There was another open mic session a month later, and, by golly, guess who showed up and was among the first to sign the sheet to read?
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Book review of “Grandma Told Me to Never Believe Anything Grandpa Says”:
“McCoy offers a collection of funny stories about spending time with his four grandchildren….His sense of humor is self-effacing and sweet.”…(Although the reviewer wasn’t in love with the chapters written from the viewpoint of a teenage grandkid)… “Still, the stories in this collection will charm the author’s family and other grandparents who treasure time spent with their grandkids.”--_Kirkus Reviews
“Sweet?” I don’t think anyone has ever said that about me before.
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60 YEARS AND COUNTING
On Saturday, July 2, 1960, Irene Kristoff and Larry McCoy were married at the Hungarian Church in Whiting, Indiana. Sixty years later here is a transcript of a recent interview with Larry.
60 YEARS AND COUNTING
Interviewer: Hello, Mr. McCoy. Thanks for giving us some of your time. Come July 2nd you will be married 60 years. That’s quite an accomplishment.
LMC: I have? What’s quite an accomplishment?
Interviewer: I was warned you would make jokes and wouldn’t be serious.
LMC: Who are you again? Did you say 60 years?
Interviewer: I’m Jim Kellogg of Happy Couples. Yes, 60 years.
LMC: Jim, huh. 60 years. Man. You need to cut out the booze and the crack or something. You look a lot older than 60 years. Tell me again, what is it you do for a living?
Interviewer: I work for Happy Couples. We do a television program once a week. I’m hoping that somewhere along the line you will get into the swing of things and give us some insights about your long marriage.
LMC: Television? Does Rachel Maddow work for your station? I swear to God if she was telling us about the Gettysburg Address it would take her the whole hour to get beyond “Four score and seven years ago.”
Interviewer: No, no. Rachel Maddow works for MSNBC. I work for Happy Couples.
LMC: Why’s that?
Interviewer: It just is. Let’s see if we can get started. What do you think is the secret of a long, happy marriage?
LMC: Credit cards and alcohol. In that order.
Interviewer: Seriously?
LMC: Okay. If you don’t like that order, make it alcohol and credit cards. Is that better?
Interviewer: I’m going to just keep trying here. Do you and your wife Irene share chores around the house?
LMC: Well, because of this COVID horseshit we try to stay IN the house as much as we can. Hanging out AROUND the house is a no-no in our book. You wanna know what I think causes this virus?
Interviewer: Well, to be honest no, but tell me anyway.
LMC: Newspapers. The plastic bags those bastards put the newspapers in before they throw them in your yard. Did you ever hear of COVID-19 before they started wrapping newspapers in plastic bags? Hell, no, you didn’t. Why doesn’t anyone report that? What the hell is your name again?
Interviewer: Jim. Jim Kellogg. I’m a determined cuss, and I’m going to keep trying here. Let me approach this a different way. Do you help your wife in the kitchen?
LMC: No, she usually gets there on her own.
Interviewer: Okay, but do you do some of the cooking or help Irene cook?
LMC: Who’d you say?
Interviewer: Irene. Your wife.
LMC: Ah, damn. That’s her name! I was trying to think of that the other day and simply couldn’t come up with it. I’ve been just calling her “You” for weeks now. May I borrow your pen? I really ought to write that down so I don’t forget it. You said Irene, right?
Interviewer: Yes, Irene. Once again—do you cook?
LMC: Yes.
Interviewer: Okay. What is it you cook?
LMC: Foods and meats and salmon. The wife—you said Irene, right?—doesn’t particularly like salmon so I try to put some in the oven at least once a week.
Interviewer: Why would you do that if she doesn’t like it?
LMC: Because it gives us something to talk about during Jeopardy where we don’t even understand the questions let alone the answers.
Interviewer: Who handles the money? You or Irene?
LMC: Listen, if you are going to ask rude questions, you can just get up and leave. You hear?
Interviewer: I hope I’m not being rude. Are you handy? If something needs fixing—say a dishwasher or a vacuum cleaner—can you fix it?
LMC: Yep.
Interviewer: Mind elaborating.
LMC: Well, when I look at something that isn’t working properly, I don’t waste much time on it. Let me just say when I fix something it stays fixed. And then we go to the store to buy a new one.
Interviewer: I see. I’m guessing you lose your temper easily.
LMC: You’re not a very good listener, are you. What’d I tell you when you asked about the secret of a long marriage?
Interviewer: Alcohol and credit cards.
LMC: Exactly.
Interviewer: Well, we plan to ask Irene the same questions about longevity in a relationship when we interview her.
LMC: Wanna have some fun? Do you?
Interviewer: Well, yes, I guess.
LMC: Okay. After you interview Irene, pretend you are leaving and then look back and you know what you’ll catch her doing?
Interviewer: No, what?
LMC: Trust me on this. She will be rearranging the sofa pillows you were leaning on when you interviewed her. That, Mr. Smarty Pants, is the secret of being married 60 years. Not laughing, not saying a damn thing. Keeping your trap shut when she does all that fussing with the damn pillows. That’s the secret.
(Posted June 26, 2020)
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MY LIFE LAST WEEK
Root canal would be a good place to start. It had been about 10 years since I last saw this endodontist who used to shoot hoops with me at the gym. He never had much of a shot and now, in his early 60s, his hearing is going.
I had to say everything twice, and this is before they clamped something in my mouth that resembled a coffee filter with tongs attached to one end. Once this thing was installed he stopped asking yes or no questions. “Who’s your favorite Knick player?” was one of his questions.
“Problubblub Dablubburr Debloomburlug” was my answer. “That’s a good choice,” he responded. Like hell he did. He didn’t react to my answer and moved on to talk about the importance of the two-party system. I refrained from expressing any political opinions, a wise move I figured when you’re around someone with needles and pointy tools.
Many people dread root canals. Maybe it’s the “endo” part of “endodontist” that adds to the uneasiness of sitting in their chairs. This guy is good at what he does, and there’s very little pain or discomfort.
His office called the morning after the procedure to ask how I was doing. In another sign of my stumbling into old age, I said, “I’m fine.” Not all that long ago, I would have had a little fun with the call and told the lady, “I’ve never seen so much blood. Is that normal?”
Who knows what normal or even the new normal is during these days of the pandemic. Heading for my morning coffee the day after the root canal, a woman 40-50 years old was running in the street. Not on one side of a fairly active street, right in the middle, right along the yellow stripe. The sidewalks were clear as were the sides of the street. What the hell was she doing?
I seldom use my car horn but did this time. The woman raised her palms upwards, a gesture I took to mean “What am I supposed to do?” See a psychiatrist would be one suggestion.
Ah, but if you type “running in the middle of the road” into Google you find a Facebook page called exactly that with the claim that it is a “community.” There’s also a Send Message box. My message would be the same as the one above, see a psychiatrist.
Earlier in the week during my morning walk I saw a man probably in his late 20s walking a dog about the size of an ear of corn. I thought that was pretty odd until I noticed his footwear. (The man’s, not the dog’s.) He had on women’s house shoes, with open heels and little heaps of what resembled mashed potatoes on top.
How sad. If his father is still alive, maybe there will be time this Father’s Day for a pop and son conversation about what a dog should look like and what constitutes proper footwear for a sane, responsible human being. Then again, maybe not.
(Posted June 15, 2020)
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Stuck At Home With Memories
Cabin fever has set in at this address. We cancelled a trip to South Carolina last month because of COVID-19, and now I’m itching to go somewhere—anywhere—even if it’s only two hours away from home and a one-nighter. While we wait for things to improve, I entertain myself by remembering some of the bumper stickers and signs we’ve seen over the years while traveling.
“Summer People
“Summer Not.” - Pickup truck on Shelter Island, New York, November 5, 2007
“Koch Eye Associates” - Sign on a van in Kennebunkport, Maine, August 1997.
“If God had wanted Texans to ski, he would have made bullshit white.” - Sign in a market in San Antonio, December 1984.
“I don’t care how you did it up North.” –Bumper sticker in Marco Island, Florida, area March 1989.
“Welcome to Florida. Now go home.” – Bumper sticker in Marco Island, Florida, area March 1989.
“The number one man in the number two business.” – Sign on the back of the cab of a septic tank cleaner. Wilson, North Carolina, August 1989.
“Driver carries no cash.” - Sign on the side window of a station wagon with New York plates on our way to South Carolina, August 1989.
“Keep Judge Bruce Black.” Political poster, Santa Fe, New Mexico, May 1992.
“Four Holes Baptist Church” – Signs near Four Holes, South Carolina, May 1994.
“When I get old, I’m going to move up north and drive slow.” – Pickup truck in the Hilton Head, South Carolina area, July 1995.
Signs for Dave’s Mexican Restaurant and a Thai place called Thai This” – On drive along the Pacific Ocean, October 1996,
A bus spotted in Weston, Vermont, with “Celebrant Singers” painted on the side and in the destination slot on the front “HEAVEN.” – October 1998.
Bumper sticker “OK the joke is over. Bring back Bush.” – Portland, Maine, area August 1999.
Sign outside general store, ‘Good food, friendly atmosphere, slow service.’ ” – Orr Island, Maine, area September 2000.
Bumper sticker on a snazzy red car “So many pedestrians, so little time.” – West 57thStreet, Manhattan, June 11, 1988.
Sign at a mall – “Frankly Fake has moved and is now Inspired Creations.” (I think they were selling jewelry.)--Hilton Head, May 2006.
T-shirts at a store “Every time I hear the word exercise I wash my mouth out with chocolate” and “Tired of the good life? Call my wife. ” – Hilton Head, June, 2007.
Bumper sticker “The more I find out, the more I love my dog.”—Manchester Center, Vermont, July 2003.
Sign in store window: “So it’s not home sweet home. ADJUST.” – Kennebunkport, Maine, September 2007.
Sign outside restaurant “Pedro O’Hara’s Mexican Irish American Cuisine.” – Freeport, Maine, September 2007.
Man in T-shirt that said “Bank of Dad.” –Hilton Head, June 2004
Sign on truck door “Perfect Couiers.” (I keep saying to myself, U sure R.)—Manhattan, May 1985
Back in May 2005 on a visit to Savannah, I spotted a T-shirt in a window: “I used to be schizophrenic but now we’re okay.” A short time and a short distance later Irene and I stopped for lunch, and twice the waitress asked, “What can I get for you two?” And twice I answered, “There are three of us.” She didn’t blink, didn’t respond. Just ignored me as any smart person would do.
Hard-working servers probably thought they would never miss smart alecks like me. If the lockdowns go on much longer, they may change their minds. Let’s hope when they do get back to work, on the trip there or back, they spot a bumper sticker or sign that amuses them.
(Posted May 26, 2020)
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I FINALLY MAKE IT TO YALE
Since we’re supposed to stay home as much as we can these days, I reminisce about trips to favorite places—the Arlberg in Austria, Hilton Head, Kennebunkport, and Bloomington, Indiana. You’re invited to go on a trip with me to Yale, a visit so long ago Joba Chamberlain was still pitching for the New York Yankees, and I was still playing basketball regularly.
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When you go to a state university, as I did, and get mostly Bs and Cs, as I did, you picture Yale as a very elite, intimidating school, a center of immense challenge and achievement, where wise guys and dimwits aren’t allowed. Ha!
At the age of 71, a mere 49 years after I got my degree from Indiana University, I finally walked the halls of Yale and couldn’t believe what I was being asked to do.
Irene and I along with two good friends went to the Yale University Art Gallery on the campus in New Haven and headed straight to a special exhibition, “Grand Scale: Monument Prints In The Age of Dűrer And Titian.”
Minutes later I found myself staring at a print by Erhard Schőn who lived in
Nuremberg, Germany from around 1491 to 1542. To my eyes the print was a mess
of lines with only a few people and buildings distinguishable, but near the bottom there was a question in German, “What Do You See?” According to a plaque on the wall, if you looked at the print at eye level from the left hand corner you could see a peasant defecating.
Marvelous. Two minutes after I get to Yale there’s a pop quiz. I’m supposed to discern someone taking a poop. So this is the Ivy League!
Naturally, lackey that I am, I positioned myself over by the left hand corner and looked and squinted, bending my knees this way and that to change my eye level. Nothing. I could see no pooping, or as they might say in broken Deutsch, ich kann nicht pooping sehen.
After several tries, I gave up and moved on to another room where I caught up with my friend. “Hey, did you see that one on the wall back there,?" I asked. He retraced his steps to the other room, went to the print, read the plaque and started looking for the pooping peasant. Once he thought he spotted something but decided, no, it wasn’t what we were looking for. The friend mentioned the print to his wife, and she tried. Another strike out.
Next up was Irene. She of little patience for such nonsense demanded “A what? I’m looking for a what?” Irene didn’t see anything either and left the three of us standing there. Another gallery visitor, a young man in his mid ’30s, also had a go at it, but he too failed to see a peasant with his knickers down.*
I thought later that Herr Schőn was probably having a good laugh. Nearly 500 years after he thought up this little jest, he had five people with a combined age of more than 300 years leaning and crouching, hoping for a glimpse of a peasant taking a dump. Once you start looking you hate to stop, to admit defeat because you have spent so much time and looked so silly doing it. Score one for Erhard Schőn.
Stimulated by my trip to Yale, I did some research that night. I came across the word “anamorphic,” which has to do with an image that is distorted unless you look at it from a particular angle. A Dutch Web site mentioned a Schőn print with a man and woman in the left hand corner, which if viewed from the right side shows the “couple doing a little more than kissing.” Ah, old Erhard was not only clever, he was horny.
He did hundreds of illustrations for books and a couple hundred woodcuts, and all these years later he’s still entertaining us. Rather than give myself an “F” for my Yale visit, I took an “Incomplete” and promised to continue my research until I developed the skills to clearly spot squatting and fornicating peasants. It’s hard to think of a more worthy goal.
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* In re-reading this piece, I realized I had made an assumption, always dangerous. Perhaps the peasant’s knickers weren’t down.
(Posted May 7, 2020)
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Review of my latest book, “Grandma Told Me to Never Believe Anything Grandpa Says”:
“McCoy offers a collection of funny stories about spending time with his four grandchildren….His sense of humor is self-effacing and sweet.”…(Although the reviewer wasn’t in love with the chapters written from the viewpoint of a teenage grandkid)… “Still, the stories in this collection will charm the author’s family and other grandparents who treasure time spent with their grandkids.”--_Kirkus Reviews
“Sweet?” I don’t think anyone has ever said that about me before.
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YOU’RE NEVER TOO OLD FOR ICE CREAM
Every April my wife catches up with me. I don’t mean Irene finds out I’ve been doing something I shouldn’t have, but that her age matches mine. In a few days, we’ll both be 82.
I don’t buy any of that nonsense that 80 is the new 70 or even the new 79. Eighty two is pretty old and honestly I’m surprised I’ve lasted this long. I smoked a pipe for almost half a century. While most of us accept that smoking isn’t good for you, it’s been good for all the periodontists, endodontists and dentists I’ve seen over the years. All that clenching of a pipe can damage teeth and gums. The dentists and various dontists I see all drive fine cars, and I’m partly responsible for that, so I don’t understand why I thank them after a visit. They should be thanking me.
My diet as a teenager wouldn’t earn the endorsement of the Mayo Clinic. As a paper boy, I spent much of my collection money on approximately 1,400 small fruit pies. All washed down with a soda with peanuts stuffed in the neck of the bottle. There were no unsalted peanuts in those days, or if there were I didn’t know it. This period of my life could be described as the Days of Sugar and Sodium.
In my adult-working years, I became a yogurt junkie, eating yogurt almost every day for lunch, and bombarding the white stuff with—what else?—peanuts, unsalted ones this time. In place of fruit pies, I substituted an orange or an apple.
Approximately five years ago a heart doctor said I should stop drinking or at least stop having a bourbon or two every night. He said it in a hospital setting so there was some incentive to think he was serious. In the good old days, l had a couple of bourbons after work. If Irene and I went out to eat on a weekend, there would be bourbons to start followed by a bottle of red wine. When we got home. I would try to resist, more often than not unsuccessfully, pouring myself a brandy.
Sipping brandy always left me with a headache the next morning, an event that seemed to arrive hours earlier than it should. I pause here for you to recall the word Al Einstein used when talking about doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.
Before you hit your 60s, I recommend that you find a doctor who has the same passions as you do. I have gone to at least three guys with medical degrees who love to ski. Every time I see one of these fellows the conversation always ends up focusing on ski plans. This is an effective strategy, I think, to distract them, increasing the chances they won’t find some new condition in my body or mouth that needs immediate fixing.
Irene and I have pretty healthy diets these days, I think. We eat little red meat, have fish once a week, fruit every day and lots of salads. We get an A for our main course selections. It’s the course after that where we get straight Fs. There’s always at least one container of ice cream in our freezer, and, regardless of which one of us gets up to dish some out, the portions served are twice as big as they should be.
For my money, neither Irene nor I is the culprit here. It’s our bank. They gave us two enormous coffee cups a few years back—in lieu of paying any decent interest on our savings, I guess—and we pack those cups with vanilla or chocolate (or both), and sometimes chocolate chip, or butter pecan. The many scratches on the bottoms of the cups reflect our devotion to ice cream.
One of our bank’s competitors uses the slogan Life Is Better When We’re Connected, and that’s exactly the way Irene and I feel about out big coffee cups and ice cream.
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(Posted April 23, 2020)
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Review of my latest book, “Grandma Told Me to Never Believe Anything Grandpa Says”:
“McCoy offers a collection of funny stories about spending time with his four grandchildren….His sense of humor is self-effacing and sweet.”…(Although the reviewer wasn’t in love with the chapters written from the viewpoint of a teenage grandkid)… “Still, the stories in this collection will charm the author’s family and other grandparents who treasure time spent with their grandkids.”--_Kirkus Reviews
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