Archive » June 2016 » Columns

On the June 21, the Old Men of the Mountain met at the Your Way Café in Schoharie and the whole group of OMOTM eventually filtered in.

This sounds like it is bad thing but it is not because the way the OFs show up in dribs and dabs gives the kitchen help and the waitress time to serve all the old goats without too much pressure. It is a good thing the OFs do not have to wait on each other at these breakfasts or there would be so much bellyaching it would soon wind up in a food fight.

At one end of the table, the conversation was so topical that it was ahead of its time. The OFs were talking about the history of Remington Arms in Ilion, New York. Then in the Albany Times Union isn’t there an article about the history of Remington Arms. Remington Arms is America’s oldest factory that still makes its original product — guns — and in the same place.

This was brought up because of a brief discussion on guns and gun control, along with many American products being copied and reproduced by foreign competitors then sold at lower prices.

In the gun-control section, this scribe reflected that he would not be able to purchase a gun because of his name. This scribe cannot order a plane ticket online, nor can he send money to his kids by wire.  The name is a name commonly used by those on the terrorist watch list therefore, though this scribe has argued with many and has in some cases gone to the top person in charge of such rules, it is useless.  This scribe can’t do many ordinary things because of his (common) name.

Politician’s lie

This brought up politicians, not politics. Many OFs think politicians start off with a lie. They say, and this scribe thinks this has been brought up before, “the American People” want this or that, or this or that should be done. That is not true.

According to the OFs, this should be paraphrased with many, some, more, or a few. The American People is all inclusive and in most cases that is not possible.

Walls walks on

Some have asked if the son of the OF who is doing the walk has a blog, or is on Facebook. This scribe checked with the walker’s dad and yes he does.

The blog is “The great and mighty nobody” and he is on Facebook with his name, “Thomas Walls.” It might be fun to keep up with his adventures.

Bucket list

Another OF is leaving in a short while to go out West and complete his tour on our National Parks. His trip points out that, anyone who has a bucket list should make plans to get ’er done before he becomes too old to get ’er done.

Some of the OFs wished they had done some adventurous things years ago, but now the OFs have lost the ability to walk very far, and some have a different kind of list, such as a list of doctors’ appointments. With this list the OF finds it is hard to work any time in to go too far away from where the OF is planted now.

Greatest generation is caught in the middle

One OF mentioned that, when we were young, there was not much guidance in saving, and planning for trips or taking cruises, and retirement for that matter was rarely discussed. Another OF said it wasn’t necessary when we were young because the means of travel wasn’t there.

As for retirement, we were expected to take over the farm; that was our parents’ retirement. After we took over the farm, then we would take care of the parents. The next generation would do the same thing for us.

One OF added, then along came World War II and everything changed. The greatest generation is caught in the middle.

Stuck

The OFs talked about some of the big rigs they have seen not stuck, but hung up.

One group of OFs headed home after the breakfast when they came upon a tractor trailer completely across Cotton Hill. The truck was hung up on the crown of the road, drive wheels off the ground, trailer wheels off the ground, and there it was trapped in the middle of nowhere.

The rig was right on top of the hill just where the hill starts going down into West Berne. The OFs had to turn around and take Treadlemire Road, a dirt road for the most part that was not fit for man nor beast, let alone a car, into Gallupville.

It was the wife’s car to boot because the OF’s car was in the garage.

Hikers’ helpers

Some of the OFs are at it again.  This time they re-roofed a lean-to on a hiking trail. These lean-tos are patterned after the lean-tos that can be seen if you have been to the Adirondack exhibit at the State Museum in Albany, only this particular lean-to is larger.

The volunteer spirit is in most everybody and much of it goes unknown only to those who unselfishly give of their time, money, and talents.     

Those OFs who still haven’t figured out retirement but made it to the Your Way Café in Schoharie anyway were: Miner Stevens, Henry Witt, George Washburn, Bill Lichliter, Bill Bartholomew, Pete Whitbeck, John Rossmann, Harold Guest, Dave Williams, Bill Williams, Mark Traver, Glenn Patterson, Chuck Aelesio, Otis Lawyer, Don Wood, Art Frament, Herb Sawotka, Lou Schenck, Gerry Irwin, Mace Porter, Jim Rissacher, Bob Fink, Bob Benninger, Bob Lassome, Joe Loubier, Ted Willsey, Rich Donnelly, Duncan Bellinger, Elwood Vanderbilt, Jess Vadney, Harold Grippen, and me.

The Enterprise — Mike Nardacci

An outcrop of tilted bedrock shows the ongoing tectonic interaction of the Indian subcontinent with China.

For those of us “of a certain age,” our images of China probably derive from the late 1960s and early 1970s:  scenes of grim-looking Beijing with thousands of stern-faced, androgynous-looking Red Guards marching, chanting, and waving Chairman Mao’s little Red Book, the images looking even grimmer for having been shot in black-and-white.

But the Chairman’s call for China to be in a state of “permanent revolution” has come full circle: Most modern Chinese find the whole Mao era to be at least an embarrassment if not a collection of horrible memories.

China has become a market economy and tourist guides talk openly of Mao’s atrocities; they tell of swirling rumors that his mummified body will be removed from exhibit in Tiananmen Square, and that his gigantic mausoleum that Ramses II might have envied will be torn down.

The Chinese people dress fashionably, markets in the big cities are overflowing with food and consumer goods, and private businesses are exploding. China still has many problems, among them serious air pollution and a government that permits a certain amount of economic freedom but far less political freedom.

But visitors to China cannot help but be aware that the winds of change are blowing as surely as those that sometimes carry thick clouds of dust from the Gobi desert over Beijing. And they become aware quickly of something else, too: China is an awesomely beautiful country.

I recently returned from a trip that took some friends and me to China, and our travels will be the subject of this and future “Back Roads Geology” columns. Our itinerary took us to Cambodia as well, and might easily be described in such clichéd terms as “eye opening” and “life-changing” — but in this case the clichés are true and they are not hyperbole.

Vast country

The world seems a much bigger and more fascinating place to anyone who has seen China. It is a vast country, with landscapes as diverse and spectacular as any in the United States.

Its high mountains result from the ancient collision of the Indian subcontinent with Southeast Asia, and exposures of distorted bedrock and China’s sometimes catastrophic earthquakes indicate that the collision is ongoing.  Elsewhere are more lofty mountains and wilderness, the lair of the giant panda, and to the west lie the Gobi Desert and occupied Tibet and the Himalayas.

And much of China is karst terrain: thick limestone bedrock in which the agents of weathering and erosion in the humid stretches of China have carved out craggy pinnacles, hollowed out caves, pockmarked the surface with giant sinkholes, and formed gushing springs.

The great Yangtze River flows down from the Himalayas through some of the most stunning scenery in China, in particular the legendary stretch known as the Three Gorges where millions of years of river erosion have carved out a spectacle to rival — and in stretches exceed — our own Grand Canyon.

Downstream is the eponymous Three Gorges Dam — a technological wonder of the world but also a source of great controversy.  While it has allowed the production of enormous amounts of electrical energy, it has also raised the river’s water level over a hundred feet, displacing 1.3 million Chinese and in the process flooding towns and archeological sites and causing much ecological change.

One thinks of the similar effects of the Egyptian High Dam at Aswan, the building of dams by the TVA — and the loss of villages and farmland behind the dam at New York’s Great Sacandaga Lake.  Nonetheless — the stretches of the river from Chongoing (familiarly known as “Chun-king”) down to the dam itself have become prime areas for the visitor to China — and a few hours on a cruise ship through the region demonstrate why.

Even before reaching the magnificent vistas of the Three Gorges themselves, the scenery is evocative — one might accurately describe it as mystical.  Though the landscape exhibits enormous pinnacles and buttes, as in Arizona’s Grand Canyon, the climate here is very humid and the walls of the gorge are thick with vegetation.

The Yangtze is brown as the Mississippi, partly due to the heavy sediment load it bares from locations as far away as the high Himalayas, and partly due to effluent from riverside villages and sediment from mines drowned as the water rose behind the great dam.  The river cuts steeply through verdant hills and mountains dotted with small villages — some reachable only by boat — and temples and pagodas from China’s past, often situated on slopes that are so steep as to appear inaccessible.

A land out of legend

The beautiful Shibaozhai Taoist pagoda rises surrounded by lush gardens near the peak of a precipitous limestone promontory reachable only by a hike up a steep incline and a harrowing traverse of a swaying suspended bridge.  The wooden structure was built over 400 years ago, 12 levels tall and constructed without a single nail.

 

 

The Enterprise — Mike Nardacci
The 400-year-old Shibaozhai Taoist Pagoda is a wooden structure built without a single nail.

 

Inside it are narrow, twisting passages and shadowy alcoves, within which reside over-life-sized statues of Taoist deities and heroes. Their presence is disorienting, but in a pleasing way — telling visitors that they have entered a world parallel to their own but governed by unfamiliar figures.

That the pagoda and so many other relics of China’s past survived the barbarity of Mao’s Cultural Revolution is often a tribute to the wisdom of numerous local officials and citizens; alerted to the destructive intentions of the Red Guards, the locals papered the walls of many pagodas, temples, and other ancient relics with posters of Chairman Mao.  This made the structures sacrosanct and untouchable by the mindless mobs.

 

The Enterprise — Mike Nardacci
Bigger-than-life statues of figures from Taoist lore sit in the Shibaozhai Taoist pagoda.

 

This is a land out of legend. The channel of the river becomes narrow, and the buttes and pinnacles become higher and more precipitous.  Waterfalls burst from hidden caves and gush down steep, narrow passes, not unlike those in the Hawai’ian islands, showing as many shades of green as it is said that a true Irishman can distinguish.

Soon our cruise ship docks and we disembark at a confluence where a narrow tributary called the Shennv Stream joins the river, and, like the Yangtze, the Shennv flows brown with suspended sediment from the high terrain above it.

Here we shuffle into small, elegant boats, painted in the traditional colors of red and gold. The boats are motorized but surprisingly quiet as they glide upstream — as are we, its passengers — for we glide into a stunning landscape of steep green slopes, reaching upward to sheer faces of limestone rock.

Springs burst from the dense forests and here and there an ancient rock staircase ascends from the river shore and vanishes mysteriously into the dense growth high above. A cloudburst a few hours before has fed a number of waterfalls that resolve into fine spray before they reach the river shore.

The high peaks of the Shennv valley are draped in low-lying clouds and before us is the inspiration for thousands of Chinese scroll paintings, depicting mystical landscapes in which human constructions disappear into the drifting fog.

 

The Enterprise — Mike Nardacci
Small boats are used to navigate the waters of the Shennv Stream, a tributary to the Yangtze.

 

The evocation of the hidden valley of Shangri-la in James Hilton’s romance “Lost Horizon” is inevitable.  Here in the valley of the Shennv is a world green beyond belief, appearing untouched by any human presence, far removed from the noise, the pollution, and the human turmoil of the world outside

Through centuries of Chinese history in which ruthless dictators and benevolent despots built their fortresses and walls and fomented revolutions and waged wars, the Shennv has flowed beneath towers of ancient rocks and dense forests of trees that seem never to have known an ax.

But soon it is time for our quietly moving tour boat to return us to our cruise ship on the Yangtze, time to return to a world of schedules and obligations and technology. And, in the days and weeks that follow, we are left to ponder: Did we, or anyone, really enter — if ever so briefly — that hidden, primeval valley?

And yet, in our thoughts remain those mysterious, mossy staircases, rising from the rocky banks of the Shennv and vanishing into the misty wilderness above.

 

On a crisp June 14 morning, with temperatures (at some of the Old Men of the Mountain domiciles) in the middle to upper thirties and the winds a bit more than a stiff breeze — it was wind not a breeze — the OMOTM headed to the Country Café on Main Street in Schoharie.

The OFs used the beginning of a gorgeous day to comment on living in the Northeast. The area on the globe where the OFs hang their hats has darn few days where the humidity is low, the sky is blue, the temperature is reasonable, and wind may be at 4 to 8 miles per hour.

That is what one OF said makes these few days so great — they are like playing golf.  The OF said he only gets two or three good shots in a round; the rest of his shots are all over the place.

He said it is the good ones that keep him coming back, trying to drop that tiny ball in a small cup that is hundreds of yards away in as few whacks as possible. It is the same thing with our weather; it is the few good days that keep us here, so the OFs put up with all the miserable days just for a day like Tuesday.

However, the miserable days of June are not unusual. In “100 years ago today” (as reported in this paper), there was a baseball game between the Altamont team and a team for Delmar. The Altamont team complained that their loss was due to nobody there in the stands at the fairgrounds, and the miserable cold weather.

The miserable weather kept the fans away, and hobbled the play in the field. That was on June 9, 1916. Times have not changed in regards to the weather, but the OFs bet the catcher’s mitt sure has changed.

Ketchup bottleneck

One OF, like many of the OFs, enjoys ketchup with his eggs, or homefries. This one OF was shaking a newly filled ketchup bottle, trying to get the ketchup to come out but nothing was happening, so the OF shook harder and faster.

A second OF had enough of that and got up and went over to the OF shaking the ketchup and said, “Here, let me show you how to get ketchup out of a full bottle,” and he took the ketchup from the OF.

With one whack of the ketchup bottle on his wrist, half the bottle of that red sauce plopped on the omelet.

“The secret,” the OF said, “is to stop the bottle from going forward.  The ketchup inside the bottle still has forward momentum and out it comes.”

This little report is from the week prior; this past Tuesday, the same two OFs sat at the same table, eyeball to eyeball. The one OF ordered the bacon-and-cheese omelet with homefries and the ketchup came with the meal, only this time it was in a squirt bottle so the OFs did not get to see how the other OF got the ketchup out of a bottle because this Tuesday all the OF had to do was squeeze. Problem solved.

Cross-country trek

One OF reported that his son is walking from Plymouth, Massachusetts to San Diego, California. This is quite an undertaking. The OF said his son is keeping a regular journal, and a photographic journal of his trip.

So far, the OF said, the hardest walk has been the hill up Route 30A from Route 20 in Sloansville, New York. He then took Route 162 to Canajoharie to do the walking path on the defunct railroad, and then went to the Erie Canal walk as he headed further west. The son reported to the OF that this climb out of Sloansville was more difficult than any he encountered in the Berkshires coming across Massachusetts.

The OF said his son is taking all his gear with him, and will be camping out. Some of the OFs wished they had guts enough to do this when they were younger; now it is completely out of the question. Funny how life has gotten in the way of filling many adventures in the OF’s bucket list.

Owning solar

Another OF, who is an attendee of this group but really not an OF “yet,” is one of the progressive people. His home has solar power. The OF said it is not the rented type of solar system — the OF owns it.

This OF also has a totally electric automobile. With all the tax incentives and rebates, the solar system did not really cost that much and, according to the OF’s calculations, in approximately three to four years, all his power, even running his electric car, will be free because the system will be paid off.

On the car issue, the OF does have two cars because on his electric car the range is not hundreds of miles, but it is quite adequate for around town, and short trips. For longer runs, like up to Lake George, this particular electric car the OF has will not make it. This OF is a great advertisement for solar power.

Many of the OFs feel they are too old to go the solar bit. However, one OF said that his house is going to go to his kids and he will probably be pushing up daisies before he had a solar system paid off.

Another OF said he is putting off getting solar power now because something better may come along in the not-too-distant future. This OF feels that magnetism might be the next advancement and that will be the end of fossil fuels, electric cars, and the whole ball of wax, so this OF is going to wait.

Those OFs that made it to the Country Café, on Main Street in Schoharie, in anything but a horse and buggy were: John Rossmann, Glenn Patterson, Mark Traver, Robie Osterman, George Washburn, Bill Whitbeck, Roger Shafer, Chuck Aelesio, Bill Bartholomew, Dave Williams, Bill Lichliter, Miner Stevens, Harold Guest, Otis Lawyer, Jim Rissacher, Jack Norray, Lou Schenck, Wayne Gaul, Mace Porter, Carl Walls, Art Frament, Herb Sawotka, Bob Fink, Bob Benninger, Duncan Bellinger, Mike Willsey, Gerry Chartier, Rich Vanderbilt, Elwood Vanderbilt, Harold Grippen, and me.

Location:

There’s this phrase that’s been making the rounds the last few years that has really got me a bit ticked off. It’s the idea of the “PERSONAL BRAND.” Notice that it’s all in caps and you get a sense of why it’s both silly, narcissistic, and to be avoided like the plague or a presidential debate.

Back in the old days, folks talked about their (or your) reputation. That reputation was based, largely, on what you did. It went along with your resume and was pretty much your calling card in the world of business, and in general. The key is that you were judged on actual missions accomplished, damsels rescued, dragons slain, and cancer cured.

Today, your personal brand is arrived at by maniacally posting things on social media platforms every time you do anything from visiting the gym, to getting coffee to successfully making a cake. In other words, you create it and that means that, depending on how creative you are, you could pretty much be anything.

As a prime example of personal brand, let’s have a look at none other than media darling and self-made creature, Kim Kardashian.

Kim was born the daughter of a prominent lawyer and, thanks to a strategically released intimate tape, came on the pop media radar. A little subtle (not) cosmetic surgery, some more astounding nude photos, a scary reality TV show, some forays into the clothing business, and marriage to a rapper — and suddenly we have one of the most famous faces on the planet.

And she has done not a single thing to better the planet or mankind. Her job, for want of a better word, is to be looked at going about her “normal” life.

Another grand practitioner of personal brand is ubiquitous bully and serial bankruptcy artist Donald Trump. He parlayed a chance birth into a wealthy family into a mildly successful career in real estate, divorce, cheesy casinos, and now a run for the White House.

This has pretty much the entire planet wondering if anyone is nuts enough to actually vote for the guy. And it’s all due to the Trump brand, which is supposed to represent class, style, and wealth. And believe that it does, because Donnie will tell you so; he’s been flapping his gums for decades.

These two examples clearly illustrate how ambitious people essentially use the media to create a version of themselves that they sell as if they were products. But people aren’t products and that’s why this whole thing is so insidious.

The simple reality is that we have become so focused on putting prices on everything (monetizing is the current term) that the idea of selling yourself is totally cool with many people. But what they are selling is a made up amalgam of self-generated nonsense and cell-phone photos that has nothing to do with one’s actual skills or abilities.

Some people might argue with me and suggest that personal brand is simply the current incarnation of reputation. But as noted, I strongly disagree. However we’ve all become so comfortable using and interacting via social media that the idea of a world that exists outside of it is becoming blurry.

In some sectors of the world, people have become so immersed in social media that, if something is not posted, it never happened. The old, if a tree fell in the forest thing, has become way too real.

So what can be done to keep everyone on Earth from having to have their own reality TV show? What can we do to avoid having to constantly post everything we do all day long to justify or prove our existence?

I suppose the simple answer is to just say no. Of course we all know how successful that was when Nancy Reagan suggested we do it to drugs back in the ’80s, but at least it’s a start.

Each day when you get up, think about what you want to actually accomplish that day. Not what you want to post. Go out and do things. Meet humans in person or at least talk to them in real time. Spend as much time immersed in the real world as possible.

Stay off social media as much as you can and, if you must use it, treat it like alcohol. Use it sparingly and please don’t Facebook and drive. Finally, when judging others, think long and hard about what you really know of them as opposed to what has been posted.

The bottom line is that people are not products. And products are not more important than people. Keep that straight in your mind and we may all emerge from the current morass with our reputations intact and our minds clear. Otherwise we’re all going to end up walking around covered in logos like NASCAR cars with legs.

Editor’s note: Michael Seinberg says he has a reputation as a humorous and slightly unhinged writer and computer technician; this is because he’s been writing and fixing computers for a few decades and not really making a big deal about it. His company has a logo, he doesn’t.

Location:

Quite a group of Old Men of the Mountain shook out of bed on Tuesday, June 6. The thunder of this event almost matched the Richter scale measurement of the earthquake on June 6 in the Adirondacks. That quake measured 2.2; the OMOTM getting out of bed was only 1.8. Some of the quakes recorded in the Helderbergs are just the OFs tumbling out of bed to get to the breakfast.

This time of the year, many trees and plants are producing pollen so there will be more trees and plants. The OFs had a brief discussion on this yearly event. With the OFs, the Benadryl, Claritin, Visine, Flonase, saline solutions, and all kinds of sprays are flying off the shelves just so the OFs can breathe.

Some of the OFs complained that all their outdoor furniture, decks, and even their cars are yellow with the pollen of the pine trees. This stuff is so fine that even with the windows up, there are traces of that yellow powder inside their homes and cars.

One OF wondered if ants and bugs are bothered by this stuff. One would think that their wings would become coated with the pollen and those that breathe through their bodies would have a tough time.

Another OF said, “Pollen doesn’t seem to really have any effect on bugs — they fly up my nose along with the pollen so I get a double dose of a bug up my nose carrying the pollen.”

More of the OFs who have wintered in the South have made it back to where they belong and were renewing old friendships. That brought more talk on travel, which is a common topic with the OFs.

This time it was on how many cars were on the road the last few weeks, and the visible presence of troopers patrolling the roads in all states. One OF mentioned that Pennsylvania takes troop cars that are going out of service because of condition or a pre-planned mileage limit and park them in or around congested areas, or trouble spots and this ploy works. It slows people down because drivers do not know which one will be manned, or unmanned.

One OF from Long Island mentioned that New York tried this trick in Amherst, Long Island.  The state even placed a mannequin dressed like a trooper in the car. This did not last long because New York is different; it did not take long before the car was broken into and the mannequin was stolen. The OFs assumed that it is probably in some frat house at a college on Long Island.

One-ups-manship

Quite often, the OFs participate in the age-old verbal competition of “my dog is bigger/smaller than your dog,” or “my kid is smarter than your kid.”  This kind of verbal competition is worldwide.

On tuesday, the OFs (who are older, but not much wiser) perused the same comments about their lawn mowers!  For instance, ‘My lawn mower cost a ton of money,” to another OF saying he got a great lawn mower “for next to nothing”; the “can you top this” just grows.

However, without this form of rivalry, the OFs would not have much to talk about. And like any chit-chat conversation one topic has another OF’s memory jogged and the OF thinks of something this reminds him of, and this reminds another OF of something and he jumps in the conversation and eventually the original topic is long gone.

So it was on Tuesday morning until! bingo!  Here the OFs were starting to talk about cars again!  This time the chatter was about what they paid for a vehicle in the forties and what they cost now.

With the OFs, this discussion is not out of some book but firsthand knowledge, down to the penny. The OFs claimed they could afford a new car easier “back then” than they can now.

The OFs were wondering who has the money to purchase these new cars with their high price tags. No OFs really knew — all they knew was their own circumstances.

This discussion sent this scribe back to Google. From what was found out (and this is by no means a deep study), in the forties, between 48 to 50 percent of an OF’s average salary back then could buy a new car.  Today it takes 75 percent to 80 percent of an average salary to purchase a new car.

It is even worse when purchasing a home. The OFs are right.  Who has this money?  The OFs don’t and neither do the OFs have any friends who do.

Hospital rounds

Many of the OFs who wander into the breakfast on Tuesday morning are bionic, so that doctors and hospitals are another regular morning topic.

This morning, one of the OFs who had a knee replacement a couple of weeks ago was at the breakfast. This OF has been through this before and said that the operation is being done so much differently today than before he wonders if things will turn out OK.

Next to no pain, up and about in a short period of time, the OF was in the hospital barely long enough to see two shift changes of nurses and able to pick one to make a pass at. The OF said they sure kick you out in a hurry, but it seems to be working out fine right now.

Another OF said, “If you are sick, you do not want to be in the hospital — get out of that building as fast as you can because that is where the real germs hang out.”

The OFs who were let out of their cages today and all descended on Mrs. K’s Restaurant in Middleburgh (those that their keepers were kind enough to let go) were: John Rossmann, Bill Bartholomew, George Washburn, Bill Lichliter, Robie Osterman, Roger Chapman, Harold Guest, Dave Williams, Henry Witt, Roger Shafer, Duncan Bellinger, Mark Traver, Otis Lawyer, Glenn Patterson, Chuck Aelesio, Mace Porter, Art Frament, Wayne Gaul, Ray Gaul, Jack Norray, Gerry Irwin, Lou Schenck, Don Woods, Pete Whitbeck,  Bob Benninger, Bob Fink, Jim Rissacher, Carl Walls, Elwood Vanderbilt, Richard Vanderbilt, Mike Willsey, Jess Vadney, Harold Grippen, and me.

Location:

Quite a group of Old Men of the Mountain shook out of bed on Tuesday, June 6. The thunder of this event almost matched the Richter scale measurement of the earthquake on June 6 in the Adirondacks. That quake measured 2.2; the OMOTM getting out of bed was only 1.8. Some of the quakes recorded in the Helderbergs are just the OFs tumbling out of bed to get to the breakfast.

This time of the year, many trees and plants are producing pollen so there will be more trees and plants. The OFs had a brief discussion on this yearly event. With the OFs, the Benadryl, Claritin, Visine, Flonase, saline solutions, and all kinds of sprays are flying off the shelves just so the OFs can breathe.

Some of the OFs complained that all their outdoor furniture, decks, and even their cars are yellow with the pollen of the pine trees. This stuff is so fine that even with the windows up, there are traces of that yellow powder inside their homes and cars.

One OF wondered if ants and bugs are bothered by this stuff. One would think that their wings would become coated with the pollen and those that breathe through their bodies would have a tough time.

Another OF said, “Pollen doesn’t seem to really have any effect on bugs — they fly up my nose along with the pollen so I get a double dose of a bug up my nose carrying the pollen.”

More of the OFs who have wintered in the South have made it back to where they belong and were renewing old friendships. That brought more talk on travel, which is a common topic with the OFs.

This time it was on how many cars were on the road the last few weeks, and the visible presence of troopers patrolling the roads in all states. One OF mentioned that Pennsylvania takes troop cars that are going out of service because of condition or a pre-planned mileage limit and park them in or around congested areas, or trouble spots and this ploy works. It slows people down because drivers do not know which one will be manned, or unmanned.

One OF from Long Island mentioned that New York tried this trick in Amherst, Long Island.  The state even placed a mannequin dressed like a trooper in the car. This did not last long because New York is different; it did not take long before the car was broken into and the mannequin was stolen. The OFs assumed that it is probably in some frat house at a college on Long Island.

One-ups-manship

Quite often, the OFs participate in the age-old verbal competition of “my dog is bigger/smaller than your dog,” or “my kid is smarter than your kid.”  This kind of verbal competition is worldwide.

On tuesday, the OFs (who are older, but not much wiser) perused the same comments about their lawn mowers!  For instance, ‘My lawn mower cost a ton of money,” to another OF saying he got a great lawn mower “for next to nothing”; the “can you top this” just grows.

However, without this form of rivalry, the OFs would not have much to talk about. And like any chit-chat conversation one topic has another OF’s memory jogged and the OF thinks of something this reminds him of, and this reminds another OF of something and he jumps in the conversation and eventually the original topic is long gone.

So it was on Tuesday morning until! bingo!  Here the OFs were starting to talk about cars again!  This time the chatter was about what they paid for a vehicle in the forties and what they cost now.

With the OFs, this discussion is not out of some book but firsthand knowledge, down to the penny. The OFs claimed they could afford a new car easier “back then” than they can now.

The OFs were wondering who has the money to purchase these new cars with their high price tags. No OFs really knew — all they knew was their own circumstances.

This discussion sent this scribe back to Google. From what was found out (and this is by no means a deep study), in the forties, between 48 to 50 percent of an OF’s average salary back then could buy a new car.  Today it takes 75 percent to 80 percent of an average salary to purchase a new car.

It is even worse when purchasing a home. The OFs are right.  Who has this money?  The OFs don’t and neither do the OFs have any friends who do.

Hospital rounds

Many of the OFs who wander into the breakfast on Tuesday morning are bionic, so that doctors and hospitals are another regular morning topic.

This morning, one of the OFs who had a knee replacement a couple of weeks ago was at the breakfast. This OF has been through this before and said that the operation is being done so much differently today than before he wonders if things will turn out OK.

Next to no pain, up and about in a short period of time, the OF was in the hospital barely long enough to see two shift changes of nurses and able to pick one to make a pass at. The OF said they sure kick you out in a hurry, but it seems to be working out fine right now.

Another OF said, “If you are sick, you do not want to be in the hospital — get out of that building as fast as you can because that is where the real germs hang out.”

The OFs who were let out of their cages today and all descended on Mrs. K’s Restaurant in Middleburgh (those that their keepers were kind enough to let go) were: John Rossmann, Bill Bartholomew, George Washburn, Bill Lichliter, Robie Osterman, Roger Chapman, Harold Guest, Dave Williams, Henry Witt, Roger Shafer, Duncan Bellinger, Mark Traver, Otis Lawyer, Glenn Patterson, Chuck Aelesio, Mace Porter, Art Frament, Wayne Gaul, Ray Gaul, Jack Norray, Gerry Irwin, Lou Schenck, Don Woods, Pete Whitbeck,  Bob Benninger, Bob Fink, Jim Rissacher, Carl Walls, Elwood Vanderbilt, Richard Vanderbilt, Mike Willsey, Jess Vadney, Harold Grippen, and me.

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Plans are well underway for the 12th annual Community Caregivers Golf Outing, scheduled for Monday, June 20, at Orchard Creek Golf Course in Altamont. Player invitations have gone out and we look forward to a full field.

This year’s format is the same as in prior years: a scramble with three divisions — men's, women's and mixed. There will be prizes for closest to the pin and longest drive. And Lia Motors is offering a lease on a car for a hole in one on the 17th hole, which is par 3.

A big thank-you to our dedicated sponsors: Adirondack Environmental, Blasch Precision Ceramics, PhRMA, the State Employees Federal Credit Union, the American Association of Retired Persons, and Albany Medical Center.  Price Chopper/ Market 32 and Northway 8 are also offering hole-in-one prizes.

We have some great silent-auction items again this year, including a clubhouse box at Saratoga, a foursome of golf with carts at Leatherstocking Golf Course, a signed photo of Arnold Palmer, a cooking lesson with Chef Gio at Gio Culinary Studio in Voorheesville, and many others.

The player fee of $145 includes range balls, golf cart, box lunch, cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, and a chicken-and-rib dinner.

Please visit our website for more information — www.communitycaregivers.org  — or call our office at (518) 456-2898.

Community Caregivers Inc. is a not-for-profit organization that provides non-medical services, including transportation, and caregiver support at no charge to residents in Guilderland, Bethlehem, Altamont, New Scotland, Berne, Knox, and the city of Albany through a strong volunteer pool of dedicated individuals with a desire to assist their neighbors.

Editor’s note: Linda Miller is the Outreach and Education coordinator for Community Caregivers.

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The end of May was on a Tuesday and the Old Men of the Mountain met at the Middleburgh Diner in Middleburgh.

There was one OMOTM not there and it was this scribe. This was known in advance so a substitute roll-caller was asked if he would gather all the chickens in the coop and let this scribe know so he could protect the innocent by having the roll call at the end of the column.

The stand-in OMOTM said he could do this and he  performed the task in spades. This scribe received not only the names that attended the breakfast but many of those who did not, all on a spreadsheet. This scribe doesn’t even know how to make a spreadsheet. Like we keep reminding everyone, there are many talents in this group of OFs.

None of what follows happened at the breakfast at the Middleburgh Diner. This scribe used his little blue book where he takes notes and he made use of notes in this report that have not been included in reports from breakfasts in the past. This scribe does not take the conversations or names and place them on a spreadsheet — he scribbles them in a little cheap pocket spiral notebook.

Some of these notes are as terse as just two words and, when this scribe gets home and tries to put these words to a conversation, there is much consternation when nothing comes to mind that will tie these words into what was said. Unfortunately, now they just become wasted words because this scribe can’t remember them and so can’t use them to form a conversation and report on what was said; these exchanges might have been some of the cleverest discussions of the whole morning.

Big ears and noses

Wrinkles!  The OFs have discussed wrinkles before, but the big ears and noses that accompany getting old is a note scribbled on this scribe’s cheap note pad, but not included in a previous column. The OFs did not complain about their ears getting larger because the process is so slow that early on it’s hardly noticeable.

Now some of the OFs in their middle to high eighties notice how large their ears are, and they wonder if the ear stays the same and the face gets so wrinkled that it shrinks. One OF mentioned that, if he kept on practicing wiggling his ears, he could probably now be able to flap them and fly.

Another OF said he did not really notice his until he was shaving one day and said his ears reminded him of Dumbo (the elephant).

Even with the larger ears on the outside, the inside seems to do the opposite and shrink because many of the OFs have to use hearing aids.  This bit of information has been reported many times because this is one invention that seems to work at certain times and at other times hearing aids only seem to make the situation worse.

One OF said it is not only his ears that looked larger but his nose was wide enough to use as a hangar and park a small plane in it. To go along with the size was the lament that breathing wasn’t any easier. As a matter of fact, the OF said his outsized nose now was even plugged up more, and he went through a box of tissues in a week.

This scribe checked out information about the nose and ears growing as we age.  This really doesn’t happen — it is just gravity,  like the OFs’ butts and guts. Gravity takes over because the cartilage relaxes as we age.

So the big ears and noses that are already with us are neatly packed with youth, then age takes over and all that youth tightness just sags. The OFs will just have to live with it; there is no exercise or magic pill that is going to hold back gravity. The OFs are just going to have to get used to big ears and large noses and watch out when shaving that these larger appendages are not nicked in the process.

Those OFs that made it to the Middleburgh Diner in Middleburgh (and this scribe has no idea how they got there) for this report were: Roger Chapman,  Robie Osterman, Miner Stevens, George Washburn, Don Wood, Glenn Patterson, Bill Lichliter, Roger Schafer, Harold Guest, Mace Porter, Jack Norray, Gerry Irwin, Lou Schenck (Thank You Lou), Art Frament, Ted Willsey, Jim Rissacher, Mike Willsey, Gerry Chartier, Elwood Vanderbilt, Richard Vanderbilt, Chuck Aelesio, Duncan Bellinger, Joe Bender, Warren Willsey and guest Danielle, Harold Grippen, and not me.

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I used to tell people I was only on Facebook to keep track of my kids. While that's still true to some extent — with so many other social media sites, I wouldn't even have time to try to keep up if I wanted to – there is still every now and then something on Facebook that makes you appreciate it despite its overall basically soulless and trivial nature.

What brings this up is a post someone made recently that said, roughly: “My husband may not be the handsomest or funniest or make the most money, but I always wake up with a clean sink and that's good enough for me.”

Let me tell you my lovely wife could have written that because it fits me to a T.

When I was small, my dear departed mom did most of the cooking, until my father discovered his inner “Molto Mario” and took over. Regardless of who was cooking, they both knew the same two things: one, if you clean while you cook you have a lot less to do later, and two, you never go to bed with a dirty sink.

They say kids rarely listen to what you say but always watch what you do and it must have rubbed off on me because I turned out the same way.

I only had a bachelor pad for a little while, and, while I had one, I did all the things bachelors like to do and then some; I learned pretty quickly that, while a hangover was bad, a hangover plus a dirty sink was exponentially worse. I get a headache just thinking about it.

Not that I was then or even now am that great of a cook, but I can follow a recipe, and it's just so much easier to clean as you go like my parents showed me. Combine that with cleaning the sink before bed and waking up to a fresh, clean kitchen and you’re good to go for sure.

I can't say a clean sink makes every day a good day, but I know waking up with a sink full of dirty dishes with stuck, crusted on food is never how I want to start my day.

Truly I never saw dirty sinks until I got out into the world — it was shocking in many ways. When you grow up in a clean house and then see what a dirty place looks like, it's a really rude awakening. I'm so glad I never had to live like that.

Whenever I'd stay over with friends, I'd always do the sink for them. Cleaning up others’ messes was not my idea of fun — I guess that's why I never stayed over with anyone all that often — but I just couldn't stand a dirty sink. What a bummer. How can you relax and have a good time with that kind of a mess around?

My wife and I played landlord for a number of years. While it's a great move financially, there are too many negative aspects for us to ever want to do it again.

Often I'd have to pay a visit to a tenant to fix one thing or another, and way more often than not I'd find myself in a kitchen with a full stack of crusted-on dirty dishes and an open, overflowing garbage pail. When I saw that, I couldn't wait to get out of there, because I'm not used to living like that and I never want to be.

The dirty sink was bad enough, but the overflowing garbage pail always killed me. How hard is it to go to a store and find a nice kitchen garbage pail with some kind of a lid? Why would you choose one without a lid, or choose not to use the lid?

I may be missing something but to be staring at empty Chinese food containers, chicken bones, watermelon rinds, and who knows what else all day — I just can't imagine it. Don't think I'm a germ-phobe or even a neat freak, because I'm surely not.

I have my stacks of unread reading material, all kinds of junk in my garage and basement, and my over-stuffed drawers and whatnot need to be seriously gone through, to put it mildly. I simply draw the line at dirty sinks, open garbage pails, and real filth like that. There's messy and then there's gross and that's just the way it is.

When I cook a nice meal, I like to get it such that, when we finally sit down to eat, all that's left to clean are the dishes, glasses, and utensils we are using to eat with. That's not always easy to do.

Roasting pans stay hot for a while and, depending on the number of dishes you serve, there may be a lot of things to clean. Still, I'm often able to accomplish this if I'm left alone and “get in the zone” when I cook. This means ignoring phone calls and other distractions and just keeping to the task at hand.

I even refuse help in the kitchen when I'm really going to town, because another body just gets in the way. So I'll let my wife do the entertaining while I finish up the meal, for example. Works for me.

On special occasions, like anniversaries and birthdays, I might take my wife to a fancy restaurant. What should be a very nice experience dampens quickly when you spend lots of money getting wined and dined and then come home to a sink full of dirty dishes that the kids left.

So, while the stripe on the credit card is still warm, I'm at the sink cleaning up a mess I had nothing to do with (well I did have the kids, haha). That's always a bummer. Wait until they have their own sinks to clean.

I say I'm not germ-phobic yet I must admit I rate restaurants on the cleanliness of their bathrooms. The thing is, you have to give them some leeway, because all it takes is one gross inconsiderate slob to ruin a bathroom; we all know that. Still, if a bathroom is nice and tidy, you figure the kitchen is too and that's a good thing.

I know one thing — when I go to a restaurant where there's a tropical fish tank in the waiting area, if the water is so dark you can barely see the fish, I turn right around and walk out. I mean, if you let your fish tank go what else do you let go, jeez.

I may not be the perfect husband — I'm far from it, in fact —but at least my sink is always clean, and that's something.

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Do you recall that Academy Award-winning actress Patty Duke died earlier this spring, on March 29 ? And do you recall the cause of her death? The cause listed was sepsis — brought about by a ruptured intestine.

Sepsis is the body’s overwhelming and life-threatening response to infection. It can lead to tissue damage, organ failure, and death. Yet, according to the Sepsis Alliance, a national patient advocacy organization, only about 44 percent of adults have even heard of sepsis, much less know how to recognize it.

So, if you had a chance to learn more about sepsis, which can strike at any age but is most life threatening for infants and vulnerable adults, would you take it?

Well, here’s your chance.

On Thursday, June 9, Community Caregivers Inc. is teaming up with IPRO to offer a vital health education program entitled, “Recognizing Sepsis as a Medical Emergency.” IPRO is a national organization providing health-care assessment and improvement services.

This program will be held at the Guilderland Public Library, 2228 Western Avenue in Guilderland, beginning at 11 a.m.

The expert presenter will be Eve Bankert who is the IPRO Quality Improvement Specialist and project leader on the Community-Based Sepsis Awareness Initiative. As just noted, sepsis can be life-threatening and Eve will inform you about its early signs and symptoms.  And, just as importantly, she’ll tell you what to do.

Whether you are a community member, family caregiver, or service provider, you can learn valuable information about sepsis that could save a life. Eve will show a brief video followed by a presentation on the following:

— Recognizing early signs and symptoms of sepsis;

— Knowing who to call and what to do;

— Identifying high risk groups; and

— Simple things you can do to help prevent sepsis.

There will be plenty of time at the end for questions and answers. All are welcome and pre-registration not required. Again, please mark your calendar for Thursday, June 9, at 11 a.m. for this vital health education program. If you have further questions, you may call Community Caregivers Inc. a (518) 456-2898.

Community Caregivers Inc. is a not-for-profit organization that provides non-medical services, including transportation, and caregiver support at no charge to residents in Guilderland, Bethlehem, Altamont, New Scotland, Berne, Knox, and the city of Albany through a strong volunteer pool of dedicated individuals with a desire to assist their neighbors.  To find out more about our services or our volunteer opportunities, please visit www.communitycaregivers.org or call (518) 456-2898.

Editor’s note: Linda Miller, MPA, is the Outreach and Education coordinator for Community Caregivers.

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— Photo by John R. Williams

Simple pleasures: Kim’s West Winds Diner in Preston Hollow provides outdoor seating where some of The Old Men of the Mountain enjoy the spring weather. Next time they visit the eatery, some of them plan to bring fishing poles.

On Tuesday, May 24, the Old Men of the Mountain met at Kim’s West Winds Diner in Preston Hollow. Kim’s sits practically in the Catskill Creek because this creek flows so close to the back of the diner.

On a tree on the bank of the creek about 30 feet from the diner, at the edge of the of the diner’s parking lot, is a small sign the reads “Fishing Permitted.” When fish is ordered at the diner, it should be fresh. Creeks are fun and quite romantic until they flood; then they become angry torrents.

Some of the OFs lingered as they left the restaurant and enjoyed the early morning hours at the tables outside the diner. They discussed many topics while listening to the sounds of the creek as it is wending its way to the Hudson.

Ah! Some of the simple pleasures of being retired. At this age, the OFs are not wasting time chasing women, running off to play ball, or just going to work. The OFs are out enjoying what God has put here for the OFs’ pleasure.

No longer naïve

As usual, at the table Tuesday morning, much of the discussion centered around what the OFs did when they were working, even prior to that, or in the military. Some of the OFs mentioned how life is different in larger cities and how most of them found this out while in the military.

The Hilltown OFs did not realize how naïve they were, nor how poor they were, until they ran into these guys. One OF said that at home no one locked their doors, or locked their cars, but in the service this one OF said you had to put your shoes on fast or others would steal the socks right off your feet. These experiences are carried over till this day.

Another OF mentioned that his experiences in the military ran along the same lines and originally caused a camaraderie between the city folk banding together and the country folk doing the same.  The OF said it took awhile before the country folk and city folk could sort each other out, and friendships began to develop across the city-country cultures.

However, this OF said that to him the tag of “country hick” stuck with many of the hay foot-straw foots even after many of the country boys turned out to be better soldiers, sailors, or marines, than the city slickers.

Stereotypes are earned

Stereotypes, they are traits that are earned!

For instance, the Welsh can sing, the Irish can fight, the French can love and cook, and the Spanish can paint. The Italians can cook but, unlike the French, love is not what they are noted for — all they can do, so the stereotype goes, is pinch.

However, we all know a Welshman that can’t sing a note, an Irishman that won’t fight, a Spaniard that can’t draw a straight line, an Italian that can’t boil water or won’t pinch even if the opportunity presented itself, and a Frenchman — well, maybe that one is hard to top. The OFs think all French are good at their designated stereotype.

Applying the past to the present

The OFs talked about taking the experiences they accrued over their lifetime so far and applying it to how they live life today.

One OF thought his mind hasn’t changed much, but there are certain things he did “back then” that he does do differently today, while another OF said he can’t remember how he did it “back then”; he only knows how he does it today. This OF claimed he does not dwell on the past; he claims today is all that counts.

Then the other OFs said, “Well, how did you know how to do what you do today if you didn’t do some version of it ‘back then’ and altered it?”

The OF retorted, “If you clutter your pea-pickin’ brain up with all the way-back-whens, it gets in the way of learning anything new. I am not going to be an OF that says, ‘Well, that ain’t how we used to do it.’  Forget how we used to do it, do it the way it is done today, so there!”

Another OF said, “I agree with that OF who says it’s not the way we used to do it. If the key to start the car is always on the righthand side of the wheel, don’t go sticking it on the left. I had enough trouble learning that to dim the headlights when I didn’t have to push a little button on the floor between the clutch and the brake.”

Yet another OF said, “Hey, you still holler, ‘Whoa!’ and pull on the steering wheel when you go to stop your truck.”

To which one more OF interjected, “We get too young stupid, and too old smart.”

Those OFs who made it to Kim’s West Winds Diner in Preston Hollow (and when Kim’s restaurant’s time comes again in the OFs’ rotation of fine eating establishment, they are going to bring their fishing poles) were: Dave Williams, Harold Grippen, Roger Chapman, Miner Stevens, Robie Osterman, Don Wood, George Washburn, Bill Lichliter, Roger Shafer, Otis Lawyer, Mark Traver, Lou Schenck, Art Frament, Mace Porter, Wayne Gaul, Gerry Irwin, Ted Willsey, Jim Rissacher, Pete Whitbeck, Mike Willsey, Gerry Chartier, Elwood Vanderbilt, Jess Vadney, Harold Grippen, Harold N. Guest Jr., and me.

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