OFs’ reckoning the way on rural roads is better than GPS
We almost had a snow day. The Old Men of the Mountain make it to the appointed restaurant every Tuesday — like the postman, through heat, snow, rain, wind, even brimstone — the OFs are ready to eat.
This past Tuesday, Jan. 24, the Middleburgh Diner in Middleburgh was the appointed diner. Like most of the places the OFs frequent, if you leave hungry, it is your own fault; this is the case with the Middleburgh Diner where the price of eggs does not bother them too much. The waitress said they have their own chickens. There ya go.
One of the newer OFs used a GPS to get to the Middleburgh Diner and he was relating the roads traveled to arrive at the diner. This started a few of the OFs talking all at once; basically it was “Say what?”
Then they began again talking all at once about the should-a’s. Apparently, the GPS sent the OF all around Cock Robin’s barn to come off the Hill to get to Middleburgh.
This is another case of the older OFs knowing these back country roads through the hills and, if some newer OF heads out with the older OFs’ directions, it would be a month of Tuesdays before the OF would be found and he would still be wandering around up in “them thar hills.”
Football
It is the end of the football season coming up and the OFs discussed the sport. Most of the OFs knew something about the game, but were not aficionados.
The group almost began to become political when it was mentioned they could not quite understand calling the Cleveland Indians, Guardians, and other name changes that had no particular ring to them.
The OFs discussed a little bit about the new movie coming out titled “80 for Brady.” Basically it was because of the age 80; now it is getting into OMOTM territory age-wise.
One OF brought up how it is strange that, in baseball and basketball, even hockey, rooting for the local team is the norm. However, in football, rooting for Washington, and living in Albany is normal, or living in Albany and rooting for Boston, conversely living in Pittsburgh and rooting for the Giants. Go figure.
Travel trauma
Stories came up about things that went wrong on trips while cruising on the water or flying in airplanes. After listening to some of these, it is a wonder if any of the OFs would get in a plane or on a ship but this scribe doubts if it deterred any of this group from leaving the breakfast and either getting on a ship, or boarding a plane.
The OFs told stories about being in small planes, not homeowner type Pipers, or Cessna 172s, but small commercial prop jobs. The OFs told about being bounced about so that if anyone had a sensitive stomach they would definitely need a barf bag.
One OF told of taking a cruise on a ship and running into a storm that contained a huge water spout. There, the OF said, the ship ran out of barf bags for passengers and some of the crew and performers really became ill from this huge ship being bounced around like a cork. The trip was short, and the OFs got their money back.
No matter how the OFs travel, there is no telling what is going to happen, or what the OFs will run into. In some way, that is the fun of it.
Like Jonah
One OF brought up the event of the two lady kayakers who were swallowed by a whale and were spit back out unharmed. The OF said it was a Right whale, and another OF corrected him by saying it couldn’t be a Right whale because Right whales have teeth.
The second OF was correct. The Right whale does have teeth, but apparently baleen also because this whale is listed as both mysticetes, meaning baleen, and odontocetes meaning teeth. The others are either-or but not both.
However, the two ladies were washed into the mouth of a Humpback whale (which is a mysticetes) and couldn’t swallow them anyway. The other kayakers watching all this must have freaked out.
It still is surprising the knowledge of the OMOTM. The information that comes from the OMOTM on nature, boating, flying, hunting, fishing, even the academics of chemistry, prose and poetry, American history, and much more is amazing.
When talking about whales, one OF who had read “Moby Dick” asked if anyone else had read the book, and was surprised by the response of the OFs who had indeed read this book. Herman Melville wrote his novel close by at his farm “Arrowhead” near Pittsfield in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. So that makes Herman a local boy almost.
Still another OF tells a tale of maneuvering a small 20-foot boat in high seas, while yet another OF tells of the excitement and concern of flying a plane and getting trapped in clouds he could not fly out of. It is a wonder that most of the OFs at this restaurant at least make it to be OFs.
Those Old Men of the Mountain who made it to the Middleburgh Diner in Middleburgh, and we don’t know how, were: Harold Guest, Wally Guest, Roland Tozer, Doug Marshall, Russ Pokorny, Bill Lichliter, Herb Bahrmann, Dick Dexter, Jack Norray, Lou Schenck, and me.