A sticky wicket: Where to live when you get old

On a beautiful March day, with clear blue skies, the Old Men of the Mountain paraded to the Your Way Café in Schoharie. It was early on March the 7 to be exact, and the Old Men of the Mountain are beginning to get spoiled with this winter.

One OF mentioned that winter can’t seem to get beyond the Rockies. All the snow and miserable stuff is being dumped on those unfortunate people.

Some people are planning their camping trips already — hiking the trails has not stopped. Is camping as popular as it once was? The OFs did not really know.

One OF thought it was a good question to see if the trails, lean-tos, and camping areas are being visited like they used to be. It was thought these places may even be more well-liked.

One OF mentioned that,m at the Thompson Lake campsite, years ago, people would camp there all summer and just move from campsite to campsite. Another OF said he and his family were among the people who did this.

This OF and his brother would camp there most of the summer by doing just that. The kids loved it.

Now, from what one OF understands, it is necessary to reserve campsites in advance, and the Thompson Lake campgrounds quite often have to turn campers away because the site is full and so is the overload area.

What’s in a name?

The Your Way Café is in Schoharie, and that prompted a discussion on all this falderal and name changes. Now that this can of worms has been opened, will the counties with names like Schoharie have to be changed (and the creek)?

Will the fighting Irish of Notre Dame have to be changed? Will the state land of Dutch Settlement have to be changed?

One OF said, “Hey, I’m Irish and I like my heritage attached to places, or things that show that we are recognized.”

Of course the OFs are OFs, and quite a mix of cultures and nationalities but none are Indian so we have no idea how they feel.

Senior-living snafus

Ah, senior living! OFs and their counterparts gathered together to live in senior communities. The OFs talked about this to some extent because guess what? Most are seniors and this is firsthand chatter.

One OF went to help out a relative who lived in a senior complex with a leaky bathroom faucet. This is not a major operation. Generally, you just tighten the packing a tad, so this OF went over and did just that and the drip stopped.

However, he noticed that the shutoff valve was also dripping so he tried to tighten that and the dripping did not stop. This now became a job for the maintenance man who they called.

The maintenance man came and tried to do what the OF did and it still kept dripping so the maintenance man got a bigger wrench. Oops!

The OF thought this might not be the right thing to do and it wasn’t; with using that tool and applying much pressure, the pipe finally burst. Now they had water spraying out of the pipe with umpty-ump pounds of pressure clear across the room.

The maintenance man charged out of the bathroom and ran to the downstairs apartment only the occupants were not home. For some reason, the maintenance man did not have his keys so he had to smash in the door to get at the main.

By now, the water upstairs was a couple of inches deep, and had started running downstairs. Finally, the water was shut off and some major repairs had to be made. Senior living excitement.

The OFs who had some building experience thought that many of these places should have the engineers consult with seniors who live in the communities to see where the problems lie, and what would make living there more convenient.

One OF thought that the builders already know. There are enough of these senior-living places around so the OFs came to a conclusion that it all comes down to money.

One OF suggested that safety, no matter what, especially for seniors should be number one. Another OF thought that the old-fashioned way of building a house large enough so the parents did not have to leave home is the best way; however, the OFs know that the way the times are now in many cases it is not even practical to do that. It is a really sticky wicket.

One OF said, when he was young, he never thought about being old. Then he saw his parents get old, and he realized he was on the same road.

Now he is old, and he thought how, when he was young, his parents took care of him; all of a sudden, it became his time to take care of them and he didn’t know how.

Schoharie drifters

Your Way Café is on Main Street in Schoharie, which is Indian for “Driftwood,” and the Schoharie Creek probably supplied a lot of that, so the Old Men of the Mountain traveled to the Valley of Driftwood to feast on food for breakfast at the Your Way Café and they were: Roger Shafer, Harold Guest, Wally Guest, Doug Marshall, Frank Fuss, Glenn Patterson, Mark Traver, Miner Stevens, Joe Rack, Jim Rissacher, Robie Osterman, George Washburn, Bill Lichliter, Rev. Jay Francis, Rick Lagrange, Ed Goff, Marty Herzog, Jake Herzog, Ted Feurer, Matt Eschen, Dan Peletier, Lou Schenck, Jack Norray, Herb Bahrmann, Dick Dexter, Elwood Vanderbilt, Bob Donnelly, Dave Hodgetts, Paul Guiton, and me.