What is an OF on vacation from after all?

What a sunrise on Tuesday morning, March 27! Most of the Old Men of the Mountain mentioned it when they arrived at the Your Way Café in Schoharie.

As the OMOTM funnel into the café from their homes scattered about, they have been on the road from about 6 to 7:30 a.m. and many headed west. At this time of day, the OMOTM encounter many vehicles driving in the other direction on their way to work. One OF suggested these cars should be saluted because they are probably loaded with working people who are contributing to Social Security, which right now keeps the OFs afloat.

One OF mentioned that he had to advise people to stop sending him email, and why they didn’t get any emails from him for awhile was because he was on vacation. Another OF piped up, “On vacation from what?”

This brought the first OF up short, and he was speechless. What was he on vacation from really? The OF has been retired for years. The OF finally came up with, “From you guys. What else?”

This is true if the OFs go someplace exotic for an extended period of time. It is only a trip. The day after the retirement party, the OFs are on vacation, unless they take another job. If the OFs do that, they are not really retired; they have just left one job on the best of terms to go to another.

The OFs have covered this topic before about those who have breakfast with the OFs, but are not quite in that OF category yet. These are the few that are in business for themselves and are attempting to slow down.

Some of these OFs are having trouble accomplishing that because they are good at what they do. Tuesday morning, they discussed how paperwork in New York is making working as an individual entrepreneur harder than the work. On top of this, collecting money for work done is also becoming harder, and even trying to do business with suppliers on a cash-only basis is getting difficult.

As one OF put it, he likes to purchase parts, pay for them, and leave. Some of his suppliers want it done on a credit basis, paperless, and on the computer.

The OF says the suppliers are confused if he orders a couple hundred dollars worth of parts, and hands them two-hundred dollars. The clerk just looks at him with the look of “now what.”

The OF says he has tried it “their way” with some suppliers and “their way” doesn’t work for him. If one of the parts is bad or doesn’t work, he has to return it for another, and if he has to pick up something else while making the trip to the supplier, things start getting wacky.

This has proven to be true especially if he has other items on backorder. Maybe one of these parts has come in, then the wackiness begins to get worse.

Drivers as dunces

The OFs who have had occasion to work at jobs that required them to work on highways around the state started talking about what foolish mistakes drivers make, and they wonder what in the world these drivers were thinking.

One OF said, “That is the key — they weren’t thinking.”

The dangers highway crews face include just doing routine jobs when along comes some dork and drives right into them. Regardless of all the signs and warnings to move one way or the other because there is road work ahead, some drivers just ignore the signs and keep on cruising right toward the work area.

The OFs who have worked on these roads, summer and winter, said that the workers should get hazardous-pay stipends for doing this work. A couple of the OFs commented that it is getting worse because the new cars are practically driving themselves and drivers are unconscious to the fact they are driving a ton-and-a-half guided missile.

If the vehicle becomes out of control, consciously or unconsciously, there is trouble ahead, Matilda.

Hare warfare

When it was time to pay up for our meal, some of the OFs received their bills with a rabbit picture on the back. This started a rabbit battle as to who got a rabbit and who didn’t.

This scribe thought the OFs were going to come to blows over rabbit or no rabbit. It even came down to who got a smiling rabbit, and who got a mad rabbit.

“My rabbit is not a happy rabbit,” an OF muttered.

“At least you got a rabbit; I didn’t get one,” another OF stated.

Then the no-rabbit OFs started to pester the waitress because they wanted a rabbit. Those OFs had to continue with their pouting because they weren’t going to get a rabbit, so they paid their bill and went home.

One OF offered to pay the OF’s bill across from him so he would have rabbit. The other OF wouldn’t swap even though his bill was higher with the rabbit on it.

This all started because at the restaurant there are two young ladies that take and bring out the orders. On one side of the long tables the OFs sit at, the waitress drew little rabbits on the back of the tabs and the other waitress doesn’t.

As one OF noticed he had a rabbit, all the other OFs started looking at the back of their tabs, and the war was on. The odd thing is no one gets to keep the bill; once paid, it is stuck on that spike by the register.

Those Old Men of the Mountain who made it to the Your Way Café, and who did not drive off the road looking at the sunrise were: Harold Guest, Roger Chapman, Bill Lichliter, George Washburn, John Rossmann, Dave Williams, Robie Osterman, Miner Stevens, Roger Shafer, Chuck Aelesio, Ray Frank, Glenn Patterson, Mark Traver, Joe Rack, Jim Heiser, Allan DeFazio, Marty Herzog, Ted Feurer, Lou Schenck, Jack Norray, Mace Porter, Herb Bahrmann, Warren Willsey, Bob Fink, Bob Benninger, Henry Whipple, Bill Rice, Gerry Chartier, Mike Willsey with middle daughter Amy, Elwood Vanderbilt, Harold Grippen, and me.