The moral of the OFs’ fish stories is: Carpe diem

Tuesday, April 17, 2018: Where the blankity, blank, blank is spring? This year it is tough to prove global warming.

To get to the Home Front Café in Altamont and back over the hill to home, some of the Old Men of the Mountain thought they should bring chains (just in case) as the snow was falling at a pretty good clip.

The OFs are still carping about fish.

Some of the OFs have ponds on their land; one OF has his stocked with fish. Some of the fish were brought by birds, which is a big question mark, and some of these fish are carp.

Some ponds are built and are not stocked with fish but they come anyway and so do frogs and turtles. The frogs and turtles the OFs can understand, but fish?  

Anyway, this OF feeds the fish and they know when it is feeding time. The carp will come right up out of the water to grab food that falls close to shore. The OF says the carp will come up out of the water on their own and make quite a racket flopping their way back into the water.

The next carp tale was told by another OF, and briefly mentioned last week. On a trip to Williamsburg Virginia, with friends, he stayed in the village of Williamsburg, in the Williamsburg Inn. In back of the hotel were two ponds, both filled with huge carp.

There was a bridge separating the two ponds. The upper pond had carp at least two to three feet long and these carp still had some gold scales on them. The lower pond had smaller carp about 18 inches to two feet.

In this pond the OF and the son of one of the friends (both were early risers) went with a couple loaves of bread to the bridge and proceeded to feed the carp. The friend’s son started tossing bread on the riprap (loose stone used to form a foundation for a breakwater) at one end of the bridge and the carp came right up out of the water to get the bread. The fish made a sucking sound as they flapped on the rocks, grabbed the bread, and returned to the water.

The next morning, the OF’s friend tossed the bread to the fish, increasing the distance further up the rocks, and the carp kept climbing the rocks and getting the bread. Just as the previous OF told how the carp behaved at his pond and how, at times, they did leave the water on their own, this OF at Williamsburg said he could not confirm, but wouldn’t doubt, that some of the carp he fed in Williamsburg might come out of the water on their own.

The moral of these stories is carpe diem. Enjoy yourself while you have the chance.

A dangerous question

Who is old? That was a question put to the OMOTM. What kind of question is that to ask a whole bunch of OFs?

One OF said that anyone 10 years older than you is old and he started giving examples. For instance, if you are 30 then someone 40 is old, and if you are 50 then someone 60 is old.

When he arrived at the age of 70, the OFs present said, “Hold on, wait a minute!”

This OF was getting into dangerous territory. The OF defended himself by saying, “You guys are not old.”   By his criteria, someone 90 is then old.

The OFs continued with their, “Hold on a bit; the ice is still thin. You are going to have to shoot for 100 to cover this group and then still have to use some numbers instead of zeros.”

Thrifty history

The OFs went back into history when they were first employed, how much they made, and what they were able to do with it. The time period the OFs were talking about was when $25 was a ton of money. If your employer at that time gave a 50-cent raise, it was time to get down and kiss the ground the employer walked on.

The OFs were talking $40 to $50 a week. The OFs did everything on that amount of money. They purchased homes and cars, maintained them, went to the movies, took vacations — everything.

One OF started adding up how today it is so easy just to spend a $100 in one day on entertaining. The OF said he took the family to McDonalds, and the movies, and filled the car with gas, nothing special or extravagant, and over 100 bucks was gone in just about four hours.

Another OF mentioned that pretty soon we won’t have to carry wallets; we will need wheelbarrows to carry money around if we are going to pay in cash.

Watch out for Jersey drivers

Somehow the OFs started a little discussion on when and how we took our driving tests and what we had to do to pass these tests. Still going backwards in time, many OFs took their tests in Schoharie County in front of Lasell Hall on Main Street in Schoharie.

One OF related how his kids took their road tests now in New Jersey and what a snap these tests were. The OFs took their road tests on the streets and had to dodge traffic; however, in New Jersey, the OF’s kids took theirs on a closed course.

They were the only one on this course. It was a laid-out area; parallel parking was between cones, and the stop sign had no cars coming either way and all the driver had to do was stop. No worry about checking right or left.

At no time did the one taking the test have to worry about cars or trucks, or even motorcycles coming out of nowhere trying to attack you, as the OFs complained happened, when they were taking their driving tests.

On the other hand, after these young people took their tests in an atmosphere like that, they are then dumped out onto the streets of New Jersey and New York City. No wonder the theme in our neck of the woods is to watch out for Jersey drivers, especially now that we know how some of them got their licenses. They think they are the only ones on the road.

When most of the OFs got their licenses, they were put through their paces, but many of them had been driving farm trucks, tractors, and horses since they were about 10 years old. At that time, there was no power steering, the brakes were mechanical, and there were no automatic transmissions.

The OFs were accustomed to using a clutch, so the test for the farm boys was not much as long as they obeyed the rules and didn’t think they were Barney Oldfield (who was the first man to drive 60 miles per hour).

Those OFs who made it to the Home Front Café, and were glad some fish made it out of the water for good, were: Roger Chapman, Robie Osterman, George Washburn, Bill Lichliter, Dave Williams, John Rossmann, Harold Guest, Wally Guest, Karl Remmers, Warren Willsey, Russ Pokorny, Jack Norray, Lou Schenck, Herb Bahrmann, Mace Porter, Otis Lawyer, Mark Traver, Joe Rack, Mike Willsey, Gerry Chartier, Henry Whipple, Bill Rice, Allen DeFazio, Elwood Vanderbilt, Harold Grippen, and me.