The scribe’s guide to a healthy sleep: Don’t make up your bed

On Tuesday, Sept. 4, the Old Men of the Mountain gathered at Mrs. K’s Restaurant in Middleburgh.

The week before, the OFs talked about doing laundry. This scribe would like to put in his nickel’s (two cents has gone up) worth.

This is on why make up the bed. Just think of it, those who shower in the morning have slept in the bed with all their daily odors. When they get up, the bed is made up trapping all those odors under layers of blankets and, to be fashionable, a truckload of pillows and shams.

Again — why? What should be done?

— 1. Get rid of all those pillows. They serve no earthly purpose except maybe a little bit of exercise tossing them off the bed to go to bed;

— 2. The footboard on the bed should be at least 2 feet high;

— 3. When rising in the morning, all the covers should be neatly draped over the foot board to air out and also be ready for that night.

This method will not only let both the blankets and the bottom sheets air out, it will also save tons of time and money. By not covering up the sheets so they can air out, all those pillows will not be necessary.

This will upset many designers who use pillows to hide the fact that they can’t design in the first place. Penny’s, Macy’s, Kohl’s Boscov’s and others won’t be too happy either because the stores will have trouble unloading high-ticket, high-profit items that don’t do a thing except collect dust and hold odors.

The above suggestion is only for peons like the OMOTM, and most of our friends. The upper class has the maid change the sheets every day, and turn the blankets down at night.

People like this can have pillows piled to the ceiling. The pillows are probably moved to a gigantic closet when it is time for the owners to retire so they never see them. So speaketh the scribe who is an OMOTM you know.

Med meditation

The OFs cover this topic quite often and it is all on the subject of medications. Some OFs think that the medications to cover one problem cause other problems someplace else.

The OFs think that to be given another med to handle that is dumb. The OFs wonder if long-term meds like those for heart problems, such as blood thinners, cholesterol fighters, channel and beta blockers make the body become so used to those that eventually they are ineffective.

Many of the OFs are on heart meds and they also wonder if it is because of these meds they are still here. Some would like to get off these pills, but are a little leery. Some OFs claim they have no reaction if the OF misses a few pills, while others say, if they are even a couple of hours late, they know they have missed a pill.

One mentioned all the eye drops after cataract surgery. This OF said he has to do this along with taking a bouquet of pills. The OF said he is glad that he can do it. His aunt (who is deceased now) had dementia and people had to give her pills, and place the drops in her eyes.

Last week, the OMOTM column mentioned putting us in a spaceship and shooting it off into the sun. Living like his aunt had to live, the OF said, can’t be much fun.

One OF asked, “Do they even know what is going on?”

Then another said there is enough information out there with answers to these questions in them.

Then a third OF said, “I don’t like reading those pamphlets — they are too depressing.”

Travel guide

One of the OFs is a Warner of Warner Lake, but he was brought up around Winchester, Virginia. At the breakfast on Tuesday morning, he was extolling the virtues of Lake Anna in Virginia.

So this scribe decided to check it out as compared to Lake George and Lake Champlain. Lake Anna is the largest freshwater reservoir in Virginia, and has many navigable coves and inlets on either side of its entire length

It serves as water for a large nuclear plant on its east bank a little better than halfway down the lake. The lake itself is about 13,000 acres and, according to this OF, the land surrounding the lake is sparsely populated. Also, according to him, it is not expensive to stay there. The lake is about one hour from Richmond, and about 45 minutes from Fredericksburg.

In comparing that to our Lake George, Lake George is about 152, 000 acres and about an hour from Albany. Lake Champlain is huge. The New York part of the lake is 435 square miles. It is about one-third the size of Rhode Island and it takes about two hours or more to get there from here.

Lake Anna has Route 95 on the west side and Route 64 on the east side. It is not like Lake George where the interstate travels so close to the lake one can almost get wet.

An OF headed to Lake Anna would have to know how to get there because it is quite a way from either interstate. Now, if you are camper and a kayaker, or a boat enthusiast and want to get out of the state, the OFs recommend Lake Anna in Virginia.

It looks nice and sounds great, according to the OF who does go there often. So much for the travel guide of the OMOTM who never heard of Lake Anna and now want to go there; however, unlike Lake George or Lake Champlain, it takes about eight hours to get there.

Those OFs who don’t get around much anymore, and a few who do and were at Mrs. K’s Restaurant in Middleburgh, and think Lake Anna is safe from any invasion by the OFs were: Mr. Harold Guest, Mr. Wally Guest, Captain Roger Chapman, Mr. Dave Williams, Mr. John Rossmann, Mr. George Washburn, Mr. Robie Osterman, Mr. Miner Stevens, Mr. Bill Bartholomew, Travel Guide Mr. Bill Lichliter, Mr. Pete Whitbeck, Mr. Otis Lawyer, Mr. Richard Frank, Mr. Mark Traver, Mr. Glen Patterson, Mr. Joe Rack, Mr. Jake Lederman, Mr. Roger Shafer, Mr. Lou Schenck, Mr. Mace Porter, Mr. Ted Feurer, Mr. Wayne Gaul, Mr. Duncan Bellinger, Mr. Gerry Chartier, Mr. Mike Willsey, Mr. Elwood Vanderbilt, Mr. Rich Vanderbilt, Mr. Harold Grippen, and me.