Rip Van Winkle wakes to write his column

MIDDLEBURGH — I have no idea if the OMOTM’s ride to the Middleburgh Diner witnessed another beautiful sunrise or not on Oct. 7. I was asleep — finally. Sometimes even the wise ol’ Men of the Mountains do some stupid things. Like wearing out. We forget who we are. We are the OMOTM, emphasis today on the word “old.”

Yes, old, not young. Old folks just physically cannot do what young folks can do. We kid ourselves sometimes by saying things like, “I can still do that, maybe for not as long as I used to, but I can still do it for a while.”

Part of that faulty thought process is the total lack of consideration given to those three little words, “for a while.” Define that.

It makes no difference what we used to do in comparison to what we did 50 years ago. If we worked in an office and never broke a sweat (unless we were nervous) or if we labored outdoors doing heavy lifting hour after hour, we just cannot do at 80 years old what we used to when we were 30 years old.

Sure, the guy doing the heavy, strenuous, sweaty work was always stronger than the pencil pusher, but can he do it now? Not a chance. Can the pencil pusher put in three or four consecutive 20-hour days meeting a deadline? Nope, not anymore.

But we forget those facts, and when we do, there is a price to pay. Always a price to pay.

My daughter and son-in-law bought me an electric lawn mower a couple of years ago. It is really nice and light (and quiet) and does a fine job mowing the lawn.

Except I have to push it! It is not self-propelled like the mower I was using.

Now, in fairness to everyone, what’s the terminology that is always used today? “With full disclosure” or something like that, the old mower was a really heavy, noisy, gasoline-powered, self-propelled piece of equipment that should have found its way to the junkyard long ago.

Not only with all those negatives going for it, the self-propelled part of that mower did, in fact, leave for the junkyard for defunct self-propelled lawn mower transmissions a long time ago. The only time I did not have to help (read push) this old heavy mower was when it was going downhill on the driveway!

The new electric mower is so light, I can hang it up on the wall. Much, much better. Still, pushing it around mowing the lawn for the best part of an hour, takes its toll on my own self-propelled transmission, my legs.

Then off I go to an OMOTM breakfast, followed the next evening by a Kiwanis meeting, followed by a hearing-aid appointment. (I don't think they were all that interested in tweaking my existing hearing aids as they were in selling me new very expensive ones — not going to happen.)

Then I found out that an old friend from high school and an Albany area businessman had passed away. That kind of makes us OFs take pause and do some reflecting. Takes a little something out of us that is not coming back. We truly are diminished each time it happens.

A little humorous side to that is that, for a couple of years now, I have been successful in my efforts at losing some weight, the results of which is now manifesting itself with my sport coats looking like tents on me! So off I went to Albany to have some major alterations done! It will be ready in time.

Then I went to see the optometrist because my eyes are killing me. They hurt. They are itchy, scratchy, blurry and I have trouble seeing the words I type clearly on the monitor or when I’m reading a book. After a while it wears on you. 

The optometrist gave me a script and said my eyes would feel much better in two days. He was right, I am two-and-a-half days into a five-day program and my eyes are, in fact, much better.

Did I mention that I got a flu shot and my COVID shot at the same time as all this was going on? I did. I have never had any kind of a negative reaction from these shots and I have had them together before. I don’t even get a sore arm.

So I really don’t know where I got the tired-out, sleepy, weak-as-a-kitten legs that didn’t want to work, eyes that couldn’t see, ears that couldn’t hear, being sad about friends no longer here, clothes that don't fit, but I do have my OMOTM friends!

After a totally terrible night’s sleep on Monday night, the last thing I remember was looking at the clock at 6 a.m. and thinking how happy I was that the OF I car pool with was not in town because he is on a family vacation and therefore I didn’t have to pick him up. So I smiled and said to myself, “Not day OMOTM, not today. Mother Nature has shut me down.”

The next thing I knew, it was two or three hours later and the phone was ringing. One of the OFs I work closely with each week was calling to check up on me and to tell me he had the attendance list and would email it to me.

He told me I was the topic of conversation. I can imagine what was being said; “Where is he? Is he sick? He is not where he usually sits. Is he OK? What do we do with the attendance list? Who’s gonna write the OMOTM column? (That one is easy to answer, get John Williams!)”

Those OFs who mixed concerns about me and concerns about breakfast at the Middleburgh Diner were Harold Guest, Wally Guest, Ed Goff, Miner Stevens, Roland Tozer, Wm Lichliter, Pete Whibeck, Jim Austin, George Washburn, Duncan Bellinger, Jamey Darrah, Gerry Cross, Jack Norry, Lou Schenck, John Jaz, Herb Bahrmann, Pastor Jay Francis, Al Schager, Frank Dees, Russ Pokorny, Warren Wilsey, Gerry Chartier, and not me.