Cold weather brings out coonskin caps and talk of Daniel Boone
Tuesdays seem to come so quickly, while some days seem to take forever to get here. Tuesday, Nov. 28, the Old Men of the Mountain met at the Middleburgh Diner.
To get to the Middleburgh Diner for many of the OMOTM, it is necessary to go up, then down, even when the OF lives on the mountain. This past Tuesday, there was about two to four inches of snow at the top going over what is known as Cotton Hill.
This country road is popular with many of the OFs going to Middleburgh, but on Tuesday morning it was a bad decision, and as one OF put it, the road “was unsafe at any speed.” This prompted most to return home via the “flats” where the road conditions were much better.
We have a couple OFs who, when the weather becomes a little nippy, wear their coonskin hats to the breakfast. The hats must be faux fur because the OFs do not think raccoons are that large.
These hats must have come with paddles because when turned upside down the OF could get in the hat and paddle himself across the pond. Fess Parker these OFs are not, and the hat Parker wore in “Daniel Boone” was much smaller.
One OF told of one summer packing the whole family in the station wagon and spending their whole vacation tracking down Daniel Boone because his son (only about 8 years old) thought he was Daniel Boone. The OF said this was a great vacation and quite an adventure.
Hearing help
Many times, the sense of hearing is covered by the OMOTM, especially how hearing aids seem to be a lot of money for what they provide and how long the aids seem to last. One OF who has trouble hearing and wears his hearing aids showed up Tuesday morning with a new hearing device.
This unit had an external microphone that was worn around the neck and the receiver part was in the ears. One OF said it was akin to something like a Bluetooth arrangement.
The OF let some of the other OFs try the new system out and the other OFs thought it worked great. Is that anything like passing around a new set of false teeth because the OF thought they worked so great?
Glasses maybe, as glasses have been passed back and forth at the breakfast because this or that OF forgot his.
Fading tats
The OFs who were in the military, and that is quite a few, discussed how tattoos were more or less frowned upon when joining. The OFs coupled this with where we are now and where we were then, and decided that the pundits are right.
When the OFs were young, they were part of the Greatest Generation. This did not stop the OFs from not paying too much attention to military regulations and who got tattoos anyway.
They were discharged as a literally colored group with statements like Mom, or the picture of, or at least the number of, their ship permanently inked on their bodies.
Tattoos may be OK (?) when people are young, but as they age things begin to change. First, the red color goes, and then those who have used yellow see it starts to fade and then disappear.
Finally, the tattoo becomes nothing but a black blob when reaching the age of 50 or so, and for the rest of your life the one with the tattoo carries this black blob around with him. Take this from some OFs who support these black blobs and can’t even remember what they are, where they got them, or when.
Sport supports
Hunting and fishing season discussion came up next. There seems to always have been a hunting and fishing season even when the OFs were really young.
On Tuesday morning, the OFs discussed hunting and fishing, their escapades, their success, and their failures.
Just as with any sport, when the OFs are really into it, the sport can be expensive. The guns and ammo., the outfits, all the accessories that go with a particular sport can add up.
Fishing with the poles, waders, the boat, the trailer, and all that gear really can add up. One OF mentioned that sports are so lucrative that there are entire stores catering to only sports.
Yet, as one OF said, it is impossible to beat a good day of fishing. The bumper sticker is right.
Those OMOTM that managed to make it to the Middleburgh Diner in Middleburgh and start the day off as a good day even though the OFs were not fishing, were: Bill Lichliter, Marty Herzog, Harold Guest, Wally Guest, Jack Norray, Lou Schenck, Dick Dexter, Herb Bahrmann, Gerry Cross, Ted Feurer, Jake Lederman, Wayne Gaul, Rev. Jay Francis, Ed Goff, Doug Marshall, Roland Tozer, Warren Willsey, Russ Pokorny, and not me.