The Mole People (Again!) August 27, 2017

Old Coot Joins the Mole People.

By the Old Coot (Merlin Lessler)

History does repeat itself. Ten years ago, NYSEG announced its Smart Meter program. Nine years ago, I responded with a smart-aleck Old Coot commentary. Last month the program was launched, with the installation of the first meter in Ithaca, NY. And, here I am repeating my moan, about how I’ll have to change my ways to fit into an evolving high-tech world. Smart meters are expected to be installed in 1.2 million homes by 2022 at a cost of $400 per meter. I did the math; that’s an expenditure of $480,000,000. I sure don’t want to be stuck with the bill, so I’m going to become a mole person.

These meters are so smart they will know when we’re using electricity; NYSEG can then price it based on the instantaneous cost on the grid. More people use electricity during the day, so the price will be higher than at night. There are several periods when the cost will be astronomical, like at the wake-up hour, when factories and offices are firing up and a legion of teenagers are into their morning ritual, the “hour of shower.” Another peak comes toward the end of the workday, when businesses are still going full tilt and people are turning on lights and appliances at home. The cost will vary throughout the day and throughout the year, so the smart meter will keep a record of when we use power. The cheapest rate will be between 11 pm and 6 am. That’s the only time I’ll be able to afford the stuff. I’ll live out my life in the dark; that’s why I’m becoming a mole person.  

It’s like being in grade school all over again, except this time around it’s not a tattletale telling the teacher that I’m chewing gum, it’s a stupid, “smart” meter telling the NYSEG billing people that I turned on the dishwasher at noon. The theory is, that when I get the bill for using electricity at peak periods I’ll change my ways. (Provided they can revive me after seeing what I owe). I’m not going to wait until my new meter arrives; I’m converting myself into a mole person now. It’s going to be hard. I’ll get up at 11 pm, take a shower, turn on the TV and start the coffee maker. It sounds like electricity will practically be free at that time of the day. Then I’ll put on my miner’s hat, switch on the built-in light and go out and mow the lawn. I hope the neighbors don’t complain. But what can you do? When I finish the yard work I’ll take a stroll into downtown Owego. The Owego Kitchen, Carol’s Art & Coffee Bar and Dunkin Donuts will be closed. Harris Diner will be closed. Riverow Books will be closed. I won’t have any place to stop for a chat. After a while people will wonder what happened to the Old Coot, why he’s not around anymore.   

My whole identity will be stripped away. I won’t be the nice old guy you see around the village. I’ll be that weirdo that slinks through town in the dark, in a minor’s helmet. Eventually, I’ll get stopped by the police and questioned for my odd behavior. They’ll ask me my name and I’ll have a senior moment. I won’t be able to come up with an answer. They’ll take me away. My family will report me missing. You’ll see my picture on bulletin boards in supermarkets and on utility poles, right next to the photos of missing cats and dogs.

Maybe that’s what they had in mind, the real reason they came up with the smart meter. They want to rid the world of old coots. I found out who’s to blame. It isn’t exactly NYSEG. The Public Service Commission is the instigator behind the scenes. You know, the same group of zealots who made the utilities sell their generating plants and now force us to select a supplier every year or so. They said it would introduce competition into the picture and give us choices and lower prices. That didn’t work, so now they have a new plan, “smart meters.” I tried to call the PSC to complain. I called at 11 pm, during my mole hours, so the electricity I used in looking up their number was the cheap stuff. But nobody was there. An answering machine picked up and told me to call between 8am and 5pm. Apparently, they aren’t getting ready for a smart meter at their place. They probably haven’t bought any minor helmets either.

Merlin Lessler is a freelance writer who lives in Owego.     

“What a strange thing to happen to a little boy” *A south side kid looks back)

The Old Coot back then

I’m Looking at a picture of a little boy, not quite a year old, gazing into the camera lens in innocent curiosity. He’s wearing a sailor hat and showing off his new step-climbing skill. The playpen he escaped from is behind him as is his mother’s deluxe, folding clothes dryer. A single cloth diaper flaps in the breeze.

I stare at him and wonder what he’s thinking. Does he have the slightest inkling of the life that lies ahead? Certainly not. But, I do, for I am that little boy, fast forwarded seventy some years. An old man trying to figure out this thing we call life. It’s unnerving, the two of us staring at each through the distance of time. One, gazing ahead. One, jealously looking back.

That, in a nutshell, is the puzzle of old age. A paradox for sure. A store of wisdom because I know what the little boy doesn’t know. His future! Playing in the woods on South Mountain, crawling through the drainage system under Ross Park. His first day of school. His time spent in the corner, the cloak room, the principal’s office, learning the behavioral side of education. His encounters with bullies, his skill at adapting to life as it is, not as he thought it should be. Oh, the education he got at that old brick building on Pennsylvania Ave (Longfellow Elementary), not just the three R’s, but life skills too. It prepared him well when he left schooling on Binghamton’s south side and entered junior high across the river and then Central High downtown. Foreign lands at the time, when homeland for him was defined as the south side, and bicycle expeditions to the West Side, the 1^st Ward, the East and North Sides were daring adventures.  

Along came life’s passages: girlfriends, sports (mostly sandlot, but some organized), knowledge of the good sort and the bad: Marlboro cigarettes, nine ball in the pool hall, blood brother rituals, cub scouts and driving dad’s car without a license. Broome Tech launched him into the work world in good stead with a job at GE and provided the meeting ground for his first wife, Jackie. Then marriage and kids (when they were just kids themselves). First a daughter, Wendy. A second career start, this time at NYSEG, a transfer to Elmira, a second daughter, Kelly, a third, Kathy and a degree from Elmira College night school.

More transfers and a fourth daughter, Amy, born in Putnam County. On and on life went, many, many highs and some real lows. His dad died, then his wife. Time heals all wounds? Not really, but they do scab over and life goes on. Eventually a new wife, Marcia, a lucky man to have yet another soul mate on the journey through time. Then a son, Zachary. College graduations, weddings and his mother’s passing all moved him along the river of life, calm waters and rapids alike. Life flew by and retirement came in a rush followed by the birth of the “Old Coot,” a little premature, but eventually the “old” part became a reality. Now, here he is, here I am, looking back at this little boy in a sailor hat and marveling at how swift the space of time between us disappeared. “What a strange thing to happen to a little boy!” *

* (A comment on getting old, made by poet George Oppen to author, Paul Auster.)

The Old Coot today

Binghamton Press Article Published circa January, 2017

An old coot explains the Boot Generation.

by Merlin Lessler (AKA the Old Coot)

I was thinking about boots today. It started when I glanced out the kitchen window at a group of high school kids waiting for the bus, on this, a snowy winter morning. It’s the fourth or fifth set of kids I’ve watched grow up at the bus stop. Today, they wore several different forms of winter wear, at teenager’s version anyhow: spring coats, sweatshirts, T-shirts, sneakers, flip flops and the like. Only two wore winter coats. No one was wearing winter footwear. Nothing close to the buckle boots I trudged off to school in on snowy mornings. That’s when it hit me, my generation is misnamed. We’re not the Silent Generation, especially those of us born at the very end of the period when the world was at war and just before the Baby Boomers started emerging.  We’re the Boot Generation.

We started off, in “booties,” graduated to baby shoes, that weren’t shoes at all, more like boots since they came above our ankles. Then came cowboy boots. We had to have them, having cut our hero worship teeth on the likes of Roy & Dale, Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Autry and The Lone Ranger. Mine came from a boot and saddle shop on a street now buried under the Broome County Arena. It was my favorite store. The owner let us sit on the display saddles that were propped up on sawhorses. It was almost as good as the pony rides we waited in line for when the carnival or circus came to town.

Next came high-cuts, military looking leather boots that rose half way to our knees and had a pouch on the side for a jack knife. The world we lived in was awash in WWII surplus military goods and the high cuts were a fashion necessity for kids in my south side neighborhood. We spent much of our time hiking in those high-cuts through the woods on South Mountain. An Army or Navy knapsack was on our back and a canvas wrapped, metal canteen hung from our belt. Some kids wore low-cuts; they were a buck or two cheaper at the regular shoe store, but we opted for high cuts and bought them at the EJ outlet. Even cheaper yet. (The store is also buried near the Arena, only a little closer to the river)

Buckle boots (overshoes that adults called galoshes) got us back and forth on our journey to and from school on snowy days, though it took a lot of effort to jam our shoes into them. Next, came ski boots (and Army surplus skis) from the downtown Salvation Army store. The store was loaded with donated items, including a huge section of military surplus goodies, at deeply discounted prices. (Yet another buried memory, this time, a little north of the Collier Street Bridge, which started out as the State Street bridge when it was built in the mid 1950’s. Buried Binghamton was a pretty cool place before the urban renewal swept it away.) Anyway, when we put on those boots and skis (with a bear trap clamp system, guaranteed to break your ankle if you fell, and trudged to the top of the hills above our neighborhood, we pretended we were in the Alps, tackling the steepest slopes in Europe.

Then came the “COOL YEARS,” teenage days in the 1950’s. The boots were desert boots, a late arriving competitor to the white bucks and dirty bucks that were all the rage. Especially when paired with an oxford cloth, button down collar shirt and a pair of pegged, black flannel pants, the legs so narrow at the ankle they were a challenge to get on. Lastly, at the end of that growing up phase of our lives, which seems like just a few years ago, came shinny black leather, pointy toe boots that we saw teenage hoods wear in movies like Blackboard Jungle and Rebel Without a Cause.

Booties, baby boots, cowboy boots, high cuts, buckle boots, ski boots, desert boots, and hood boots. What else could you call my generation but the Boot Generation.