Coots Lesson 20- Old Age is a Badge of Honor- Don’t waste it!

 Posted by at 16:39  Coots Lessons
Mar 042014
 

This post makes twenty of our world famous Cantankerous Old Coots Lessons. Most people think that all it takes is time to make a Cantankerous Old Coot but we are here to tell you otherwise. Some of you may have the natural instincts but most people need help. That is why we produced the Lessons. If you missed them then start with Lesson 1.

What do you do with lemons?

Getting to your golden years is very much like making lemons out of lemonade or a silk purse out of a sows ear. It means you have run out of all the good options and what’s left is pretty damn poor. Of course for some it’s worse than others. If you were a hot chick or a studly dude in your younger years, it sucks getting old. The best you can hope for is being described as distinguished or attractive but your days as hot or studly are gone forever. On the other hand if you were homely or worse to begin with each year brings the good lookers down closer to your level. It’s a small boost but homely guys don’t need much. It’s music to my ears when someone comments how studly Bob sure does look old and haggard with his walker. If you were homely to begin with your looks might even improve.

 Aging has no favorites.

So all of us, good looking or not get old. We don’t have a choice. No matter how much we spend on cosmetics and supplements or how many hours we work out at the gym. We still can’t avoid getting old. It’s not optional. It’s not a state of mind. It’s not something that will go away if you ignore it. Getting old is one of the cold, wet mackerels of life that you just have to accept.

 Go for it!

So today’s Coot’s Lesson is to take aging and all it’s symptoms as a badge of honor. Make those creaking joints and sagging guts work for you. Flaunt them and demand every benefit society and your friends and family are willing to offer. Grab that senior discount wherever you find it. Maybe it is even worth going to an actual movie once in a while. Take that special seat on the bus and evict that punk kid with the boom box who is hogging it. Maybe he’ll mug you when you get off at your stop but on the bus, you’re the man.

And finally give up the old pretense that you are as good as ever. You are old and feeble and don’t you forget it. Let those youngsters take care of you. dammit old people can’t be expected to pull their weight. Let the youngsters do the heavy lifting because the years are hanging heavy on your old bones. They should be grateful that you can still manage to show up. When you do help, make sure that everybody can see how much it requires from your weary old body. Make sure they can hear those creaky joints and know how much effort it is taking for you to participate. Then when you’ve got them feeling really guilty and they tell you to relax, sink yourself in the softest chair you can find and watch everybody else work.

Dammit , you earned it.

Down with April Fool’s Day.

 Posted by at 16:39  Down with
Mar 042014
 

I labored through the weekend crafting another insightful post intended for today.  Then I realized today is April Fool’s Day and that I would indeed be an April Fool posting anything with serious intent.  I have to confess that April Fool’s Day is not my holiday of choice.  I have never been the sort of person who takes pleasure from seeing people fall on their faces in public.  I am a person who expects life today to be pretty much like it was yesterday- no surprises and no ‘gotcha’ moments.  In short I am the perfect victim.  In fact my prime directive has been to make sure that the kind of people who love to set up April Fool’s Day pranks are somebody else’s friends- not mine. It’s a lonely life but my dignity stays intact.

English: A ticket to the washing of the lion, ...

English: A ticket to the washing of the lion, a traditional April fool’s prank (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It seems that Justin shares my antipathy for April Fools Day and perhaps my desire to seek protection from pranksters.  Unfortunately, love is blind and Justin’s wife  loves pranks.  Ideally this would provide ample experience for a post.  Not from Justin.  His lips are sealed.  What we do have is a rant from the past expressing his frustration with what he calls the stupidest holiday ever.    Instead of sharing the cleverness of his wife and kids in setting up their hapless Dad, Justin remains quiet,  silently licking his wounds.  Even the kettlebells are silent.  

Into this April Fool’s Day vacuum, I really don’t have much to add.  Bob is AWOL, as usual.  The best I can offer is a mindless movie selection or two.  One way to stay out of the way of pranksters is to stay home, lock the doors and seek mindless diversion.

 

Its hard to find heros, but they DO exist

 Posted by at 16:39  Bob's Politics, principles, rants
Mar 042014
 

…and my new hero is an 18 year old high school dropout.

His name is Jhaqueil Reagan and he lives close to Indianapolis, Indiana.  He may be a dropout, but we need more kids like him…LOTS more.

Jhaqueil is a dropout because he quit school a couple of years ago so he could take care of his brothers and sisters after his mom’s death.  Right there I got past the fact that he dropped out.  As far as I can see, that wasn’t dropping out, it was prioritizing and making the right decision.

From what I read, his leaving school didn’t mean leaving his education behind as he finished his secondary education before he would have graduated in the first place, getting his GED.  Second prioritization choice, second good decision.

Ya know, though…a dropout with a GED who has younger siblings to care for also has their stomaches to feed…and that takes money, which means getting a job.  Now, I may be wrong, but a dropout teenager might just find it hard to find work.  He might decide to take advantage of our wonderful nanny – state giveaways and suck off the state, the taxpayer’s money tit.  After all, everyone knows when the job market is tough the thing to do is suck off of someone else…you know, like the 20 – somethings, perpetual students that move back into their parent’s basements and go play in the streets at Occupy Wall Street style protests, all planned out on the iPads their mommy’s

English: Photos of Occupy Wall Street on Day 2...

and daddy’s bought them.

So this kid Jhaqueil can go suck the government’s welfare tit, right?

Um…no.

Jhaqueil heard about a job opening at a Dairy Queen across town.  10 miles across town.  And it was snowing and icy and windy and CLOD…but what the hell…Indianapolis has municipal bus service, right?

Not for Jhaqueil, at least not until he gets a job.  He cannot afford bus fare, so do you know what he does?

He walks.  He needed a job, he heard about a job, so he went to try to get the job.  Its simple, really.

The freezing weather didn’t matter,  Nor did the ice and snow or the wind.  Jhaqueil had good, simple, linear thinking:

Need a job>>hear about a job>>go apply for the job = Get the job.  That simple, and anything between the first and last of that  equation is simply an obstacle to be overcome.

But he did not get the job, demonstrating an obvious lack of management’s good judgement at the Dairy Queen.

That’s OK though…Jhaqueil got a job.  He had stopped at another restaurant along the way to ask directions, and the owner had asked why he was out in the bitter weather, walking.  Jhaqueil explained about the job and his lack of bus fare…then kept walking.  Art Bouvier, the owner of Papa Roux Cajun Cooking, the place he stopped for directions, saw him later when he went out on an errand, still walking.  He picked him up to take him the last mile, and got his name and phone number before the kid got out of the car.

Art Bouvier’s judgement is better thanthat of the Dairy Queen’s management.  He recognizes character when he sees it.  He can see beyond the school dropout, beyond a poor kid who doesn’t have bus fare instead of walking 10 miles in a blizzard, who simply sees something that needs doing and does it and apparently doesn’t have “I can’t” in his vocabulary.

Art Bouvier knows a good employee when he sees one, even one who hasn’t asked him for a job.  He called the kid that night and asked him how the job search went.  When he found out the Dairy Queen hadn’t hired him, hadn’t hired a kid willing to walk 10 miles through a blizzard to apply, he hired him right then.

Good catch, Art.

Now I have a new hero…two9, actually.  A kid who just does what has to be done, and Art bouvier, one Coon Ass I’d like to meet.  Indianapolis ain’t that far…I just may eat some Cajun food soon…surely they serve red beans and rice with a couple of links of boudin.

PS:  I don’t normally do this, but this is an exception.  After finishing the article I called Papa Roux’s.  Great folks and, I’d bet my last nickle, great Coon Ass (Cajun to you uneducated folks…LOL) food, too.  If you are ever in or around the east side of AIndianapolis, grab a bite to eat there.  Call ’em for exact directions at 317.603.9861.  Tell ’em Bob sent ya.

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Down with Emotion!

 Posted by at 16:39  Down with, Plain 'ol Cantankerous, rants
Mar 042014
 

I don’t trust emotions.

I keep them on a short leash, ignore their outbursts and refuse to acknowledge their urgings, In spite of my efforts however they continue to disrupt my life. I call their influence evil because I can’t discern their intent or manage their force. They pay no attention at all to reason and logic.

I know that I’m supposed to go all weepy and sentimental about emotions. After all, love makes the world go round but I can’t- I resist with every fiber of my being. I won’t let them get the upper hand. Yet, still they root around deep in my being and mess up my well-ordered life. A pox on emotions!

Emotion is driving the bus.

Emotion is driving the bus.

Looking back, I can’t find any point in my long life where emotion did me any good. Letting emotion lead has always made things worse, not better. It’s the curse of being human. Clear thinking and logic are invariably subverted by muddle-headed, headstrong and erasable emotion. Primal needs trump logic every day and I say enough. Lizard brain, be gone.

Now that I’ve got that off my chest, I feel a bit better. Somehow, it seems that God messed up creating mankind. Why give us a clear and logical mind that can analyze, parse and plan and then undermine it with an emotion-driven engine that steers it’s own course. Maybe God, in his infinite wisdom, knows what he is doing but it is hard to find any justification. From my perspective, on the front line, it looks like a curse-not a blessing. Continue reading »

Special Coot’s Alert – California dying: last rites said in Spanish!

 Posted by at 10:42  rants
Feb 152014
 

I’m livid today. I have seen something I never dreamed of and it demonstrates the terrible peril our great country is in. California has a competitive race for governor this year. What this means is that regular Californians have noticed how bad things have gotten and are thinking for a change. The evil cabal of union thugs, political hacks and public employees that runs California is scared for a change. It is just possible that they may get whacked. But like any resourceful parasites they won’t let go- until they kill their host.

I’m infuriated at the party in control of California but my contempt for the challengers is even greater. Those losers haven’t done any better and yesterday they proved that representative government in California is dead. Both political parties sold the people of California down the river yesterday when the second of the debates between the candidates for governor was held- in incomprehensible Spanish.

There wasn’t much hype about this second debate – except that one candidate fired a wetback who had lied about being a legal resident. It shouldn’t be an issue – anywhere but California where 20% of our voters can’t be expected to understand English. So how to resolve the problem? How about a campaign debate on a Spanish language television network conducted entirely in Spanish with no translation. No, of course the candidates spoke English but we weren’t allowed to hear what they said because a Spanish translation was piped in. I have no idea what they said and my only recourse is the interpretation of the Sacramento Bee. Like I can trust them!

I don’t have much hope for California. The number of thinking voters who aren’t on the public dole – or the government payroll shrinks more each year but when both political parties will pander to citizens of another country in a foreign language who inexplicably seem able to vote and are valued by the political hacks of both parties, California might as well be dead. The economy is dead. We are poised to legalize pot and speakers of Spanish carry more weight than English speakers. It is all over! Let’s cut our the pretense. It won’t matter who wins the governor’s race this year. California is headed for third world status where voters are pawns for the politicos to play with.

If you don’t live in California, this is no time to be smug. California is the canary in the coal mine. If you care about this country then look at what is happening in your state and wake up before it is too late. You too may be speaking Spanish.

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