The New Codgers

It’s quite cool this morning on the back porch, 25ºF & windy—perhaps “normal’ weather is approaching! The wind is out of the northwest, thank you N. Dak, & Alberta! A precursor to the fabled “Alberta Clippers” that bring us the best our Canadian neighbors have to offer.

I’ll probably walk to the coffee shop this morning—I’m not a complete wuss—but, I will break out the parka & gloves, not wussy, just common sense. It’s not the temperature, it’s the wind! And I like to be comfortable, and take the time to actually enjoy the cold, fresh air on my walks.

Those of you living in the northern tier of the United States understand what I am talking about. We can and do enjoy the brisk temperatures of the winter, but we are mindful of the wind chill—which has the capability of being quite lethal if not respected.

Note the nifty parka above. 

Jay Merton

So there was once an appraiser, a mortgage broker, and a real estate salesman, who oddly enough, were all friends, and one day they decided to go fishing. They arrived at the lake, launched the appraiser’s 500hp bass boat (even though they were fishing for sunfish), and motored placidly at full throttle to the mortgage broker’s favorite spot. They were preparing their gear, when the salesman noticed they’d forgotten the bait.

“Oh, no problem, I’ll go get the bait,” said the appraiser as he climbed out of the boat and walked across the water back to shore and got the bait.

Meanwhile, the salesman, observing this, thought “I always thought this guy was a bit full of himself…but…”

The guys fished all morning, and caught several sunnies, but were nowhere near their limit. The salesman, now hungry (salesmen are always hungry), noticed they had forgotten their lunch on the shore.

“Don’t worry, I’ll go get our lunch” said the broker, and he climbed out of the boat and proceeded to walk across the water to get the lunch.

The salesman thought, “!!!!”

Moments after finishing their lunch, they realized they were thirsty…but the cooler with the St. Pauli Girl Light Beer was still on the shore.

“My turn,” said the salesman thinking “these guy aren’t anything special, if they can walk on water, so can I.” He stepped out of the boat, and immediately went in over his head!

The appraiser looked calmly at the broker and said, “Do ya suppose we shoulda told him about the rocks?”

By Medford Ambrose (My Turn)

Now—how does Jay start these? Oh never mind, he ain’t writing this so I guess I’ll do it my own way. It’s a fine morning, this one. I’ve pretty much recovered from yesterday’s excess. I’m walking over to Jay’s for my morning cup of Folger’s© freeze-dried instant coffee, served in a dainty little tea-cup, with saucer. I’ll have no idea what the temperature is ‘til I get to Jay’s place—he has a big ol’ thermometer right there on the porch.

There’s nothing quite like a charcoal-broiled hickory-smoked turkey, especially when the chef is…me. Just enough left over for a few sandwiches over the next day or two. Altogether, we had a fulfilling Thanksgiving.

I’m at Jay’s squeaky gate now—let’s see how well he’s recovered from the feast.

“Morning Jay,” I said as I walked up his back steps, “is the Folgers© on?”

“Hi Med, yep of course, I’m sure you know where to find your coffee-pollutants,” answered Jay, “What are you doing up this time of morning?”

“Trytophan,” I answered.

“Trypto-who?”

“Trytophan,” I explained, having already consulted Professor Google, “High levels of tryptophan in turkey meat lead to increase in synthesis of melatonin in the intestine which results in more melatonin leaking from the GI tract into the bloodstream. Once in the blood, this extra melatonin phase-shifts the clock—the body thinks it is late at night and you feel sleepy. This shift of the clock will result in being wide awake right after midnight—the body thinks it's waking-up time already. It works, so here I am.”

“That’s way more than my brain can synthesize this early in the morning,” Jay said as we went inside to fill our mugs, and then continued sans segue, “you think we oughta go over to the café this morning?”

“We can, maybe that sassy Molly will be there. And Thanksgiving's done, we can post again.” 

“Whaddaya mean, Folgers©?” Jay asked, better late than never, I guess.

By Jay Merton & Medford Ambrose

I just stepped out on the back porch, and with my ever-present mug, china, not stoneware, filled with steaming organically-grown, free trade, Guatemalan-roast coffee, I was savoring the 33ºF clear morning, and the apple pie beginning to bake in my oven—when I heard my side-gate creak open. Its 5:30 in the morning!

Just as I was about to grab my trusty plough-share, Medford ambled up out of the darkness, empty mug in hand.

“Mornin’ Jay,” he said as he stepped up on the porch, “got some coffee for a friend?”

“Go on in,” I replied, “there’s creamer & sugar by coffee maker.”

“What brings you by this time of the morning?” I asked as he came back outside.

“Good coffee,” he said, “Got the bird on the big Weber©, and to keep me from messing with it, I decided to head over here for a bit. Ohhh—that pie smells gooood!”

“Mom’s recipe, Ari wasn’t much of a baker,” I said, a little wistfully, “but she was a wicked good cook!”

“Y’ever get over it?” Med asked, “losing Ari.”

“No,” I replied, “but, in time, I’ve gotten to a point where I smile when I think of her, instead of…well, you know.”

“Not first hand, not yet, anyway,” he said, “I think about it though.”

“Dog too,” I said.

“Huh?”

“I smile when I think about CooCoo,” I said, “Usually I think about her when I’m with little Daisy.”

“I’m sorry I brought it up,” Med said quietly, “I better head back home, Laura’ll be needing me.”

“I’ll be by in a bit, after the pie is done, and Med?” I continued, “no need to be sorry. What’s more appropriate to Thanksgiving than to reminisce about those departed ones, who have been so important in our lives?”

We will be taking Thanksgiving off—completely, as we hope you consider as well. No Posts. No comments. Med, Laura & I will not so much as press the power switch on our computers. We will be developing a couple of new characters: James our currently one-dimensional whipping boy will start to visit the codgers more often, and will become more well-rounded—but still will not quite get it. James is no dummy, and he will “win” sometimes. He works for a advertising agency downtown, and from what I hear, good at his job. We really like the feisty Molly, and think she will add much to our cast. Both are based on real people. Now for you, gentle readers, an opportunity to help us develop these folks into real people—all suggestions will be considered.

Jay & Medford

As Medford and I made our way towards our usual table, the one by the front plate-glass window, where in the summer months we can (and do) make comments about the passers-by, but in winter we generally avoid looking out—the reflection’s not pretty, we were AGAIN stopped in our tracks by:

“HEY YOU TWO GENTLEMEN,” Molly yelled, “SIT OVER HERE!”

“AND A FINE GOOD MORNING TO YOU TOO,” Medford yelled back, and then in his indoor voice: “we’ll just have our usual mugs of organically & shade-grown, fair-trade, French-roast coffee. Don’t forget the cream & sugar.”

“Yuk,” I muttered, almost under my breath, “you may as well drink factory coffee out of a can.”

“How you guys doin’ t’day?” Molly asked as she brought our coffee, “you want to order?”

“Just finer than frog’s hair,” I replied, “not yet, as it’s not germane to the conversation.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind, it’s kind of an ‘in joke’,” Med quickly replied, as he polluted his coffee, “we’ll order later.”

“OK,” she answered, and then continued, “yesterday was not one of my better days: first I insulted you…”

“…That’s old news,” Medford interrupted, “sorry, go on, please.”

“’s OK, anyway, shortly after you left, these young ‘yuppie-types’ came in,” she continued, and I overheard part of their conversation while I was taking their order, “they were talking about Gov. Pawlenty’s plan to restore some funding to the ‘MinnCare’ health care program to include more low income working families.”

“Yeah, I heard,” Med said over the rim of his coffee mug, “they had to cut funding last session to help balance the budget. But now our state appears to be headed for a surplus, so their looking to restore some services that they feel are necessary. Pawlenty seems to be a (I hate to use the term) ‘compassionate conservative.”

“Anyway,” she went on, “this one guy, I think they called him James, went on and on about how if they did that, all ‘those people’ would come to Minnesota for our welfare benefits, and that he should not have to pay for their lack of ‘personal responsibility.’ Well I about lost it—my Irish temper almost got the best of me.”

“James, you say?” Med asked, “Do you suppose that’s the James who went off on Carl?”

“Look guys, I don’t mean to burden you, but I gotta vent a little,” Molly said, filling our cups, “I had it all—house, two wonderful kids, husband, I was a stay-at-home mom. One day, after the kids and I were visiting my sister in Duluth, we came home—and my husband, and most of the furniture, was gone! My loving husband had left us, lock, stock & barrel!”

“I’m really sorry to hear that,” I said, maybe a little lamely—I hate hearing this stuff.

“I did nothing wrong, I thought I had been ‘personally responsible,’ Maybe this James guy thinks I should have married better? We were married for ten years before this happened,” she said, “anyway, enough cryin’ in your coffee. Things are looking up for me—George (café owner) wants me to manage here, so he can spend more time with his other restaurant, and I found someone to share my home—a friend of mine and her daughter are moving in after Thanksgiving—the two incomes will come in handy—I’ve been struggling to keep up the payments—we can help each other out.”

As Molly left to take care of the increasing number of customers, heard Med say: “Look what just pulled up, Jay.”

I looked up in time to say James stepping out of his new Chevy Avalanche. The truck had a big ‘for sale’ sign in the window.” (To understand James in context, click this link)

While reading some of the comments to various posts, I often come across the acronym: IMHO. I really hate to admit that I’m not exactly up on IM speak—so to speak—in kinda validates the opinion of some that seniors ar not with it—whatever it is. So I looked it up:

IMHO: An abbreviation for “in my humble opinion,” this term is used in various online communications, such as e-mail messages or postings to newsgroups or BBSs; it usually appears in brackets like this: <IMHO>. Using this term is a way of making sure that others understand that you are merely expressing your opinion on a debatable subject without passing judgment.

THEN I had to look up "BBS" (Basic Bull S***?)

BBS: This is the acronym for Bulletin Board System, a system that lets people read each other's messages and post new ones. The Usenet is, in effect, the world's largest distributed BBS. Typically, the term BBS is used to describe private systems run by individuals that often require membership.

AND THEN I had to look up "Usenet"

Usenet:  refers to the collection of newsgroups (sometimes called the Big Eight hierarchies) and a set of agreed-upon rules for distributing and maintaining them. More than 13,000 newsgroups exist around the world and the majority of them are a part of Usenet. However, a fairly large number of alternative newsgroups have emerged outside of Usenet.

This is waaaay too deep for me now—<TTQWSICOMF>*! {:- )

Jay Merton

* “time to quit while still in control of my faculties”

(Glossary of terms courtesy of Learn the Net.com)

This morning I find the back porch a balmy 40ºF, with a light breeze out of the west, my mug (china, not stoneware), of (organically & shade-grown, fair-trade, Guatemalan-roast, unpolluted with cream or sugar) coffee hot and steaming, warming my hands. Not that they needed warming, mind you.

Yesterday, I mentioned that Med & I would still meet at the café for coffee (and breakfast, something we don’t usually mention as it is not germane to our conversation), and that if anything blogworthy was discussed, it would appear on these pages.

Well, something blogworthy did occur—but it had nothing to do with our usual pithy discussion, but rather it played out before we even got our coffee! We were confronted by what we thought was the waiter-from-hell (To see how it played out see this morning’s Old Men & Coffee Shops Post).

Something good came out of this, I hope & believe—we may have added a new recurring colorful character to our cast—I’ll know in a little while when I amble over to the coffee shop with Medford.

My ever-present mug (china, not stoneware), of (organically & shade-grown, fair-trade, Guatemalan-roast, unpolluted with cream or sugar) coffee hot and steaming, is warming my hands in the 22ºF clear pre-dawn morning. My thoughts again roam to my great good fortune in this life. Again this morning, as I have each day of my nearly 76 years, I awoke alive—that’s a fine start to any day, I think.

This Thanksgiving week, there will probably not be much coming from the Codgers at the Coffee Shop, as the boys, save Medford & I, have already left town to be with their respective children for the holiday. This year its Med & Laura’s (Med’s heretofore not introduced bride of 51 years) turn to host, and my turn to be a guest. Still, we will be at the coffee shop this week—and if anything postworthy develops—it will appear on these pages.

Jay Merton

Since it seems I find myself reflecting from the back porch, I figured you might like to see a facsimile of what it looks like—these drawings are pretty accurate—if I do say so myself. Drawn using MS Word’s limited graphics program, they may be rotated with the coffee mug (china-not stoneware) photo. You’ll note I hope, the mug in my avatar’s hand.

Full-size drawing of Jay’s back porch:

 Close-up drawing of Jay’ back porch:

Jay Merton