Old coot has wisdom corralled for rainy day.

Home Coun­try

Slim Ran­dles

It occurred to me the other day just what a bless­ing it is to be a grand­fa­ther. The chil­dren think we’re all pow­er­ful, a fount of knowl­edge and wis­dom. Then they turn three …

We could all use coot lessons.

Yes, the enig­matic old coot in every small town like ours has wis­dom cor­ralled, knowl­edge tucked away for a rainy day, and is espe­cially mys­te­ri­ous. So here are some coot lessons.

Les­son One: Look col­or­ful. Wear a hat that was found buried at Get­tys­burg or Ther­mopy­lae. Don’t clean it up. Wear boots that aren’t pol­ished with any­thing not pro­vided by horses and cows. Red sus­penders are called for. Extra points for stains.

Les­son Two: Learn a coot skill. These include whit­tling, rope tricks, sharp­en­ing pocket knives and sleight of hand. You get extra points for play­ing some­thing rec­og­niz­able on the har­mon­ica. A jaw harp is good. All you have to do is twang it, because no one can rec­og­nize a tune on it any­way. If you play piano, deduct 10 points.

As to the whit­tling, you just keep your knife sharp and shave sticks thin­ner and thin­ner. Hold it up to the light and turn it. Extra points for a notch or two carved in it. Then you hand it to a kid to keep.

What is it?” a rude kid might ask.

That’s when you screw up your griz­zled face, wink at the kid, and say, “I’m sure you must rec­og­nize that, kid. You look pretty smart to me.”

And now the all-important Les­son Three: Never let them pin you down on ideas. Oh, we know they’re right. The prob­lem is, some college-trained punk will pep­per us with facts and make us look bad.

Here’s an exam­ple of Coot Tact.

Young punk – “The world’s head­ing for catastrophe.”

Coot – “Son, that’s what they want you to think.”

Then snap your red sus­penders and tip him a con­spir­a­to­r­ial wink.

(Never, upon pain of root canal, explain who “they” are)

The word will spread and you will be cred­ited with bring­ing civ­i­liza­tion to the world, invent­ing the sole­noid, res­cu­ing fair maid­ens and dis­cov­er­ing fire.

And if you do this long enough, you’ll out­live any­one who can call you a liar.

Brought to you by Home Coun­try (the book). See it at http://nmsantos.com/Books/Home/Home.html.

Posted by kpotts on Mar 20 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.