If you want the facts, avoid cranky coffee drinkers

If you get a bunch of cranky, old men around a table in an eating establishment where coffee refills are endless, you can be amazed at what you learn.

Oh, never mind that most of what you hear is nonsense. Occasionally, though, you get something called insight -- a flash of awareness and understanding.

By the way, these men slurping coffee were always cranky. It has taken a long time for them to get old.

It is easy for coffee drinkers to wax nostalgic. And it's just as easy for arguments to erupt over the least consequential topics.

Was Eisenhower really the last decent president? Wait. Didn't he have a mistress?

In general, cranky, old men hold to the view that "the good old days" were better than today.

Sure, everyone acknowledges medical advances that are pure miracles. But look at it this way: When you had a serious illness in the good old days, you died. Nowadays modern medicine can keep you going and going and going.

Here are some examples, thanks to caffeine overloads, of words of wisdom uttered by cranky, old men.

If there were nursing homes in those days, they were few and far between. And usually reserved for the rich. Most bedridden relatives were lodged in a spare bedroom and tended by relatives. There were few cases of extended care-giving, even for cancer, because there were few effective treatments for cancer. End of story.

There was little in the way of handicap access, even in public places, in the good old days. If Aunt Martha, confined to a wheelchair, wanted to get up the steps into Shady Nook Church on Sundays, her nephews would have to carry her. They didn't whine about the lack of a ramp or doors that opened automatically. Aunt Martha didn't weigh all that much to begin with. And she certainly never considered suing the church that time nephew Bobby Lee dropped his side of the wheelchair and Aunt Martha went rolling down the steps, across the gravel drive and nearly into the creek. She sat up, laughing so hard she could hardly talk. Finally she said to her nephews, "Well, boys, I plumb nearly got baptized again."

If she had even considered suing the church for the lack of an accessible entrance, what would Aunt Martha have gained? The church had little money, barely enough to pay the preacher.

In the good old days you could ask for a soda pop and you would get a soda pop. Maybe a Coca-Cola. Maybe a Nehi grape. What you did not need, in those days, was a degree in computer science to figure out how to operate one of those new beverage-dispensing monsters that will give you a Coke only if you can figure out the right sequence of buttons to push before the whole thing goes sloshing down your pants and over your shoes.

What we had in the good old days: manners. We were taught manners by our mothers. Our fathers did not do much in the way of teaching etiquette. They were the enforcers. If Mom said to stop picking your nose while singing in the children's choir at church, it would be Pop who showed you the consequences of ignoring Mom.

How children spoke to adults was part of the whole manners picture. We would never call an adult by his or her first name. My first-grade teacher, Mrs. Rayfield, was Ola Rayfield to family and friends. Over the next 60-plus years after starting school it never occurred to me, not even once, that I might call her Ola, even though she continued to bake cakes for my birthdays. Every adult was a sir or ma'am. Mr. or Mrs. or Miss. There was no such thing as a Ms. In the good old days. And, by the way, what is the PC address for an unmarried man?

Which leads me to political correctness.

In the good old days, cranky, old men are likely to say, we didn't have PC. But we did. It just looked different. We had honor and decency. We treated others with respect. We acknowledged that other folks were different somehow. There was an understanding that we meant no disrespect to the first occupants of this continent, but we played "cowboys and Indians," not "European immigrant ranch personnel and native Americans."

Well, you get the drift. Cranky, old men are something every generation has to put up with. Sometimes, though, they know what they're talking about. The key is learning how to distinguish between wisdom and bull -- although the bull is mighty easy to spot.

Maybe you've had some experience with the good old days or with cranky, old men. Let me know.

Joe Sullivan is the retired editor of the Southeast Missourian.