I’m turning into a coot way ahead of schedule.\u00a0<\/p>\n
First I had to look up that word to be sure it’s still the one I used to know and hasn’t turned into something dirty in the past little while.\u00a0 Nope.\u00a0 I’m safe.\u00a0 A coot, according to Merriam-Webster,\u00a0 is still a “harmless, simple person.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Back where I came up, in the Deep South, coots were\u00a0a bit more\u00a0complex than that.\u00a0\u00a0I’m not\u00a0sure they were all so simple, but they probably\u00a0enjoyed being thought of that way, since it gave them greater freedom to observe the rest of us, without anyone giving a whit for their opinions.<\/p>\n
It was a group of coots who\u00a0gathered\u00a0at the cafe in the morning, some of them with no place else to be and some who chose that perch because being a coot\u00a0had become a full-time job and that was their workplace.<\/p>\n
I’d call what they did gossip, except that\u00a0most of them were men,\u00a0and men don’t\u00a0refer to themselves as gossips.\u00a0\u00a0They might say they’re visiting.\u00a0 Or getting together.\u00a0 Or stopping by.\u00a0 Or talking.\u00a0\u00a0But never gossip.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was\u00a0the old coots around home who\u00a0often came up with the greatest wisdom and when they upped and said something smart, everyone acted surprised.\u00a0\u00a0 I don’t know why.\u00a0 Certainly they’d observed more of human nature than most of the rest of us.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
My favorite neighborhood visiting buddy these days is a man and I don’t want to call him something he doesn’t want to own, so let’s\u00a0just say we talk about\u00a0nothing in particular.\u00a0 Still,\u00a0when our brief visits are done, I always feel better informed.\u00a0 When he brings up a topic,\u00a0he compares it to other things he’s witnessed in his lifetime of observing and then he draws conclusions.\u00a0\u00a0Opinionated gossip is my favorite kind.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Today I’ll phone him to ask what kind of trees are those on the corner that the trimmers are lopping off?\u00a0 And does he think they’ll survive?\u00a0 He’ll have an informed opinion\u00a0about the way the tree-trimmers are handling the job.<\/p>\n
Recently\u00a0he asked,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Did you\u00a0hear\u00a0about the\u00a0two widow ladies next door to each other\u00a0who passed away one right after the other last week?”\u00a0<\/p>\n
The second lady, he said,\u00a0had just returned from a\u00a0memorial service for the first and\u00a0was still in the clothes she wore\u00a0to the event when she expired.\u00a0This week, two\u00a0families\u00a0are over there packing up two houses next door to each other, where two ladies who were friends and neighbors for decades both departed within a few days.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
We’ll drink\u00a0coffee for a bit and then\u00a0my friend will offer some pearl of wisdom about life in general based on these specifics and\u00a0I’ll go back to my routine still mulling over the significance of those trees\u00a0and those ladies around the corner.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n