Geezer Power:
A New Spin on Senior Scams
Copyright by Ruth Lampert, September 2008
Don’t just whine about it - beat them at their own game. As a chronologically gifted person, (my grandson’s creative term for “elderly”) you are in a position to: make scamming an equal opportunity activity. Scam the scammers! Turn a lemon into lemonade!
Here are some tips for effective telephone pitches to help you get started:
“Hello young fellow, (or ‘young lady,’ or if in doubt, ‘my friend’)”how are you today? Did you know there are thousands of elderly folks out there who have no one to leave their money to?” (this point gets a pitiful quaver in your voice, suggesting you may be one of them.) “All you need do is sign up for my seminar on ‘Beyond Roofing Rip-Offs With Retired Rubes...’ Yessir, this fantastic event will be advertised on national TV’. tomorrow for $999.99 – registration is yours at a special one-time only price of for only $18.75 just be using your credit card. Act NOW: I can take that information immediately on this here phone!”
Or try this one:
“Send $50.00 in cash (envelope must be marked by midnight tonight) for a full audio-cassette or compact disk recourse of instruction on ‘New Scams With Old Folks.’ This gem is by a A WELL KNOWN promoter, the very same con artist you have seen on late night television explaining “How I Made a Fortune With Nothing Down in the Scam Market.”
Hey there old timer, you weren’t born yesterday – far from it.
You’ve seen what Geezer Power can do politically. Let it work for you financially! You know you’ve been ripped off a time or two in your long life – here is the chance you have been waiting for to scam the scammers! How do you know who the scammers are? I will provide you with this and other vital information – information available no where else – just as soon as you tell me your credit card number, expiration date, and those three numbers on the back “
Win-win propositions aren’t the sole property of the younger generation you know. If you are wondering how to get the telephone numbers of MILLIONS of these so-called baby boomers, well, you know how to reach me.
And phone calls are only the beginning. There is also e-mail, text messaging and who knows what other new-fangled technologies are on the horizon? But don’t wait. The old-fashioned way was good enough to get you to invest in Nigeria, and it’s good enough to work in the USA.
Operators are waiting to take your information. You won’t regret it, I promise you. Would I lie?
Have a great evening!
Friday, September 12, 2008
Friday, August 8, 2008
The Scarlet Letter II
copyright by Ruth Lampert August 2008
When I was young, "virtue" meant saving your virginity for your husband. Strict guidelines governed "necking" and "petting;" “going all the way" meant virtue went out the window (usually a back-seat window) along with virginity.
Now that I am "of a certain age," you might think primrose paths pose no terror, but in fact only the name of the path has changed; the route itself remains wickedly similar. Today "virtue" means hanging on to a low cholesterol reading with the same determination as we once clung to that other anatomical gem.
(Fortunately, low cholesterol can be regained, and while I have heard that virginity is automatically restored after seven years of abstinence, I have my doubts.)
Thus we see the tenacity of early training, or interject, as we call them in the psychotherapy trade. I acknowledge that as an anti-stress technique I occasionally indulge in foods with a slightly naughty fat gram content or lick my lips over a handful of potato chips. But I exercise control, knowing that regardless of the temptation, setting limits is my responsibility.
This wicked world is full of seducers who will say anything to get me to indulge my baser tastes, but it's my body that will bear testimony to moral lapses.
Refusal can be gracious: "Don't think I'm not tempted. If I was going to indulge with anyone, it would be with you." And I've been around too long to fall for that old line about how if I really cared I would submit; I know that if my saying "no" means the ends of the relationship it wasn't worth preserving. There are plenty of women (or "girls" as we called them back in those benighted days) who, desperate for affection, will gobble down a double order of fries, but I have standards and values thank you.
So while I'd like to say the devil made me do it last night, I have to accept responsibility for my downfall.
Temptations were enormous. The setting was romantic, complete with Italian food, Italian music, and an Italian man. I was properly restrained with the salad, saying no to the Caesar salad dripping with egg-yolk dressing, and demurely accepting the more innocent mixed greens. I began to get a bit wayward with the foccacio, so voluptuously spread with fragrant oil. And then -- I can't explain what happened -- I could feel my resolve weakening, and it was as though a voice in my head was taunting me: "Still the good little girl, aren't you? Grow up! Everybody does it!" And down that slippery slope I went, reveling in deep-fried zucchini, lost in the rapture of fettuccini alfredo, until, passing passion's point of no return I surrendered to the Double Decadent Chocolate Torte.
I had gone all the way.
The man insists he still respects me. And maybe, it’s true that the scarlet letter "S" he placed around my neck stands for "Sweetheart" and not "Slut." He maintains that anything we do by mutual consent is healthy and beautiful because we love each other, and are husband and wife.
What a line.
copyright by Ruth Lampert August 2008
When I was young, "virtue" meant saving your virginity for your husband. Strict guidelines governed "necking" and "petting;" “going all the way" meant virtue went out the window (usually a back-seat window) along with virginity.
Now that I am "of a certain age," you might think primrose paths pose no terror, but in fact only the name of the path has changed; the route itself remains wickedly similar. Today "virtue" means hanging on to a low cholesterol reading with the same determination as we once clung to that other anatomical gem.
(Fortunately, low cholesterol can be regained, and while I have heard that virginity is automatically restored after seven years of abstinence, I have my doubts.)
Thus we see the tenacity of early training, or interject, as we call them in the psychotherapy trade. I acknowledge that as an anti-stress technique I occasionally indulge in foods with a slightly naughty fat gram content or lick my lips over a handful of potato chips. But I exercise control, knowing that regardless of the temptation, setting limits is my responsibility.
This wicked world is full of seducers who will say anything to get me to indulge my baser tastes, but it's my body that will bear testimony to moral lapses.
Refusal can be gracious: "Don't think I'm not tempted. If I was going to indulge with anyone, it would be with you." And I've been around too long to fall for that old line about how if I really cared I would submit; I know that if my saying "no" means the ends of the relationship it wasn't worth preserving. There are plenty of women (or "girls" as we called them back in those benighted days) who, desperate for affection, will gobble down a double order of fries, but I have standards and values thank you.
So while I'd like to say the devil made me do it last night, I have to accept responsibility for my downfall.
Temptations were enormous. The setting was romantic, complete with Italian food, Italian music, and an Italian man. I was properly restrained with the salad, saying no to the Caesar salad dripping with egg-yolk dressing, and demurely accepting the more innocent mixed greens. I began to get a bit wayward with the foccacio, so voluptuously spread with fragrant oil. And then -- I can't explain what happened -- I could feel my resolve weakening, and it was as though a voice in my head was taunting me: "Still the good little girl, aren't you? Grow up! Everybody does it!" And down that slippery slope I went, reveling in deep-fried zucchini, lost in the rapture of fettuccini alfredo, until, passing passion's point of no return I surrendered to the Double Decadent Chocolate Torte.
I had gone all the way.
The man insists he still respects me. And maybe, it’s true that the scarlet letter "S" he placed around my neck stands for "Sweetheart" and not "Slut." He maintains that anything we do by mutual consent is healthy and beautiful because we love each other, and are husband and wife.
What a line.
Friday, June 27, 2008
House Calls
copyright by Ruth Lampert June 2008
“What’s a House Call, Mommy?”
No kid, a “house call” isn’t when you call your brother from your bedroom on your cell phone to his bedroom on his cell phone. And no, smartie, it isn’t a greeting one dwelling makes to another.
When you overheard Grandma say to Grandpa, “I wish we still had house calls,” she was talking about something that existed in the old days (not necessarily “good,” but definitely “gone”) before there were things like cell phones and computers and HMO’s.
I myself am old enough to remember House Calls, so let me explain how they worked. When you were sick, you called the doctor, and spoke to him (rarely was it a “her) or his nurse (almost always a “her.) He said things like “How high is your temperature?” “Put ice on it” and the classic “take two aspirins and call me in the morning.”
If you were still sick the next day, he drove to your house before he went to the office. Yes, that’s right, he drove right up to your house himself, carrying a reassuring black bag (no, not a backpack) full of magical potions and pills as well as a stethoscope and thermometer. Lots of times just the sight of him and his black bag was enough to start the patient back on the road to health. Usually he was a little portly, a little bald, with a kindly smile If you were a child, he seemed elderly. No matter how old you were, he seemed wise.
Sometimes people called in the middle of the night, and the doctor might be a little cross and say “Why did you wait so long to call me?”
before recommending you take two aspirins and call him in the morning. l. If you were really in bad shape, he’d come over, in spite of his wife’s grumbling that he let his patients take advantage of him.
Call 911? That hadn’t been invented yet. Yes, of course we had police and firemen, and ambulances to rush people to the hospital after accidents and heart attacks, but I have no idea who you had to call or what you had to do to get one. Perhaps you could make that your project and report back to us. .
I also remember the days before antihistamines. My periodic attacks of hives were presumed to be the result of an allergy, but to what no one knew (somehow “strawberries” were high on the list of usual suspects.) The only thing that brought a measure of relief was Calamine lotion, liberally applied. *
I even remember the dawn of “wonder drugs.” I have written elsewhere about my camp experience with kosher food and strep throat and I recall that when I was sent back home with the mother of all sore throats, Doc Kraut dashed over immediately from his office above the corner drug store, (which also supplied marvelous ice cream drinks at the soda counter, but that’s another story, which will probably eventually appear on this blog.). Doc was more jovial than usual as he said, “You’re lucky you came down with this now instead of last year. Now we have medicine, called Sulpha that cures it. You’ll be up and about in no time.”
And I was. It wasn’t until many years later that I developed an allergy to sulfa, and then to the even more wonderful wonder drug Penicillin. These reactions could have finished me off; fortunately in each case huge dose of antihistamines cured the cure that was worse than the disease. But I digress.
Returning to the theme of House Calls:
They were still an accepted part of life the night my Dad died in his sleep. I remember my mother on the phone, not to 911, but to Doc Kraut. The next thing I knew he was huffing and puffing up the three flights of stairs to our apartment. He looked very stricken himself; he and my Dad had been buddies for lots of years.
He came out of the bedroom where my Dad was still stretched out on the bed and said in a shaky voice, “There’s nothing I can do... He’s gone.” I don’t know if I if I actually cried out “But you have to do something, or he’ll die!” or if I just thought it to myself. And I don’t know if under the same circumstances today a call to 911 would be life-saving. It’s pretty certain that the high blood pressure he had had for years would be treated. And who knew about cholesterol back then? So you see, it cuts both ways.
But back to olden, though not quite so golden, times: we were living in Tucson when Brian, then about 11 years old, was bitten by a spider, and had a severe reaction. The local doctor came over right away and took care of him – and of me, the anxious mom. Now you’ll probably think I’m making this next part up, but I swear it’s true: Two days later I got a call from the doc, saying “You know, I’m not easy in my mind yet about our young man. I’m going to be making a house call this evening right down your street, so I’ll drop by and see him just to ease my mind.”
I don’t know if he charged for that visit or not. Probably not – after all, he was in the neighborhood and it only took a couple of minutes to “ease his mind.” (His mind!)
The way we paid the doctor was different then too. . You’ve probably heard your folks talk about “HMO’s” and “Health Benefits” and maybe even “Medicare” – all that stuff hasn’t really been around for so very long, not per my time table. …
During times when there wasn’t much money, which, in my particular case seems to have been times beyond number, I sent the doctor $10.00 a month toward our balance. It was like a little annuity for him (I’ll explain “annuity” another time, honey). Month after month, year after year, that $10.00 came in regular as clock work, because as soon it came close to being paid off, someone else in the family got sick. From his point of view, I guess getting a whole lot of ten dollars every month, plus the money the rich patients paid in fall, added up o.k. (This was in the city – I don’t think he ever got paid in potatoes or chickens the way country doctors did. Or so I have heard.)
We old timers have lots of stories like this to tell. We tell them because, for one thing, that’s what old timers do.
Hey, you knew when you logged on this wasn’t MyFace.com. .
*Author’s note: Out of curiosity I just checked Google to see if Calamine lotion is still available – it is, but guess what; sometimes there is a severe allergic reaction...
copyright by Ruth Lampert June 2008
“What’s a House Call, Mommy?”
No kid, a “house call” isn’t when you call your brother from your bedroom on your cell phone to his bedroom on his cell phone. And no, smartie, it isn’t a greeting one dwelling makes to another.
When you overheard Grandma say to Grandpa, “I wish we still had house calls,” she was talking about something that existed in the old days (not necessarily “good,” but definitely “gone”) before there were things like cell phones and computers and HMO’s.
I myself am old enough to remember House Calls, so let me explain how they worked. When you were sick, you called the doctor, and spoke to him (rarely was it a “her) or his nurse (almost always a “her.) He said things like “How high is your temperature?” “Put ice on it” and the classic “take two aspirins and call me in the morning.”
If you were still sick the next day, he drove to your house before he went to the office. Yes, that’s right, he drove right up to your house himself, carrying a reassuring black bag (no, not a backpack) full of magical potions and pills as well as a stethoscope and thermometer. Lots of times just the sight of him and his black bag was enough to start the patient back on the road to health. Usually he was a little portly, a little bald, with a kindly smile If you were a child, he seemed elderly. No matter how old you were, he seemed wise.
Sometimes people called in the middle of the night, and the doctor might be a little cross and say “Why did you wait so long to call me?”
before recommending you take two aspirins and call him in the morning. l. If you were really in bad shape, he’d come over, in spite of his wife’s grumbling that he let his patients take advantage of him.
Call 911? That hadn’t been invented yet. Yes, of course we had police and firemen, and ambulances to rush people to the hospital after accidents and heart attacks, but I have no idea who you had to call or what you had to do to get one. Perhaps you could make that your project and report back to us. .
I also remember the days before antihistamines. My periodic attacks of hives were presumed to be the result of an allergy, but to what no one knew (somehow “strawberries” were high on the list of usual suspects.) The only thing that brought a measure of relief was Calamine lotion, liberally applied. *
I even remember the dawn of “wonder drugs.” I have written elsewhere about my camp experience with kosher food and strep throat and I recall that when I was sent back home with the mother of all sore throats, Doc Kraut dashed over immediately from his office above the corner drug store, (which also supplied marvelous ice cream drinks at the soda counter, but that’s another story, which will probably eventually appear on this blog.). Doc was more jovial than usual as he said, “You’re lucky you came down with this now instead of last year. Now we have medicine, called Sulpha that cures it. You’ll be up and about in no time.”
And I was. It wasn’t until many years later that I developed an allergy to sulfa, and then to the even more wonderful wonder drug Penicillin. These reactions could have finished me off; fortunately in each case huge dose of antihistamines cured the cure that was worse than the disease. But I digress.
Returning to the theme of House Calls:
They were still an accepted part of life the night my Dad died in his sleep. I remember my mother on the phone, not to 911, but to Doc Kraut. The next thing I knew he was huffing and puffing up the three flights of stairs to our apartment. He looked very stricken himself; he and my Dad had been buddies for lots of years.
He came out of the bedroom where my Dad was still stretched out on the bed and said in a shaky voice, “There’s nothing I can do... He’s gone.” I don’t know if I if I actually cried out “But you have to do something, or he’ll die!” or if I just thought it to myself. And I don’t know if under the same circumstances today a call to 911 would be life-saving. It’s pretty certain that the high blood pressure he had had for years would be treated. And who knew about cholesterol back then? So you see, it cuts both ways.
But back to olden, though not quite so golden, times: we were living in Tucson when Brian, then about 11 years old, was bitten by a spider, and had a severe reaction. The local doctor came over right away and took care of him – and of me, the anxious mom. Now you’ll probably think I’m making this next part up, but I swear it’s true: Two days later I got a call from the doc, saying “You know, I’m not easy in my mind yet about our young man. I’m going to be making a house call this evening right down your street, so I’ll drop by and see him just to ease my mind.”
I don’t know if he charged for that visit or not. Probably not – after all, he was in the neighborhood and it only took a couple of minutes to “ease his mind.” (His mind!)
The way we paid the doctor was different then too. . You’ve probably heard your folks talk about “HMO’s” and “Health Benefits” and maybe even “Medicare” – all that stuff hasn’t really been around for so very long, not per my time table. …
During times when there wasn’t much money, which, in my particular case seems to have been times beyond number, I sent the doctor $10.00 a month toward our balance. It was like a little annuity for him (I’ll explain “annuity” another time, honey). Month after month, year after year, that $10.00 came in regular as clock work, because as soon it came close to being paid off, someone else in the family got sick. From his point of view, I guess getting a whole lot of ten dollars every month, plus the money the rich patients paid in fall, added up o.k. (This was in the city – I don’t think he ever got paid in potatoes or chickens the way country doctors did. Or so I have heard.)
We old timers have lots of stories like this to tell. We tell them because, for one thing, that’s what old timers do.
Hey, you knew when you logged on this wasn’t MyFace.com. .
*Author’s note: Out of curiosity I just checked Google to see if Calamine lotion is still available – it is, but guess what; sometimes there is a severe allergic reaction...
Friday, June 13, 2008
The Corn Flake Cure – a Tribute for Father’s Day
copyright by Ruth Lampert June 2008
There must be 150 varieties of cold cereal in the market, and although I virtuously choose the crunchy high fibe “Heart Healthy” there will always be a special place in my heart for plain old corn flakes, the grain of tender memory.
I was about eight years old when I came down with whooping cough. That nasty childhood disease has now largely vasished. .I have forgotten most of my experience with it except for how exhausting and incessant that hacking cough was. What I remember is my father, and the loving part he, and corn flakes, played in smy recuperation
It was a Sunday afternoon, and I was wrapped in that delicious euphoria that comes with feeling better. Not yet completely well – still weak enough to be pampered. Mother, Bob, and Cine were out somewhere, and Daddy stayed home with me.
Just the two of us! How rare a treat. No need to share his special presence, his scent of shaving lotion and cigars, his gentle jokes. The apartment was warm and cozy. We listened to the radio - I don’t remember what was on, all the really good shows, like Jack Benny, Rudee Valley, and Major Bowes Amateur Hour came on in the evening – and after awhile he said
“Snack time! Doctor Daddy’s orders for the patient!”.
I still had no appetite , but it sounded like fun anyway. Declaring that this was a special occasion calling for the dining room, he brought out the fresh bottle of milk which had been standing on its head in the refrigertor so the cream would disperse evenly throughout (no homogenization, no 2%, no slick cardboard cartons, no lactose-free or soy milk back then, just the regular milk-man-delivered milk in a regular glass milk bottle, cream risisng to the top as things of quality and richness do ) He assembeld it all on the table with a fresh, unopened box of Kelloggs Corn Flakes.
There weren’t many choices of packaged cereals then. Rice Krispies were good, although they didn’t exactly snap crackle and pop as advertised. I understood Wheaties. The Breakfast of Champoins, to be for boys, as attested to by its sponsoring of the radio program “Jack Armstrong, the All American Boy” (We hadn’t yet evolved to gender neutrality) The various bran varieties clearly were intended for old folks who seemed to need some help with certain vaguely hinted at bodily functions that had to do with something called “regularity.” Puffed Rice wasn’t bad in a pinch, but my cereal of choice was Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.
I took one spoonful, just to please him. It was delicious! No ad, no singing commercial, could ever describe that heavenly crispness, slightly tenderized by fresh cold milk. Daddy laughed as I finished my bowl before he was halfway through his, and asked for seconds.
“You bet, but slow down a little, your stomach is empty and if you get sick, Mother will really holler at us!” A joke, because we both knew that he was the principal healer in the parental dyad. (Although as I think back,
I realize it was Mother who was there while he was at work through my long days of whooping and hacking.)
I finished off the second bowl, and then we “retired to the living room” to sprawl on the couch, and lazily listen to whatever was on the radio.
I dozed off, lulled by the sweet combination of returning health and quiet intimacy with a beloeved parent. The sound of his gentle snoring woke me briefly. I went back to sleep, waking again to see him looking at me with such tenderness in his eyes that I burst into delighted laughter.
The key turned in the front door lock. There was more laughter as Mother, Cine and Bob burst in, bringing cold Chicago winteriness in with grocery bags from the A&P. bringing cold Chicago winteriness with them. . .
They all exclaimed about good my color was, how chipper I seemed, how well I had done in Daddy’s care. He smiled a falsely modest smile, and said, “Nothing at all, she was just ready to make the turn around I happened to be here. I can’t take the credit. It was mostly the Corn Flakes that did it.”
“I think you’re good for her,” Mother said.
Indeed, he was.
copyright by Ruth Lampert June 2008
There must be 150 varieties of cold cereal in the market, and although I virtuously choose the crunchy high fibe “Heart Healthy” there will always be a special place in my heart for plain old corn flakes, the grain of tender memory.
I was about eight years old when I came down with whooping cough. That nasty childhood disease has now largely vasished. .I have forgotten most of my experience with it except for how exhausting and incessant that hacking cough was. What I remember is my father, and the loving part he, and corn flakes, played in smy recuperation
It was a Sunday afternoon, and I was wrapped in that delicious euphoria that comes with feeling better. Not yet completely well – still weak enough to be pampered. Mother, Bob, and Cine were out somewhere, and Daddy stayed home with me.
Just the two of us! How rare a treat. No need to share his special presence, his scent of shaving lotion and cigars, his gentle jokes. The apartment was warm and cozy. We listened to the radio - I don’t remember what was on, all the really good shows, like Jack Benny, Rudee Valley, and Major Bowes Amateur Hour came on in the evening – and after awhile he said
“Snack time! Doctor Daddy’s orders for the patient!”.
I still had no appetite , but it sounded like fun anyway. Declaring that this was a special occasion calling for the dining room, he brought out the fresh bottle of milk which had been standing on its head in the refrigertor so the cream would disperse evenly throughout (no homogenization, no 2%, no slick cardboard cartons, no lactose-free or soy milk back then, just the regular milk-man-delivered milk in a regular glass milk bottle, cream risisng to the top as things of quality and richness do ) He assembeld it all on the table with a fresh, unopened box of Kelloggs Corn Flakes.
There weren’t many choices of packaged cereals then. Rice Krispies were good, although they didn’t exactly snap crackle and pop as advertised. I understood Wheaties. The Breakfast of Champoins, to be for boys, as attested to by its sponsoring of the radio program “Jack Armstrong, the All American Boy” (We hadn’t yet evolved to gender neutrality) The various bran varieties clearly were intended for old folks who seemed to need some help with certain vaguely hinted at bodily functions that had to do with something called “regularity.” Puffed Rice wasn’t bad in a pinch, but my cereal of choice was Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.
I took one spoonful, just to please him. It was delicious! No ad, no singing commercial, could ever describe that heavenly crispness, slightly tenderized by fresh cold milk. Daddy laughed as I finished my bowl before he was halfway through his, and asked for seconds.
“You bet, but slow down a little, your stomach is empty and if you get sick, Mother will really holler at us!” A joke, because we both knew that he was the principal healer in the parental dyad. (Although as I think back,
I realize it was Mother who was there while he was at work through my long days of whooping and hacking.)
I finished off the second bowl, and then we “retired to the living room” to sprawl on the couch, and lazily listen to whatever was on the radio.
I dozed off, lulled by the sweet combination of returning health and quiet intimacy with a beloeved parent. The sound of his gentle snoring woke me briefly. I went back to sleep, waking again to see him looking at me with such tenderness in his eyes that I burst into delighted laughter.
The key turned in the front door lock. There was more laughter as Mother, Cine and Bob burst in, bringing cold Chicago winteriness in with grocery bags from the A&P. bringing cold Chicago winteriness with them. . .
They all exclaimed about good my color was, how chipper I seemed, how well I had done in Daddy’s care. He smiled a falsely modest smile, and said, “Nothing at all, she was just ready to make the turn around I happened to be here. I can’t take the credit. It was mostly the Corn Flakes that did it.”
“I think you’re good for her,” Mother said.
Indeed, he was.
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