Robert Bussard

A Coot Comes Clean Robert Bussard

The coot's folly, a typical coot being an increasingly cantankerous old fart, is to look back and believe his life has been so interesting, someone wants to hear about it. So, he writes a few stories using the remainder of a young man's memories; it's been done a million times. Then something happens, he gets honest, he sees the young man's travails and tragedies through experienced, weakened of vision, but toughened by acuity, old man eyes. He rewrites the tales with elucidating language the young man never possessed. He replaces guesswork about life with nuance and reality born of lived history. Maybe he finds an answer or two, but mainly he just wants to make the questions clear. The coot does not worry about embarrassment, failure or incrimination. The older one becomes, the less one need worry about mistakes, because one won't have to live with them as long as a younger person would. There is tremendous freedom in this idea. So, the coot comes clean, let's the chips fall where they may and says, "here, come laugh at me; that's what I'm doing!"Product Warning: These stories are not intended for all readers, do not use if you are: allergic to laughter, repulsed by ribald humor or become inflamed by occasional contact with scurrilous and salacious language. Possible side effects include: howler monkey outbursts of laughter, introspection, reflexive grinning... and of course, anal leakage.