An Old Fogey Remembers

This column originally appeared on Sunday, May 24, 2009

This is an apology alert.

I am going to apologize to a section of the Chester County demographic for the column I am about to compose, and I wanted to let you know about it. I am going to apologize to that demographic – i.e. the 18 to 35 age bracket -- because I know what it is like to have inflicted upon you, meaning me, what I am about to inflict on you, meaning them. I am going to apologize because I am going to write what we in the ink-stained wretch biz affectionately refer to as “the Old Fogey Column.”

You know the type, I am certain. You know the type because you have read them as long as you’ve been reading newspapers. You know the type, but you may have also referred to them as the “back in my day column.” You know the type, because you’ve read them and either nodded your head sagely about the perspecaciousness of the writer, or shook your head and wondered what they pay people for putting drivel such as this in print.

This is the column in which the author gets to harrumph about some change he or she just woke up from their afternoon zizz long enough to notice, whereupon he or she promptly made a mental note to pontificate on the subject of how “times have changed” and then go back to sleep. This is the column in which the author proclaims the benefits of the rotary telephone, or transistor radios, or non-bottled water that was so commonplace when he or she was coming of age.

The subject of this column occurred to me Monday when I heard that the folks in the Chester County republican Party were not, repeat not, going to be gathering at a spot on the west side of West Chester to go over the returns from the Tuesday’s primary election. Rather than live it up at the Elks, Skip Brion and his merry bunch of Grand Old Partiers were going to hunker down at the headquarters on South Church Street.

A similar theme was relayed to me about the plans of some major Democrats. The days of gathering at the local Knights of Columbus having gone the way of the nickel candy bar, they were going to get together at somebody’s house to check the returns as they came in.