September 30, 2002

•   Today I am going to address an issue which is no doubt on many people’s minds.  That is, what is the difference between an old fart, a gaffer, a crank, a curmudgeon, a codger and a geezer.  For some reason, I have always felt older than I really am.  Maybe this has something to dowith having been promoted from kid to quasi-parent at age 12, when my first sister was born–at the time, Mom was working nights at a truck stop, and Dad was busy drinking himself into the state hospital.  Also, premature grey runs in my family, and I  started going grey in high school. Anyway. . . . .

  
  

  I sorta jokingly refer to myself as an old fart.  The expression is a pejorative in my book.  It refers to someone who is inconsequential, ephemeral, slightly unpleasant, and sometimes unintentionally amusing.  Around our house, a fart joke is always good for a laugh.

  
  

  A gaffer, in Hollywood slang, is a lighting technician.  Similarly, a gaffer here is enlightened, someone who is full of years and as full of homespun wisdom as an egg is of meat. I will never be a gaffer.  Crank, yes; gaffer, no.

  
  

  Cranks don’t have to be old, but the best ones are.  It takes time to develop the eccentric mannerisms and extreme and unpopular opinions that are the hallmarks of crankhood.  In our neighborhood, the woods are pretty much full of cranks.  I encountered a genuine crank at my stand once, a retired commercial pilot who was convinced that the Trade Center went down because of explosive charges planted by One-Worlders.  A salient characteristic of cranks is that they often start out making a certain amount of sense, then just sort of veer off into the ozone.

  
  

  That brings me to curmudgeons.  They have a long and honorable history.  The dudue who wrote the Book of Jeremiah was certainly a curmudgeon, as was the Roman satirist Juvenal.  More recent  examples of the breed include Jonathon Swift, Ambrose Bierce, and H. L. Menchen.  You’ve heard the old saw aboutlooking at an 8-ounce glass which contains 4 ounces–half full or half empty?  A curmudgeon doesn’t care, but is repulsed by the lip marks on the glass.  A curmudgeon knows that most people are more or less dishonest, selfish, fear-ridden, and unevolved.  It’s a dirt job but someone has to do it.  (Right now, a bunch of incredibly scurrilous political ads are running on TV, so rotten are they I even hate the one’s making fun of the Republican, who is a hack and a whited sepulcher of the first water.)

  
  

  Next we have the codger.   Codgers are probably the most harmless of the lot, way too mellow to be a curmudgeon but not smart enough to be a gaffer.  Your codger is ineffectual but still pretty much functional, unlike the geezer.

  
  

  Once you have reached geezerhood, your days are numbered.  Nursing homes are full of geezers.  Your classic geezers usually have had at least one stroke, and/or symptoms of Alzheimer’s  Being a geezer is no fun at all.

  
  

  You may be wondering about where sourdoughs fit in.  The true sourdoughs have pretty much died out, as they came here over 100 years ago for the gold rush.  In their day, the most competant sourdoughs were gaffers.  Today, the sort of joke is that a sourdough is someone who is sour on Alaska but doesn’t have the dough to leave.

  • 3:29 pm
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