... My father was unemployed.  We had very little food.  We never bathed.  I didn't go to school very often.  But I was a teenager so I didn't give a shit about any of that stuff.  I just wanted to have sexual relations with Mary Dell'gato.

Today, my pension is shot (thanks to that no good mother fucker Richard Fuld and his bankrupt Lehman Brothers!).  My ass doesn't really work anymore.  THOSE DAMN KIDS rip apart my lawn and TP my trees.  And I'm a really old man. 

The Great Depression was better.

I'll talk at you next week.

Lester Aldrich is a freelance columnist for Octogenarian Magazine.  Manka Bros. Studios is not responsible for any action by our freelance writers.  If Mr. Aldrich actually kills someone, that's his problem. Manka Bros. cannot be held accountable.

The last day I was happy was August 3rd, 1976.  Maybe down the line I'll tell you what happened on that day.  But not today.  I'm too sick and tired to talk about something happy.

The Spartans are going to break my heart again this year.  If they lose to Notre Dame this weekend, I may give up and die right in front of the TV.  It's always cold as Hell in this God forsaken Michigan.  I don't think I'll ever be warm again.

THOSE DAMN KIDS can do whatever they want to me and Mrs. Aldrich today... I just don't care.

If they want to throw rocks at Mrs. Aldrich... do it.

If they want to stick vegetables in the tailpipe of my car - knock yourselves out.

If they want to dump wet cement over my rose bushes again - it's all yours, boys!

If they want to stick super glue under the door handle on the car so Mrs. Aldrich's hand gets stuck again - nobody named Lester is going to stop you.

I'm not going to kill them today because I just don't care enough to kill.  No one is joining my revolution.

This is my 88th September 18th and whoop-ti-fucking-do, what a day it is!

I'll talk at you next week...

Lester Aldrich is a freelance columnist for Octogenarian Magazine.  Manka Bros. Studios is not responsible for any action by our freelance writers.  If Mr. Aldrich actually kills someone, that's his problem. Manka Bros. cannot be held accountable.

Mrs. Aldrich is absolutely sick of THOSE DAMN KIDS!

It's bad enough she has go to the doctor three times a week and take a bag full of pills each day just to have the strength to watch television, but THOSE DAMN KIDS keep tormenting her with footballs in our shrubs and bicycles that crush her precious rose bushes.

There's only so much old people can stomach before we take the law into our own hands!  If it means I have to shoot and kill some of THOSE DAMN KIDS, I just might have to do it.

I'm an old man.  I've lived a long time and I know when all this hooliganism started.  It was the day marijuana came into this country.  Brought over by the dope smoking Chinese after Chiang Kai-shek lost the war to the Communists.  Ever since then THOSE DAMN KIDS have been HIGH ON POT.

Confucius was wrong when he said, 'He who stands on the toilet gets high on pot.'  I say, he who smokes reefer gets high on pot - and gets so high on pot that they treat old people like a fist full of maggots.

Well, listen up, sonny boys and sonny girls, THERE'S GOING TO BE A REVOLUTION and it's going to be started by the OCTOGENARIANS of this country!  If it means a lot of blood is spilled, then so be it.

But by God, we're going to take this country back!

Historians will analyze the revolution and write, 'I think we could have stopped all the carnage and loss of life if THOSE DAMN KIDS would have stayed off my fucking lawn!"

I'll talk at you next week...

Lester Aldrich is a freelance columnist for Octogenarian Magazine.  Manka Bros. Studios is not responsible for any action by our freelance writers.  If Mr. Aldrich actually kills someone, that's his problem. Manka Bros. cannot be held accountable.

I just want to say for the record on this world wide web I type on every week - FUCK MY COLOSTOMY BAG.  FUCK IT ALL TO HELL!!

You see, sometimes old people like George Burns are allowed to smoke and function normally until they die peacefully at the age of 100 and others, like me, can't shit past 80.

We had a bunch of assholes from my family (no pun) over to the house for a BBQ yesterday.  It was a goddamned embarrassment and fucking lack of respect!  All day long I had to listen to THOSE DAMN KIDS from the neighborhood that my bitch of a wife invited and also my grandkids and great-grandkids giggle at the fact that Grandpa Lester could only eat Jello and was only allowed one beer (light beer!) the entire day!

I'll say it again - FUCK MY COLOSTOMY BAG.  FUCK IT ALL TO HELL!!

They grilled the burgers right in front of me and made big jokes as they munched on hot dogs and potato chips and all drank till they were drunk!  May Satan fuck them all in Hell!

If it weren't for Mrs. Aldrich's 'attention must be paid' prayer mentioning me to our Lord, I would have felt that I was already dead. 

Now I know why ol' Dick Shepherd keeps trying to shoot himself. 

I will always remember this year as the year I lost the use of my ass. 

I'll talk at you next week...

Lester Aldrich is a freelance columnist for Octogenarian Magazine.  Manka Bros. Studios is not responsible for any action by our freelance writers.  If Mr. Aldrich actually kills someone, that's his problem. Manka Bros. cannot be held accountable.

Hello, this is Mrs. Aldrich - Lester Aldrich's wife.  He wanted me to type something here to tell you that he can't write his column today because he has issues with his colostomy bag and can't straighten his fingers.  Also the closing ceremonies of the Olympics gave him a seizure.

He will talk at you next week.

Lester Aldrich is a freelance columnist for Octogenarian Magazine.  Manka Bros. Studios is not responsible for any action by our freelance writers.  If Mr. Aldrich actually kills someone, that's his problem. Manka Bros. cannot be held accountable.

... so I shut her in her room with a handful of bouillon and called Dick Shepherd. He took a taxi over from the rest home and we watched some television. He only has half a tongue so I offered him half a beer.

As we all know, the Olympics are on.  And I hate the Olympics.  Without the Soviets, it's like watching an Andy Hardy movie. They knew how to train athletes.  Fourteen hour days, seven days a week, thousands of miles from home - all before your tenth birthday.  And when that powerful Soviet National Anthem came up, you knew your ass was beat badly.  And they would sneer and stick out their chest.  Soviet athletes were men - even the women.

So Shep wants to watch the Olympics.  Okay, fine.  The black golfer's is hurt and not on, so fine.  We'll watch it. The first thing that came on my television was the most pitiful fucking thing I've ever seen.  And I'm not talking about female weightlifting.  No, no... I like female weightlifting.  If more women could lift heavy things like that we wouldn't be in the middle of this damn energy crisis.

What I'm talking about is...

...MEN'S SYNCHRONIZED DIVING.

When is see things like that I often think of war and wonder if this was what we were fighting for.  Shep made some stupid remark about their little swimtrunks calling it a "Battle of the Bulge" - Shep's gonna die soon, so I laughed at his joke.

I thought about an ice storm in December of 1943 where the ice would hit you like a dart in the face.  And I thought that if Tony South Shore would have waited for me and Eddie Dykstra to synchronize our dives into the Rhine to save his ass, he would have been sucking German mud before we did our first toe touch.

Look at those freaks.  They stand there on the diving board in their little trunks with their hair combed.  Then they dive, wait for their score and then sit in a Jacuzzi hot tub waiting to do it again.  You know what we got to sit in once we finished shooting Germans?  Our own filth.  You know what Old Shep's sitting in while watching Men's Synchronized Diving?  His own filth.  Where's the sport in that?

Men don't need to dive the same way at the same time.  If they did, it would have been in the Bible.

I'll talk at you next week....

Lester Aldrich is a freelance columnist for Octogenarian Magazine.  Manka Bros. Studios is not responsible for any action by our freelance writers.  If Mr. Aldrich actually kills someone, that's his problem. Manka Bros. cannot be held accountable.

The Olympics are stupid.  Who cares who can run faster or throw a lead ball further?  I could care less. 

In WWII it didn't matter who could shoot better or who was the better, more dedicated soldier, we won that war because we had bigger bombs.

The Chinese have shown how to make Communism work.  By spending and making money.  Get ready for an invasion in a few years.  On TV, we see all the fancy buildings that they built.  What we didn't see is all the fancy bombs and military hardware that they built during the same time.  The building boom in China is a just a facade as they prepare to invade the world.  I'll be dead but THOSE DAMN KIDS are going to have to fight them.  Sorry, Snotty Scotty, it's bamboo shoots up your finger nails.  That's what you get for trampling Mrs. Aldrich's daisies.

On TV, they just showed some lady swimmer from the East Lansing area that won some stupid medal.  So what?!  The only profession you can have from swimming is to be a swimming teacher. 

Why don't they show The Green Berets on TV instead?  That's more inspirational than some idiot swimming back and forth in a pool.

Don't THOSE DAMN KIDS know what is ahead of them in life.  A miserable job with a miserable boss, you'll watch a lot of TV and eventually have a bag attached to you so you can take a shit.  That's your future, kiddies!

So stop all that running!

Stop all that laughing!

Stop all that crying!

Stop trying and start drinking!

I'll talk at you next week....

Lester Aldrich is a freelance columnist for Octogenarian Magazine.  Manka Bros. Studios is not responsible for any action by our freelance writers.  If Mr. Aldrich actually kills someone, that's his problem. Manka Bros. cannot be held accountable.

I had my rifle ready to shoot those little jerks but the Mrs. stepped in front of me, the gun barrel at her throat.

As raw eggs slid from her hair onto my Smith & Wesson, she said, 'Put it away, Lester.  You brought this on yourself, you know.'

'Myself?' I said. 'I'm not the one with a half a dozen Grade A's hanging off of my $8 dollar wash & set.  You better shut up and get in the house, woman!  THOSE DAMN KIDS should have been shot years ago!'

She took the gun out of my hands and walked inside.  I realized at that moment, I married a soft woman.  She wasn't in the war.  She wouldn't know a fox hole from a donut hole.  Every day it's something new.

'Lester, don't watch that show, it raises your blood pressure.'

'Lester, you've already had your cup of coffee.'

'Lester, can you get the door for me?'

'Lester, please pump your own colostomy bag.'

Bitch.

We watch the National Geographic almost every afternoon.  Animals eat the animals that don't keep up.  If you aren't a fast zebra when you cross that river, you get your leg eaten by a crocodile.  Too bad, zippy, I guess you weren't good enough!

The stronger should survive in my neighborhood.  If you don't get your stupid football out of the road by the time I drive by, then kiss your sorry legs goodbye, punk!

I guess you weren't fast enough!

I'll talk at you next week....

Lester Aldrich is a freelance columnist for Octogenarian Magazine.  Manka Bros. Studios is not responsible for any action by our freelance writers.  If Mr. Aldrich actually kills someone, that's his problem. Manka Bros. cannot be held accountable.

Retirement money dried up?  Stop your bitching and do what me and Mrs. Aldrich do - EAT DOG FOOD.  And not that premium Alpo crap - I'm talking Chappie Original Dog Food Meal!

Me and the Mrs. have been through tougher times than this.  A 39 cent can of dog food is a goddamned feast compared to what we used to eat.  Every time I see Those Damn Kids out on my lawn eating ice cream like it's VJ Day, I just want to take the flag off my porch, impale them and carry them back to the depression where after we ran out of dirt to eat, we were forced to eat the termites that were eating our house.

I once ate a man in Korea.  I'd prefer not to go into details.  The Pentagon told us never to discuss it.  I obey my orders from the Pentagon unlike all these pussy generals that parade onto CNN and talk about how we're not fighting the war right.  Shut the fuck up! - with all due respect.

Anyway, I once ate a man in Korea.  The whole man.  Like the Indians with the buffalo, I used every piece of that unlucky son of a bitch.

It was a freezing spring day in 1952 when the "incident" occurred.  Eighteen inches of snow, frozen roads, sub-zero temperatures.  I saw a man's face shatter like ice when he was shaving with a rusty razor.  Brutal. Goddamned brutal.  So rather than die of starvation and loneliness - I ate that dead Korean. 

All THOSE DAMN KIDS know how to do is fall off their skateboards and onto my lawn.  I'm going to mark the edge of my property with sulfuric acid so the next time Snotty Scotty falls on my grass the skin will fall right off his ass!  That's what that punk deserves and that's what I want to see.

I've heard stories that people from Michigan are cannibals by nature.  I'm not sure if that's true or not.  I haven't eaten anyone since 1952.  Mrs. Aldrich hasn't eaten anyone since 1986 (that's a joke).  It was closer to 1982 (that's also a joke).  As far as I know, she's never eaten one person.  But she's from Iowa.  And I hear people from Iowa are more interested in chicken.

Days like this make me sad.

THOSE DAMN KIDS giggling like gorillas and rolling down my street on their fat bodies will never know what it's like to be really hungry.  I mean REALLY hungry.  So hungry that you'd... well, you know...

The sacrifices I made just so they could go to Arby's...

I'll talk at you next week...

Lester Aldrich is a freelance columnist for Octogenarian Magazine.  Manka Bros. Studios is not responsible for any action by our freelance writers.  If Mr. Aldrich actually kills someone, that's his problem. Manka Bros. cannot be held accountable.