Buzz Fleischman - Columnist Page. I saw an ad for ties, the quintessential gift for a father, in the paper for Father’s Day and the father looked like a teenager. I came to the realization that the older I get, the younger they look.

With the exception of Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, baby boomers look better for our age than at any other time in history. Just look at a picture of a 30 year old from out west in the 1800’s and they look 60. Maybe it was the photography. Nobody smiled for the camera because you had to sit there for a few minutes while the image developed.

I like to think it was the hair. There were no hair stylists on the frontier.

I remember seeing a picture of Wild Bill Cody with his long flowing hair. Nobody laughed at him; he was sort of a hippy with six shooters. The closest thing to a beauty parlor on the range was when the cook straightened your hair with goose grease.

People looked older back then because it was a rough life; no air conditioning, no cell phones and the only reason the birds were angry is when you tried to steal their eggs.

Would we have survived way back then?  If they had duct tape, the west could have been won a lot sooner. The settlers were a hardy bunch. If they found a mineral spring on the open trail, they bathed in it, and then they drank it.

I can hear the wagon master going over the ‘to do’ list with his sidekick prior to the trek across country. “Let’s see, have ‘Cookie’ check the chuck wagon for our supply of sorghum molasses, flour, sugar, coffee, and that new beano stuff.   Call the horse rental agency and see if we can get out of some of those fees like the corral facility fee, wild- west surcharge, and the young rider add on charge. Oh and see if my service with the cavalry is good for an upgrade to the Palomino models.

As a Father’s Day present I was interested in finding the appropriate so called ‘man product’ in the world, so I Googled ‘duct tape’. It’s been 24 hours and it hasn’t stopped spewing web sites. There were sites for the discussion of its various uses and abuses and sites devoted to duct tape as a clothing alternative. Hmmmmm. Combine the best of all worlds and give your father a present that will last forever. One he will wear to work on those special occasions.

It would have to be a tie….made out of duct tape.

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