Let's try one more...

Which one is Captain Kangaroo, and which one is me? This is easier only because Captain Kangaroo didn't use a bike helmet (although his hair looked like a helmet), and I always do (I even sleep in mine in case I fall out of bed. Safety first!).

I haven't always had a beard. I used to wear only a mustache. Several years ago a young woman once said to me,"You look like that guy on that TV program."

Knowing that Sean Connery didn't do TV, I began to suspect that she meant Tom Selleck. She went on,"You know, he had that rabbit and that moose, and ping pong balls were always falling on him."

"Captain Kangaroo?" I offered.

"Yes!" She exclaimed. "You look just like him!"

I thanked her.

'Cool' is a genetic possibility for some and not for others. You can't "be cool" if you're not. If you try, you wind up looking like Napoleon Dynamite's brother. (Napoleon Dynamite IS cool.)

The moment you give up trying to be Dean Martin and accept that you're Jerry Lewis, you take a huge step forward towards peace. Bicycle marketers make a good living trying to convince us that by purchasing Lance Armstrong's bike and clothing, you will suddenly become cool, too. If you will mortgage the house just one more time to get that Ultegra gruppo, and have it installed on a custom carbon frame, they say, you will finally have real men looking at you with the respect you've always craved. Not so.

If you don't have the "cool gene", you won't ever have it. It isn't a matter of hair or not (think Telly Savalas); it isn't a matter of wealth or fame (you've often seen some very cool young men in the local sub shop). It's genetic. And you either have it or you don't. You can't upgrade from who you are to cool. You might as well discover how much fun Pee Wee Herman had on his bike, and have your own Big Adventure.

"I don't have to see the movie, Dottie, I lived it!" (Pee Wee Herman's Big Adventure)