Sock It to Me

You have to be deep into your Medicare Part D drug deductible for you to remember Rowan and Martin's Laugh In show.

Many people advanced their show business careers through a start on Laugh In. It was a No. 1 show for years. Goldie Hawn got her start advancing from a Go-Go body painted dancer in a cage to an actress in movies.

Goldie was well casted as the dizzy blonde discotheque dancer on the show. After all, her previous gig was doing a gyrating act in truck stops in titty bars outside the  Lincoln Tunnel in Secaucus, New Jersey. A girl's got to start someplace.

One of the zany features was to have people behind a wall of porthole windows that opened when jokes were uttered. A face would appear in the window and make a face and say "Sock it to me." The show was so popular that celebrities off all stripes lined up to appear in cameo appearance. President Richard Nixon appeared once shaking his five o'clock shadow jowls and saying, "Sock it to me." Little did he foresee.

A few years ago I went to a New York Mets game at Citi Field and they were handing out pairs of Met socks to the first so many fans. I got a pair, and was tempted to say, "Sock it to me" but thought better of it when I realized that the young girl handing out the socks wouldn't know what the hell I was saying.

If I were to have been asked what difficulties I might foresee in getting older, I'm absolutely sure I wouldn't have said putting my socks on. Yet, here we are.

Spinal arthritis, degenerative disc disease, spinal fusion has left me a little inflexible when it comes to bending over. To pick something off the floor I do the one knee "proposal drop" to get there and back up, while grabbing onto something. It's not a big deal, put I will leave pennies on the ground.

To my surprise, socks have proved an obstacle to getting dressed. Okay, when one arm was in a sling due to rotator cuff surgery, dressing was understandably difficult. But that's in he rear view mirror now.

I've taken to wearing rather thick socks with my Timberland boots. I don't know how long it's been since I've worn a pair of dress shoes.  The socks are either from Darntough.com Vermont, or Fair Isle Shetland wool pairs. They are tightly woven, and as such I have trouble creating an opening large enough for me to jam all five toes in with one swoop over my foot. Bending forward for this has its limits. In a word, it's tough lassoing my feet.

Enter what I'll call the sock valet. I don't know when I might have first become aware of something advertised on TV that helped you put your socks on, but it was a long time ago. In the back of my mind I must have retained the local TV ad. Enter "sock valet" in an Amazon search and I was presented with more choices and prices ranges than I thought possible. Amazon is of course the 21st-century Sears  Roebuck, having one of everything in its warehouses.

And here it is, looking like a piece that fell off a 1890's whale bone corset. No labeling, no instructions, no name of a manufacturer, just a scoop-shaped appliance with long tethers that is quite effective in helping one get their socks on. It is advertised for people with disabilities and pregnant women, anyone I guess who might have a problem bending forward enough.

It was priced under $10, and with free Amazon Prime shipping I felt I couldn't go wrong. If it didn't work I wasn't going to be out anything significant.

Laugh In was a great show, produced by George Schlatter, who Google tells us is still with us at 90. It was a forerunner to Saturday Night Live, but without the snarkiness. I don't know if it's a sock valet, or a sock-putter-on-er, or the greatest thing since sliced bread, but it works. I'm not going to leave home without it.

Sock it to me.

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