Cootfight Gets Ugly

Photo: NYP

They say that when you are old, you no longer care about things as much. This is not to say that you don't care about the important things, like the price of Fiber One and your shows being interrupted by commercials, but you are less likely to let, say, a minor slight from a stranger really disturb you. You are beyond such things. Life is short, you might say to yourself. I have a limited time left on earth. Do I want to waste it on fighting and strife?

One assumes you would feel this way particularly if you had escaped the Nazis in Poland and Communist Russia, as Steve Pulwers and Gersh Gofman did, respectively, and were maintaining a nice life in Brooklyn. And yet the two men, who are 99 and 83, are embroiled in a bitter court battle over a minor incident. Here is what happened:

Pulwers, 99, maintains that Gofman was blocking the driveway to a doctor's office with his car, and that the younger man flew into a rage when Pulwers asked him to move it.

Gofman's lawyer contends that his client — who wanted the car where it was so that his ailing wife wouldn't have to walk too far — moved it when asked.

Apparently, Gofman then hit Pulwers in the face with some kind of weapon. His defense?

"I'm an old man," he quipped.

Then for God's sake, act like it. Wrap your brittle arms around one another and go home. The Price Is Right is on, for heaven's sake.

Old coots take Brooklyn street fight to court [NYP]