“The real McCoy,” according to Wikipedia, “is an idiom and metaphor used to mean “the real thing” or “the genuine article.” The source also adds  that “during Prohibition, Florida rumrunner Bill McCoy was known for selling the good stuff. In other words, he never watered down his booze (the way most bootleggers did back then) to increase product. When his customers wanted the best rum, they may have requested it by his name. Or, the phrase might apply to inventor Elijah McCoy,born in Canada in 1844. He had many different inventions including an ironing board and a lawn sprinkler. In fact, there are so many different false or contrived etymologies that no one really knows the “Real McCoy.”

I thought of the phrase this morning when I was out running. The temperature and conditions were pleasant enough on day #4,176, but I felt like an old man. Walter Brennan came to mind for some odd reason. He was actually about 5 years younger than I am now when he starred as Grandpa Amos McCoy on The Real McCoys, a sitcom about a poor West Virginia family that relocated to a farm in Southern California. It was a hit, ran from 1957 to 1963, and obviously made a big impression on me as a 6-12-year old. The show apparently defined for me what an “old man” should look and act like. Well, now I’m five years older than an “old man.” It shows when I run. 

In preparing for another role, a friend suggested that he put a rock in his shoe to create a limp. Brennan did so and that is how he learned his rather genuine-looking fake limp. This is the reason why I thought of him this morning, as I plodded along like Grandpa McCoy. I don’t think I was limping, but it sure felt like there was a rock in my shoe. Anymore, I guess I’m more of a limper than a sprinter. And to think, even that trademark Walter Brennan limp wasn’t “The Real McCoy.”