‘Old Farts Making Up Stuff’ duo provide advice, laughs at the Park Ridge Farmer’s Market, around area
People who see R. Razz Jenkins and Kevin Shotsberger seated outside the Park Ridge farmers’ market might think they’re trying to sell something, but in fact they’re just old farts making up stuff.
No, really.
Jenkins, of Des Plaines, is a retired human resources professional, onetime candidate for Oakton Community College Board of Trustees and actor who appeared in an ad for ex-mayor Lori Lightfoot. Shotsberger, of Park Ridge, is a business consultant who spends half the year in Savannah, Ga.
Old Farts Making Stuff Up originated when Jenkins and his wife visited Shotsberger and his wife in Georgia. The pair had heard of a similar operation in Utah known as Old Coots Giving Advice and thought, in Shotsberger’s words, “well, s—, we could do that.”
So they gave it a try last winter at the Savannah’s Forsyth Park and got what Shotsberger remembered as a “phenomenal” response.
“We had literally hundreds of people coming up to us and taking pictures and stuff like that,” he said, much to the bemusement of their wives, who shared an office at Oakton Community College and introduced the pair.
From there, the old farts got themselves a banner and some business cards and took the project back to Chicagoland.
At first, Shotsberger said, their respective spouses “were like, ‘you guys are crazy.’”
But, he continued, they’ve come around to the notion: “It gets us out of the house,” Shotsberger said. “I think they see the good fun in it and I think they enjoy it themselves.”
As it happens, Shotsberger said marriage advice is a common topic for the pair, who advise askers to pick their battles and listen to their spouses. The Old Farts also dispense wisdom on a variety of subjects: “There’s really nothing that’s off limits,” Shotsberger said.
Jenkins described himself to Pioneer Press as “a mile wide and razor thin,” with strong interest in more esoteric topics like black holes and other areas of scientific inquiry.
“I tell people that my expertise runs the gamut from high energy particle physics to plate tectonics to HR,” he said. “I voraciously watch and read the stories that come out of NASA and ESA.”
As for the geologic bent, Jenkins said he is “a big fan of plate tectonics because I’m also a fan of time and plate tectonics is a great time clock for how old this planet and the universe [are].”
But they also provide plenty of advice on more practical practical matters like the stock market (buy low; sell high), how to best aid aging parents and the importance of financial planning.
When Jenkins asks young people (which he defined as people under 50) about their financial planning, “people kind of give me a scooby doo look,” he said. “They say ‘gee, old fart, what’s a 529?’ You would not believe how many people don’t know what a 529 is.”
They’ve encountered passers-by ranging from newly engaged people to a person who married herself to a cigar-smoking, French- and German-speaking Montrealer who worked in finance, Jenkins said.
For anyone that stops by the Old Farts Making Up Stuff, “our hope is that people get a smile on their face,” Shotsberger said. “We try to brighten people’s days. We just want people to have a good time and laugh at our expense.”
The Old Farts plan to dispense advice at the Taste of Des Plaines festival, set for June 17, as well as the Taste of Park Ridge, set for July 13. Shotsberger had just one word of caution for advice recipients: to keep in mind that the wisdom is worth what they pay for it.
