To Knot or Not

I have heard folks say that one of the greatest inventions is the wheel.  Now I won't say it wasn't a great improvement in the lives of people and is a direct contribution to our modern forms of transportation.  However, that idea needed earlier creations to come to fruition.

I'm talking the whole concept of all aspects of sewing.  Think of what that craft brings to mankind.  How do you come up with the idea of all the necessary steps to sew a project from beginning to end when you have never seen it done before.  And yet it happened, and not just in one place on the globe.  No, it was a world-wide development for people in very different environments.

Going all the way back to the Neanderthals, humans have benefited from the ability to obtain hides from animals, treat the hides properly to use them usefully in providing clothing, shoes, blankets, and probably other things we have forgotten about down through the ages.  One aspect of the process is the skill of making threads and laces and learning how to knot them to come up with a finished product that serves a specific purpose.

You know how little kids look when they learn to tie their shoes?  They have spent years watching the adults in their lives tie shoe laces.  These tykes determine to learn the process and work diligently to twist the two laces around and through just so, then pull tight, loop around a make a bow then pull and tighten.  And they must learn how to do at least a couple of types of knots - the hard knot necessary to secure a seam in a piece of clothing so it doesn't unravel, and of course the easy bow knot to do a shoe so you can pull it apart later to remove the shoe without effort.

This learning takes awhile to get right, even though the adults have been familiar with the concept for thousands of years.  What must it have been like to be the first to come up with the idea?  Were they sitting around the campfire discussing ways to keep those scraps of hides close to the leg so the scraps would stay in place as they walked or ran through the forests?  Did someone suggest a skinny strip of hide to wrap around the scrap of hide to hold it close?  How much experimenting was necessary to wind up with the final draft?  Did the naysayers laugh and call them names for trying to do this?

But aren't you glad they did it?  Without the laces and the ability to knot them, how could they ever have learned to attach the sharpened rock to the end of a long stick to aid them in killing those animals.  How else when you came up with a wheel could you manage to put two of those things together attached to another stick (the axle) to have a pair of wheels to later be added to a cart which could then be pulled with a horse/mule/oxen?

No, I can't see the wheel coming around without first learning the skill of sewing.  And this one craft/skill provided shelter, warmth, clothing and shoes for everyone in the community.  This was one thing that benefited all in just about every aspect of daily life.  So hats off to those unknown people who made such a positive change for everyone.

A New Beginning

                                                    (An old Perryville school building)

I remember my first day of school.  I think I remember the actual event, but it is possible what I remember is the retelling of the story of that first day.

My older brother was already in school and we often walked with him, though there were times he came home in the presence of others.  The school was at most maybe a half-mile away, so it wasn't far.  When I started Mom walked us both to school.

I enjoyed the morning.  Then we were sent outside.  So out I went.  However, while the others headed off to the playground, I headed off to the house.  I thought the day was over and we were being sent home.  Needless to say, Mom was less than pleased to see me walk in the door.  Once she determined why I was there, back we went.

She strongly impressed on me that when school was out the teacher would say so.  I was not to leave until then, and even then I should stay until I saw my brother.  We would go home together.  She took me inside and explained the situation to the teacher.  I apologized, of course.  Kids did that then.

Before she left the building she also visited my brother and told him to make sure I was with him when he left for the day.  So every day the teacher would make sure I knew it was okay to leave and watch to make sure my brother was with me when we did leave the premises.  All that was not necessary.  The lesson had been adequately instilled in my mind and I certainly was not going home alone again.  But a routine was established and we practiced that until Christmas.

At that time we left California and moved to Rush Springs, Oklahoma.  There we rode the bus, so I had to wait to leave until the bus arrived for us.  I did miss that daily walk, though.

Dancing Down Memory Lane

It's late August and September is nipping at our heels.  Heat is still hanging around, making sure we really appreciate the coolness when it comes.  School is back in session, and class reunions are being planned and discussed.

Radio was a necessity in our lives back then.  What I miss most about those radio days is that we could listen and get such a variety of musical styles then.  Now it all seems segmented.  If you want a genre, you turn to that on the dial (or however you're listening now) and that's all you get.

Does anyone else miss the musical mixings that used to be so common.  I remember listening in one afternoon to songs from the Everly Brothers (Bye Bye Love) and the Platters (The Great Pretenders); Pat Boone (Love Letters in the Sand) and Chuck Berry (Maybellene) or Little Richard (Tutti Frutti).

One moment you could be listening to the Kingston Trio (Tom Dooley), then maybe hear Bobby Darin (Mack the Knife) followed by Carl Perkins (Blue Suede Shoes) with a follow-up from Johnny Cash (Folsom Prison Blues).

People liked humor in their songs then, for sure.  Remember David Seville (Witch Doctor) and Sheb Wooley (Purple People Eater)?  And of course Del Reeves had a popular song (Girl on the Billboard).

Looking back, I think what I most appreciate about our radio days is the lack of vulgarity.  Oh yes, we had suggestive lyrics and aggressive love songs, but the writers knew then they could not get by with graphic semi-porn.  They had to rely on talent, and they had to appeal to a sense of humor a bit (okay, maybe not too much, but at least a little) higher than early adolescence.  Sure we had the Everly Brothers singing about "Wake Up Little Susie," but at least they put limits on where the story line went.  (Sorry about that.  Just had a I've Got to Rant moment.  But it has now passed.)

Enjoy the rest of summer.  Sit back, relax and take a sip of some good sweet iced tea.

Summer Becomes Bearable

It's July.  And in the Northern Hemisphere that can mean a lot of long hot days.  It's a time you want to get out early in the day or later after dark.  To traipse about outside in the full blast of summer heat in late afternoon can be miserable.

Yet, what could it be without man's inventive spirit?  We have come to expect comfort even in the heat of summer, the cold of winter.  We not only expect it, we demand it.  Why?  Because we are now used to it and oh, how we hate to lose something we really enjoy.

I'm glad I live in a time with such creature comforts.  Back in the 1880's there was no air conditioning.  Some of the history of creation and inventions can be a little murky without clear documentation.  But I've read that in 1882 Schuyler Skaats Wheeler invented the fan.  A few years later Philip Diehl added an electric motor.  Then a few more years later, Diehl added an electric light to it.

Ceiling fans, of course, do not cool the air.  It moves the air around people and in a still, hot atmosphere the air movement makes one feel cooler.  It was a big improvement to man's life.  And the fans became common in a large part of the country, especially in the more urban areas.

In the more rural areas of the country, such amenities were not as available.  Many years ago we met a lady who was quite elderly.  The discussion turned to ceiling fans.  She said one day her family got in the wagon and their father took them to a town not too far away, for he had heard of a family there with an electric fan.  All the way over they discussed what they expected to see.  She said they decided before they arrived the contraption would be shaped like a paper hand fan with a motor moving it up and down to blow the air on them, just as a paper fan pushed the air across the face.

They were wrong, of course.  But can you imagine the excitement of going to see an unusual (to them) contraption that would make life easier and more enjoyable, even in the pulsing heat of deep summer?  When was the last time you were excited to see something new?