Rambling on Small, Simple things

Ramblings on Small, Simple Things

How much do simple things play a part in my life?   When did they come into being, filling or improving a need for every day living?  Many have been in existence a very long time and  we don't even consider when they might have been unavailable.

Lately I've had reason to wonder who was the genius that created a pencil and with it an erasure.   Was it meant to replace the goose quill and a bottle of ink?  We need erasures in many areas of our lives, not just in the writing of the written words or drawings.

The safety pin...safer, with a better hold that a straight pin, assuming that the straight pin would be the forerunner to the wonderful safety pin.  Both have their place,  but there is often an absolute  must for the clasp of a safety pin so that an injury doesn't result.  One reads of encounters from long ago where a hat or hair pin was literally used as a weapon, with harm intended and achieved.  

Old-fashioned popcorn poppers---the thin wire basket with a long handle, that required lots of shaking on the top of a cookstove, fueled by coal or wood.  What a difference from the bag of kernels now placed in a microwave.  The taste doesn't compare, I vote for the past, plus the health involved.

Matches, the old individual wooden stick with a magic flame on the tip.  Again, not talking about a handy little packet of cardboard matches, but the kind that probably replaced a flint.

String-- not yarn,  simple boring string. When I was a child we always had a ball of string handy, plain old string,  cotton strands twisted together that filled many needs.   Tying a parcel to mail.  Flying a kite,  activating a pet toy,  drawing an accurate circle,  fastening any number of things that needed an anchor, etc.   I still have that need, but not the string.

When did a saber become a pocket knife?  And from there, a pocket knife became a screw driver, a can opener, etc. all in one small tool?

Rubber bands,  a stapler,  scissors,  thumb tacks, hammers, pliers, sponges. Especially scissors!! Look around, there are small, simple forgotten-until-needed items that help us manage our lives, no matter how modern and up-to-date we may think we are with our phones and computers.

I have no idea when or where these 'inventions' took  place. There was a need and a thinking mind improved and made it better.  I like recognizing it.

Deliveries, Then and Now

  I am the daughter of a man who delivered mail to a rural ranching area back in the days when his first days as a mail-carrier was on horseback or by wagon and a team,  and his parents had the mail contract for the area prior to his. The job carried responsibility and commitment to being well done. He shared a number of stories of the excitement and the challenge of fulfilling that idea that "the mail must go through."  His area covered 60 miles, picking up mail at a town post office located on the railroad, that had brought the mail that far via the rails.  He also delivered to some ranches between the official post offices, the one by the railroad and the one ranch that was designated as a post office in the ranch country, about sixty miles north. When he could afford a Model T Ford that became his means of conveyance, but still the mail got delivered, rain or shine, blizzard or toast.

Delivery was important.  When I now hear of the delivery of Fed Ex or UPS, or even businesses of a purchased product,  it is often beyond belief, and these who are responsible even have our modern GPS to guide them to the recipient's homes by the addresses on the parcel or item.   I hear of packages being left off at the neighbor's, some left at the door of a nearby church, one left in a barn, and  quite often outdoors where the supposed delivery is subject to whatever weather might come before its whereabouts is discovered. These are  just samples of the ongoing problem. It seems that the GPS might get the drivers somewhere in the vicinity of the correct address, but then it is left up to the actual human to make the correct connection.  Occasionally a language barrier contributes to the situation, compounding the difficulty of landing items at the right place. 

It could be taken as amusing, but only if you are hearing the story, not if you are anticipating the arrival of an item in order to move forward.  We think of ourselves as modern, up-tp-date, etc.  but this is not much of an example of progress.  Just my opinion.

Revolving weather

 

It has been  a while since I have posted on this site.  The writing has been going on, if not literally, at least mentally.  When I finally think this would make a good post, it seems to fall flat, and I know you don't want too much dullness.   One would think as a retiree I would live a life of intentional leisure, but it is not what I have accidentally chosen.  No complaints,  life is good, but quite  different from those that I recall witnessing with my own grandmothers.  Perhaps my own perspective has broadened as I have gotten solidly in that role. 

I have told you that I am a Jill of multiple interests.  It has always been so.  One interest has been history and genealogy.  I was one of those kids who always wanted a story from the true life of my adults when they were younger.   When I requested this from my Dad his response was a grin and the question, "you mean when I was a little girl?"  In this teasing way I heard lots of stories.   I gave some thought to teaching history as my career, but was directed in a different direction that was every bit as good for me and I hope for my students.

As a historian I am regularly looking into the past one hundred years or so of the everyday life of the residents in the western part of the United States. As I write about it in my newspaper columns I have had current residents give me feedback and one that is interesting is the  frequent comment about weather.   People always wonder why I notice reports of weather in my historical research

 Number one, I have been a farm wife for 63 years and weather is a big part of the daily ins and outs of an agricultural life, today just as much as it was a century ago. The first thing to note as the day begins, the weather report that is heard before calling it a day, in order to prepare for the next day's labors.  #2, it is interesting to see the repeats of droughts, blizzards, hurricanes, volcano eruptions, tidal waves, etc. over the period of a whole century. At the present time it may sound like a certain weather pattern is the first  that has ever happened and perhaps is so threatening, yet when one looks back over 100 years, usually it has happened more that once in those years past—and we got through it.  Perhaps  not without loss, but survived, sometimes even thrived, as the world recovered.  #3  Weather is a world-wide item, what happens on the other side of our mother earth  will very likely  affect  our immediate surroundings, given some time, and the winds, currents, sun and storm move around our revolving globe.   How can we  humans feel like we are in charge?   Only in our imagination, regardless of our efforts when it comes right down to it.  Just my opinion.