Doesn’t anything work anymore?

NASA who once put men on the moon, can’t seem to get the shuttle off the ground on time anymore. The Hubble Space Telescope needed refurbishing and our banks now beg and borrow.

It would be natural for us to scream and yell, “Doesn’t anything work around here anymore!” True, some things that should work, but don’t are around, but there are a gazillion things that do work, and do so reliably year-after-year, without muss nor fuss. Consider the paper clip. A terrifically simple object that never breaks down. How about tea bags, the safety match, iPods, those wonderful Lego blocks, and the Swiss Army Knife. What could one possibly do to the safety pin, the Norman Tabernacle Choir or the Bible that could possibly make them better.

What about those super Rowland stackable chairs that we see in churches, convention centers and meeting rooms everywhere. They’re great!

To the list, let’s add the Foveon Camera Chip and cable TV, Tupperwear, hammers, YouTube, chisels, screwdrivers, erasers. plasma screen TVs, thumbtacks and the lead pencil. In it’s own humble way, the lead pencil is as impressive an engineering feat as the space shuttle. Try to make one if you don’t believe me. The pencil is perfect. It’s simple, it works and you can buy it for less than 50¢.

Several other of my favorites are: Post It Notes which were originally invented to mark the music pages for a choir, and I love the ingenuity of the little plastic gizmo called the Pez Dispenser.

Last on my list are things that work and work well: Levi Jeans, toothpicks, clothes pins, men’s wedding bands, penny loafers, the ‘57 Chevrolet, Zippo lighters, Oshkosh overalls and GPS. At the tail-end of my list but Number One in my heart are laptop computers and The Internet.

See, things aren’t as bad as we thought. We just have top think about them every once and a while. Excuse me while I logon to Facebook.

Trivia question of the day

(Try it without Google)

The answer will be in tomorrow’s blog.

Yesterday’s Question: What Texan ended up with one delegate after spending $12 million of his own money running for president in 1980? John Connally

Today’s Trivia: What laundry detergent got lots of mileage out of the ad tag line, “Ring around the collar?”