Buttonhooks

Buttonhooks was Originally Posted on September 22, 2008 by lavarock

They are obsolete you know… buttonhooks. They were used to allow someone to reach and hook buttons where their arms would not reach. Done in by snaps and zippers I guess. You could use a buttonhook to pull up a zipper I guess.

It is interesting to see how things become obsolete. Drugs for example. When I was young, it was common for parents to take paregoric and rub it on your gums when you were teething. It had a numbing effect and there was a slight anise taste like liquorice. It was also added to a preparation used to control diarrhea. In this case, it was easy to see why it was made generally obsolete. Its main ingredient? Morphine! No wonder it quieted down the little ones.

I turn now to shopping carts, the first one invented in 1937 and looked like a baby carriage. Here is a quote from Wikipedia.

The invention did not catch on immediately. Men found them effeminate; women found them suggestive of a baby carriage. “I’ve pushed my last baby buggy,” an offended woman informed him. After hiring several male and female models to push his new invention around his store and demonstrate their utility, as well as greeters to explain their use, shopping carts became extremely popular…

This brings me up to the real reason of the blog. Baby carriages.

“Hey Mark! Baby carriages are not obsolete!” you say? Yes, that is true, they are all around, but try to find a 4-wheeled one. No go on, try. The new trend is those 3 wheeled sportster models, not the 4 wheeled ones that looked like shopping carts.

The only baby carriages I see now are 3 wheeled, directed by young women in tight spandex shorts. The women have on a baseball hat and seen sticking out the back is a brown or blonde pont tail.

It cannot be the same woman I see in every town and hamlet, it has to be a trend.

I’m careful not to attribute local customs here in Hawaii to the rest of the country though. I know that McDonalds across the land does not generally serve spam and portuguese sausage or taro pies. Other states do not have their teenager kids roaming the neighborhoods with ukuleles instead of guns. Although frowned upon, local kids go barefoot (even in stores) more often that other places, and yes we do wave people into traffic in front of us rather than ignore the poor guy trying to enter traffic for an hour.

Now wrapping up the blog about obsolete items (items which may still work but are unwanted), I send you to the website http://Freecycle.org. It may take you a little time to read the ruules and get joined in, but it is a great way to recycle things you no longer want. The name is derived from the idea of recycling and free. You can’t charge for items, you just give them away.

I can tell you that the idea works. I was able t oget a perfectly good washing machine and dryer through Freecycle. Also someone gave away a tape that fit my digital video recorder.

Sometimes people give away broken things for parts, othertimes they bought something new and don’t want the old thing even though it still works.

In the next few months look for old analog TV’s that people are replacing with digital ones. A simple converter boox and an outdoor antenna will make them useable again.

Until next time…