By Jim Redwine
BLISS
Hurricane Sandy knocked out twenty-five percent of the cell phone coverage in New York City. Land lines were immediately elevated from anachronisms to necessities. People who had never used a pay phone were converted from techies to dummies.
The national media reported numerous instances of people standing non-plussed in front of artifacts reminiscent of Easter Island. As one twenty-four year old man continued to pour quarters into a slot and berate the telephone for not responding, he failed to lift the receiver, other people encouraged him to push buttons and try different passwords.
My initial reaction to those reactions was to wonder how anyone could be so obtuse. Then I recalled a shower I attempted to take at a retrofitted motel in Reno, Nevada. After about fifteen minutes of standing in a tub type shower with hot water splashing only on my toes, I stepped out and called the front desk. The night clerk politely, but with barely hidden disdain, instructed me to pull down on the nozzle of the faucet.
That experience was not as humbling as the first time I made the acquaintance of a Turkish latrine in Volgograd, Russia. If you have had the pleasure of straddling an open pit without ready access to Charmin, you may be able to relate to my situation.
While bodily functions are involved in many of these out of touch dilemmas, we live in a modern world where numerous new devices have removed us from the ability to use older, albeit perhaps more reliable ones. I remember unlocking my 1956 Mercury with a key. Now my car locks are electronic and integrated with an alarm system. Ergo, about once a week I press the wrong button and a shrill alarm will awaken the area within a mile of where I am parked. So far, I have managed to shut off the alarm before I get arrested for stealing my own car.
These instances and a host of others have led me to wonder if instead of wasting our time and money on such conundrums as peace in the Middle East we should develop a federal agency whose charter is to catalogue all the arcane items that once were state of the art and have an 800 number, with a back up system, so we can access it in emergencies. You know, an emergency such as running out of gasoline in a storm and being unable to operate an electric gas pump. Some federal bureaucrat could explain to us how to put gas in a plastic boot then pour it out into our cars.
Such things as record players, televisions without remotes, mimeograph machines, recorders with plastic belts and tools without power cords may soon be as enigmatic as pay phones to modern society. Instead of studying the ancient pyramids for clues to past cultures, anthropologists need only go to the trash bins outside the Apple stores for clues to our ancient past of ten years ago.
