When a Southern Woman Rambles... - L. Avery Brown (large screen ebook reader .TXT) 📗

went from ‘hero’ to ‘zero’.

 

But we shouldn’t blame him. Heck, Othmar didn’t even realize it was an insecticide! In fact, nobody really knew what good it was until the mid 1930s. And when the US Army rushed to use it to keep troops from getting sick it became all the rage because saving our boys was the immediate need. Unfortunately, not only are we an industrious species but we also have an amazing ability to act first, ask later.

 

Yes, DDT is one of those things that when it burst onto the scene was thought to be one of those end all and be all products...sort of like Styrofoam. Yes, it does keep cold things cold and warm things warm. Unfortunately it doesn’t degrade and now our world is getting warmer and warmer...but that’s another blog altogether.

 

Other inventors who got flack for their creations that were originally designed out of necessity whether or not we want to believe that it was from necessity include people like: Oliver Winchester (repeating rifle), Hiram Maxim (machine gun), and Alfred Nobel (dynamite). Of course, Nobel didn’t want to be remembered as the guy who developed something to blow things up so he looked to his philanthropic side and bequeathed money to be used after his death that was to be given to people who did something peaceful for the benefit of all mankind.

 

But of all the inventors, in my opinion, no one person gets more flack about his inventions than dear Eli Whitney. Because the cotton gin is considered by most people to either be his greatest achievement or quite possibly his most damning innovation. And the truly ironic part about Whitney’s cotton gin is that he’s remembered for something that did nothing to help his own financial state because his design was ‘borrowed’ by countless other people even though he’d actually gotten a patent for it and fought for years in court to be given credit and compensation for the original design.

 

But by the time his case actually made it to court, the cotton gin and its use had spread through the South like poison ivy on a sweaty kid’s hands. And it was a fight that almost led to his economic ruin even though it helped to seal Eli Whitney’s place in the history books. Though there are many who might argue that he ought to be seen as more infamous than famous because not only did the cotton gin help boost the United State’s economy hand over fist but it led to an increase in slavery which only helped to add fuel to an already religiously, socially, and economically divided nation.

 

For a while Whitney was hailed as a hero in not just the South...but also the North because his milling machines and interchangeable parts innovations helped slingshot Northern manufacturing into another tax bracket. But as with many things that seem like a really good idea at first, it started to dawn on people that maybe that whole cotton gin thing created more problems than it solved. Or maybe it simply brought what was an inevitable end to a quicker conclusion.

 

Now, as for the world today there are so many things that were totally awesome when they came out only to turn to be something we all wish would have never come to light. High fructose corn syrup comes to mind...hmmm...I’m feeling an urge to HFCS laden soda in a big light weight Styrofoam cup.

 

Oh, Necessity...she really is a mother.

 

Yes, there are some things have been introduced in the past few years that I absolutely LOVE and would never want to give up. Caffeine-free sodas, Oxi-Clean, Super Glue and my Magic Eraser. I love my Magic Eraser...I don’t know exactly what’s in them all I know is that they will clean just about anything. Sure I’ll probably grow an extra pinky and die 5 years early from some form of cancer that can be directly linked to the wonder scrubbers...but I don’t care. I love my Magic Erasers and all cheap the knock offs, too!

Classic TV: It's Not Just Your Parent's TV Shows Anymore.

The other day my husband and I were joking about how there are some ‘classic’ television shows that could never be broadcast on primetime network television today because we live in such a PC world. My almost 12 year old daughter laughed and said that we should check out Nick and Night to see if they show them there because, as she said, ‘they’re always showing old stuff like that’. Her words sort of put a lump in my throat because I had often thought of the dreaded day when shows that I used to think were the greatest shows ever officially became ‘classics’.

 

So much has changed in the world of television media today. TVs today aren’t just TVs they’re HDTVs or Plasma screen TVs. They’re flat, relatively light weight and most of them have no buttons or knobs or anything other than a really big manual with tiny print to tell help us understand how to use the slim remotes that will turn them off and on and will change the channels. But we do love our TVs.

 

Then again, we’ve always loved TV. For Pete’s sake, it’s the only type of media that has a style of dining named after it! You can’t go to the grocery store and pick up a radio dinner or eat a Hungry Man movie theatre dinner.

 

No. But you can get a TV dinner. And there must be at least 50 brands of TV dinners on the market with over 500 varieties of food offered by each which begs the question...are there that many TVs that we need to have SO much variety in the frozen foods we eat as we watch them? Is the number of brands and their entree/veggie combinations directly proportional to the number of sets in our homes? I wonder.

 

Think about it...how many televisions do you have in your house? One? (I doubt it) Two? Three? More? Did you forget to count your computer(s)? What about your cell phone? If it can pick up the signal you gotta count it!

 

How many televisions are in my house? I hate to admit it but if we’re counting televisions and any device that can pick up a digital broadcast signal...there can be, at times, 12 of them! But I remember a time when I had access to only 1 (one!) television. And did I ever cherish that baby, too.

 

It was a 19” color TV with a rounded glass screen and a dull white plastic body that my parents bought when I was a toddler back in 1972 so they could watch the summer Olympics in vivid realistic color. It may have been a heavy as hell electronic device but that Panasonic TV lasted until 1985. Nothing electronic lasts like that today.

 

It was the focal point of our den and when it was on you’d better believe somebody was nearby watching it or at least listening to it. And when primetime rolled around we all sat in front of it and watched whatever was offered because there was no such thing as cable TV in the late 70s and early 80s at least not in the small town where I grew up.

 

At my house we were lucky to pick up the 3 network stations, ABC, NBC and CBS, and most often that was only possible with the use of a rabbit ear antenna that sat perched on the top of the crazy heavy television set. But for some strange reason the PBS channel, the one my siblings and I avoided like the plague because we thought it had such boring shows, always came in as clear as crystal. And sometimes, we could even pick up the local independent station. So on a really good day...a day when the good Lord graced my hometown with blue skies and gentle winds...we could pick up all 5 stations at my house.

 

Yes, the image might have been a little fuzzy and there were often times an annoying line appeared at the bottom of the screen and floated up to the top again and again but at least I got to watch all the cool shows that came on. Shows like Charlie’s Angels, Happy Days, and WKRP in Cincinnati were favorites in my house. I’m sure you can recall a few that you’d never miss, too. Maybe you watched the Rockford Files, Good Times or, if you were allowed to stay up late enough you watched a nifty show that pushed the edge of comedy called Saturday Night Live.

 

I remember being ten years old and getting so excited to see my favorite show (whatever it was back then) and hearing the click, click of the ‘changer-knob’ that sometimes I’d turn it so fast, I’d go right past the station I was looking for unlike today where one can press a button on a remote control and select from well over 100 channels. Of course, I also remember absolutely hating being the ‘channel changer-er’ simply because I was the youngest one in the family! No, I didn’t think it was fair that I had to get up from my favorite spot on the floor to put the TV on someone else’s favorite show.

 

There were some shows and their corresponding timeslots that were ‘owned’ by members of my family. My mother had the controlling rights to M*A*S*H*. My claim was ‘The Wonderful World of Disney’ but I often had to cede the rights to it because my father had sole ownership of the timeslot for Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom with Marlin Perkins and it tended to clash with WWD’s scheduled broadcast. Thank God for reruns. Yes, I can honestly say that MoOWK was one show that was a chore for me to watch...but I watched it.

 

Of course, it wasn’t too bad because I did have the best spot in the den for watching TV and it drove my siblings crazy because I got to sit smack dab in front of the magic box since I was small enough that my head didn’t get in the way. Looking back, I suppose that there were some advantages to being ridiculously small as a child. I remember thinking it was funny listening my brothers and sister argue over who got to sit where. As for my parents, they had their own chairs and no one sat in either Mama or Daddy’s chair without express permission.

 

I remember the first thing I’d say to my friends when I got to school was ‘Did you see...***...last night?’ And then we’d prattle on and on about the 30 minute show we watched and talk about how excited we were for next week’s episode. Oh the woe we felt for those of us who missed the show because other than hearing our detailed accounts, the poor unfortunate soul would have to wait for weeks before it came on as a rerun.

 

Of course now that we have the ability to DVR or TiVo shows so we can watch them later, there’s no real need for the ‘Ooooh, I’m soooo sorry you missed it!’ condolences that friends used to share. What’s more is that when I was young you couldn’t watch one show and record