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TL shows support for Big Brothers Big Sisters

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Nurses Week: John Birmer

<p>The bell on our new washer really intrigued me.</p><p>Around 1950 we finally got an actual automatic washing machine. You&#8217;d plug it in, turn it to &#8220;start&#8221; and then you could walk away while it swirled the clothing around in its big tub.</p><p>When the cycle was done, a little bell would ring. Then you&#8217;d turn on the wringer and, very carefully, insert the clothes item by item between the fierce-looking rollers. Out they&#8217;d come on the other side, plopping into a basket on the floor.</p><p>After that, you could carry the fairly heavy basket outside and &#8212; as long as it wasn&#8217;t snowing &#8212; hang everything on the clothesline.</p><p>I just couldn&#8217;t get over that bell. It signaled that we had a magnificent new high-tech device that freed my mom from having to set up two big tubs of water, scrub everything by hand on a metal board and then wring them out, also by hand.</p><p>Yes, the &#8220;new&#8221; washer seems laughable today as a labor-saving device. But that happens.</p><p>Here are a few more examples of yesterday&#8217;s high-tech become today&#8217;s museum piece.</p><p><strong>Adding machine:</strong> If you ever worked in a store, you probably thanked the wizards of science for a device that did all the work of adding, subtracting and dividing for you, and would then give you the total when you pulled a handle. On the flip side, I think that&#8217;s where the national decline of arithmetic skills started.&#8221;</p><p><strong>Safety razor:</strong> Once upon a time, men shaved with a long, nasty-looking blade on a handle. Then someone invented a smaller device into which you could insert a thin blade which would be replaced when it dulled, freeing man-nation from having to &#8220;strop&#8221; the razor on a leather belt a couple of times a week. Today, though, with electric shavers and throwaway devices dominant, even the manliest of men can&#8217;t sing the Gillette Blue Blades song.</p><p><strong>Tape deck: </strong>Vinyl discs seemed definitely to have had their day when music began to appear on big rolls of tape, which had to be played on boxy devices (some quite large) that really did produce an impressive sound. Then the CD came in, and the CD begat streaming and other methodologies. I believe we now experience better mental health. Really, when was the last time you swore terrible oaths because your Fifth Dimension tape got all tangled?</p><p><strong>Rumble seat:</strong> In the days when you needed to carry another person or two in your car but didn&#8217;t have room, Detroit produced a solution. That was a cramped seat that opened up where your car&#8217;s trunk was supposed to be. Sure, it was out in the weather, but in the old photos it sure looks like it would have been fun to ride in. A great solution, true, but it fell victim to a still better one &#8212; larger cars.</p><p><strong>Hand drill:</strong> You weren&#8217;t a true homeowner if you didn&#8217;t have this odd-shaped device. You&#8217;d hang on with your left hand and twist the top with your right and &#8212; presto &#8212; there was the hole for a screw in your latest workshop project. Then somebody got the idea of making an electric drill, and now we have a device that puzzles people on Facebook nostalgia sites.</p><p><strong>The 21-inch TV:</strong> You&#8217;d really win your credentials as a family man and neighborhood icon when you could bring one of these babies home. Never mind that everything back around 1955 was black and white, and you could get maybe four channels. You&#8217;ll never equal that excitement again.</p><p>Hey, save me a seat at the Friday night fights.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Tom Mooney Remember When </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/web1_TOM_MOONEY-1.jpg</photo1><caption1>Tom Mooney Remember When </caption1><photoCredit1>Associated Press </photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>Tom Mooney</p><p>Remember When</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Tom Mooney is a Times Leader history columnist. Reach him at tommooney42@gmail.com.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Remember When: Wringer washer, exciting, new and with a bell