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An Ode to the Simple Things As I advance on old age and father time creates more and more wrinkles on this aged wizened 24 year old face, I find myself reflecting on the simpler things in life and trying to come to a full appreciation of their complexity. Everyday I find myself confronted with little examples that I have taken for granted through my many many years on this planet. Before the dreaded loss of memory hits, I feel the need to pay homage to at least a few that spring to mind. Exploring objects of simplicity is far from a reward-less task. It can send you on research that lasts hours yet yields little results. This, I can only attribute to the fact that so many others also take them for granted. For instance, you cannot question the magnificence of a batting cage. Not the kind found in professional ball parks but the kind found next the immortal miniature golf (patented by Garnet Carter, first located on Lookout Mountain). The batting cage, a place where our youths are spent (if you're a baseball fan), a place where teen dates can be found (if you're a baseball fan), a place where small cylindrical balls are hurled at you in various speeds while you swing at them with a small club, and you pay for it. What an invention! Unfortunately, hours of research and I have yet to find the inventor of the first batting cage, or the soul who first put it into the public recreation venue. Do you know? Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) was a famous Chilean poet who achieved notoriety mainly through his odes to the simple things in life. Can you find revelation in the simple things? Just read this, taken from "Ode to the Atom." "Infinitesimal The atom. Some may say not very simple at all. But research the history of the bikini and you will find that the inventor of the bikini, Jacques Heim, a Frenchman, first called his remarkable invention the 'Atome.' Now, the bikini is simple (later renamed by one Louis Reard) yet wonderfully complex by all that it shows us. Kind of like the atom… While we are on the subject of little things, why not mention the immortal PEZ. Neruda never wrote about it. It was invented in 1927 by Eduard Haas III and has become one of the smaller symbols of American snacking and collectors. The PEZ dispenser, how many people do you know that collect them? Perhaps not as many as the Beanie Baby (I never see roadside PEZ dispenser stands), but that doesn't mean it is unimportant. PEZ, the first interactive candy, the dispenser, invented in 1948, the harbinger of self rotating lollypops and hundreds of other ways to interactively keep the field of dentistry alive. The smaller things in life can take you down many roads…some futile and some not. I have spent a few days now trying to find the evolution of the Rice Krispie Treat from recipe to over the counter snack item. How long did it take Kellogg's to figure that out anyway? I've discovered that there was a toilet paper shortage in America during December of 1973 (created by Johnny Carson, the shortage, not the paper). I've learned that air conditioning was invented by Willis Carrier (thank you Willis) and was originally entitled 'Apparatus for Treating Air,' patent #808897. I've learned that Earle Dickson of New Brunswick, NJ first invented band aids because his poor wife Josephine couldn't cook without cutting herself all over. The list goes on. So, my conclusion: There are many complexities to be discovered in the simple things. One can find them in a Pablo Neruda poem or one can find them just by looking. It is up to you. Sources for this article include: |
