Books That Changed Us

Disposable!

The Kansas Woman thinks she ruined my favorite skillet, the one with the non-stick surface that isn’t, or wasn’t.

The skillet reminded me of a 1970’s Alvin Toffler book in which he wrote that we were living in an age in which things are not built to last: Disposable. Amen!

I’ll start with men’s razors. Men used to sharpen their straight razor.

Eventually a dollar plastic razor came along but lasted less than a month or half that long. The consumer advocate, Clark Howard, made a plastic razor last nearly a year or longer by protecting the blade from rust and pitting by keeping it in a container of cooking oil.

Shoe shops are rare now. Shoes are not made to last. Some appliances are cheaper to discard and replace, the same with televisions. People own cell phones that rapidly become obsolete.

I’ve replaced all of the light bulbs with LEDs here, and I own two laptop computers that were working just fine when the software maker abandoned the “operating system.” That disimprovement rendered the machines useless.

That non-stick skillet was supposed to make cast iron skillets too old school to keep, but they work, and we have a wall full of them hanging by hooks.

Add toys, which are all plastic/electronic, and cars. Cars were so simple that maintenance was done in the driveway. Today car makers recommend that oil changes be done in a shop.

I recommend that book “Future Shock” by Alvin Toffler.

Rachel Carlson was a government biologist who’s sea trilogy, starting with “Under the Sea,” made us see the oceans as something living rather than a garbage dump. Her “Silent Spring” made us aware of the damage caused by DDT.

Upton Sinclair wrote “The Jungle” as a novel based upon his experience working for a short while in the Chicago Stock Yards. The book was written as a sensationalist tome but instead caused major change in the meat processing industry.

The vivid scenes created by abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe in her novel, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” were intended to cause angst. The setting of her book was placed in the South maybe because she thought the South looks meaner than her home state of Connecticut. The book was published only four years after Connecticut outlawed slavery.

The book was a best seller. It also created and popularized a number of racial stereotypes.

The novel was so popular that people assumed it had to be true.

As recent as the 1950’s, Florida bound travelers passing through southern towns asked for directions to the site of the story.

A man in southwest Georgia finally said: “If they want to see an Uncle Tom’s cabin, I’ll build them one.” He did, people came, and he made money on a copy of something that didn’t exist.

joenphillips@yahoo.com