making it work

 Making it work. That's what I thought this morning as I tapped the bubble lights on the Christmas tree. I had almost forgotten about that as I haven't used bubble lights in a number of years. This year as I brought out some of the decorations, I noticed them and decided to go old school. So, it is bubble lights and tinsel. At first, they lit up and I watched in anticipation for them to begin bubbling. Some time passed when I noticed some were not bubbling. My first thought was, guess they have gone bad from being in the attic all this time. But then I thought, that can't be, Mom and Dad kept ours in the attic and they worked every year. Thinking back, I remembered. Take a pencil and gently tap on the glass tube and presto, they begin to bubble. If that doesn't work tilt them on their side, turn them back upright, and tap again. Works every time. That's when I thought about making it work. 

 I thought there are a lot of people today that probably wouldn't know about that, about how to make them work. I was reminded of putting aluminum foil of our tv antenna, to make it work. It did improve the reception. We all learned a little bit about how that worked. If you had a skip in your favorite record album, what could you do? Put a penny on the tone arm, that would usually take care of that. You could make it work. Does your bicycle tire have a hole in it? Sure, you could put a patch on the tube but what about the tire itself? Simple, wrap it with friction tape. That would get you twenty miles or more. Your cassette tape tangled? All you need is patience and a pencil. What if Moms' favorite pot got a hole in it. Just get a tinkers dam, no problem. It'll work just fine.

 There were all sorts of little tricks we used back then to make things work. You grew up with them and gave them little thought. It's no different today. The thing is today the kids will learn how to make the computer work or the phone, that sort of thing. The things that we senior folk have little clue about. When we learned about getting the boot it meant something entirely different than it does today. The web was something Mom got the broom for, to reach up and get rid of that. A hack was somebody that didn't know what they were doing. Was before my time but you used to have to wet the tip of a pencil before it would write. My Dad still had that habit. He always put the tip of the pencil on the end of his tongue before writing. 

 I was thinking about the things we would know how to "make work" or simply use that many today would not. How many young people today would know how to start a fire in a wood stove or know what kindling is? Get me the sprinkle bottle. Do we have an ice box or a refrigerator? How do you heat a flat iron or tell the temperature of that iron before using it? Wet your finger and tap the surface, listen for the sizzle, that's how. How do you thread a movie projector or use a mimeograph machine? Lots of things like that. everyday stuff to us, lost to a new generation. It's the way with each generation. Nostalgia will keep some of it alive, while some of it will fade away forever. Vinyl records are making a comeback, but I don't believe 8 track tapes ever will. Fashion will almost certainly repeat. Can't see outhouses ever making a comeback. Baby carriages? Haven't seen any of those in a number of years. What can you think of?