PEA RIDGE — At times it would appear that one of the favorite pastimes of human beings is getting out of work. I once knew a lady in Carroll County who regularly exerted more energy trying to avoid working than she would have exerted if she had been on a job working everyday. Sometimes we try to parlay our work off onto someone else, or we just neglect doing it, hoping that somehow it will magically get done, or maybe something will happen so that it won’t really need to be done. Of course when your livelihood depends on working livestock, with a beef herd or a dairy herd, the excuses and reluctances eventually catch up to you, and you either fail andgo under or you knuckle down and get things done. I like the attitude that if you have work to do, you may as well enjoy it as best you can. At least don’t throw unnecessary obstacles in the way of enjoying thework you have to do.
I was listening to a TV ad for a new truck the other evening. The ad was taking the line that you need to get with the new features that are available to you with this new truck. One of those new features was that you can now start your truck with your smart phone. I can just see me dialing up my truck, and when it answers in its dark green truck voice, I’m telling it, “Ok truck, get your motor going! Be ready to go when I get there! Oh, by the way, when you feel me hit the seat, you get that transmission in drive, pronto, you hear me now?!”
Ok, I’m pretty sure you will never hear me talking to my truck on a smart phone. I guess I’m a littleashamed to admit that I don’t know how to start my truck, or that it is too hard for me to turn the key, so I need to have my phone start it for me. I still drive, on purpose, a truck that requires me to crank the windows up or down, and to unlock my truck doors with a key.
Today’s cell phones, as I have often repeated, make me hark back to the 1930s and 1940s newspaper comic pages and Dick Tracy and Sam Ketchem with their two-way wrist radios. I’m pretty sure that Dick Tracy would never have thought to try starting his police car with his two-way wrist radio. If he started the police car without himself in it, what would keep thosedastardly crooks from driving off in his car before he could get there?
Just how far do we want to go with labor-saving devices? I understand that the straw broom and metal dustpan are so yesterday,and that the household of the future will need a robot to vacuum clean the house for them. I hear that there are lawn mowers that can mow the lawn without your driving them or pushing them; you just sit at the side and drink iced tea while it mows for you, or you might even watch TV while it mows. We have automatic dishwashers these days. They took the place of the old dishpan and dish rag and dryin’ rack. Now maybe what we need is an automatic dishloader to take the dishes off the table and put them in the dishwasher, and a dishwasher unloadder to put the clean dishes away in the cabinet or drawers.
There may be something wrong with me, but I am only with it on some of these technological “advancements,” in some things I prefer the old lowtech alternative. We’ve had electric razors for years, and every few years a newadvancement comes out that is “amazingly better.” But I keep liking my old Gillette wet blade razor. It is more comfortable and does a better job, so I think. I can run a computer pretty well, and can do some pretty sophisticated things with it, but I still like to keep my schedule and my job lists in handwriting on paper. I hope we don’t get to the point that we think we don’t need handwriting any more.
I wonder about “unnecessary” labor-saving devices. Already we have so many laborsaving devices that many of our ailments now happen as a result of inactivity. Getting healthy often calls for people to get off the couch, outof the recliner and start walking or running or otherwise exercising and “working out.” People work long hours to make lots of money, because it costs a lot to buy the boats and skidoos and fourwheelers and treadmills and exercise bikes and gym memberships to keep us active and healthy.
Maybe we are not physically made to do without work. Maybe the person who likes to get exercise in the garden rather than the gym is right on. Maybe the young child who sees Dad or Mom doing a creative task, and asks, “Let me help, let me help!” is right on, too. I think many kids start with a real capacity to enjoy doing creative and productive things. Too much “You’re too little” or too much “You’ll just mess it up” can soon teach a youngster that work is not to be enjoyed.
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Editor’s note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history.
He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.
Community, Pages 5 on 04/04/2012