Mighty Intellect
Posts: 1,603 
March 10th, 2008, 11:28 AM
Ron Petrie . In praise of obsolete skills
Ron PetrieThe Regina Leader-Post.
Monday, March 10, 2008
With the RRSP deadline passed, the stock market in the tank and all notions long gone of any retirement that doesn't entail Purina meatloaf, I bring you words of comfort:
You've probably lived long enough already.
This calming reassurance I base on two factors - factor 1 being that by "you," I mean we lost all the young readers at today's first mention of "RRSP," if not "stock market," leaving behind only those newspaper faithful of roughly my vintage (a delightful 1960 Le Farmboy de Saskatchewan), and factor 2, a recent website brought to my attention.
"Obsolete Skills" is a repository of tips and advice, quite useful to antique collectors and historians, I imagine, on how to operate anachronisms of the 21st century. "Churning butter" is one entry. Another: "Washing clothes on a washboard." "How to ride a penny-farthing bicycle." More than 400 how-to items make up the "Obsolete Skills" catalogue, including:
"Dialing a rotary phone."
This is true.
"Place your finger in the hole that shows the number you want to dial and rotate the dial clockwise until your finger reaches the finger stop and let go," say the instructions, in a calm, explanatory tone as if directed at somebody's half-wit hillbilly cousin. "Repeat this process for each digit."
Pop quiz:
When did the last rotary-dial phone disappear from your life?
Well?
You're rubbing your chin, aren't you? You're sucking on a tooth, pondering, all geezerly, and reckoning -- yes: reckoning, if not plumb figuring -- that, gosh, last dial phone, around these here parts? Must be going on two, maybe even three, years now.
You poor, memory-fogged oldster. Truth is that by now millions of Canadians are not only so young as to need instructions for a dial phone, but also old enough to read the words. A couple of weekends ago our family was watching a movie in which one of the characters placed a call on a rotary phone. Judging by the bamboozled looks on the faces of our 11-year-old triplets and their eight-year-old brother, the fellow in the movie might as well have been making toast by jamming bread in a mail slot. I found myself explaining that, yes, once upon a time, phones were tethered by a cord to the wall, and that the phones had a number wheel, which couldn't "text," and that, no, the olden-days telephone didn't take pictures, either, and that "telephone" is just an old-fashioned name for "phone," and, hey, hey, hey, quit snickering at your dear old dad.
Nothing comes close to offspring for making a fellow feel historical - that, and the artifacts in basement storage. A few years ago the kids dug out their mother's old portable typewriter and were positively wowed ("It makes words! Right away! Without a printer! Cool!"). More recently it was the triplets' discovery of my old 8-track album of Aerosmith's Toys in the Attic, a cartridge on which the kids, for the life of them, could not find a power switch or a jack for the earbuds.
After some further rooting around, I located my portable 8-tape player, and soon all four of us were getting down to to the timeless Walk this Way and Sweet Emotion ("Except, dad, how did you know, way back then, that someday there'd even be an Aerosmith?") Then there was the day, vice versa, several years ago, when I couldn't seem to get a Superman game started on the computer. The littlest guy, then maybe three, nudged me aside with all 24 pounds of his body. "Give me da 'puter and I shows you." The lad hadn't even mastered speech, yet with a few jabs of his stubby fingers on the keyboard - ta-da! - the Man of Steel was leaping tall buildings in a single bound.
(Walk this Way is your complimentary weekend brain worm, an infectious song to play over and over in your head, like a loop tape. Sorry.)
Lest I leave any of you fellow oldsters today with some impression that our time and purpose on this planet isn't spent, you should also know that, besides dialing a telephone, other "obsolete skills" on the website include: "adjusting a television's horizontal and vertical holds"; "rewinding VCR tapes"; "pumping the accelerator to start a car"; "using a bottle opener"; "counting back change"; "putting a needle on a vinyl record"; "winding a watch"; "operating a credit-card imprinter"; "licking stamps" and "popping corn in a pot with oil."
There.
Feeling better? I thought you might.
My dad's trade is defunct; he was an ornamental plasterer.
Ron Petrie . In praise of obsolete skills
Ron PetrieThe Regina Leader-Post.
Monday, March 10, 2008
With the RRSP deadline passed, the stock market in the tank and all notions long gone of any retirement that doesn't entail Purina meatloaf, I bring you words of comfort:
You've probably lived long enough already.
This calming reassurance I base on two factors - factor 1 being that by "you," I mean we lost all the young readers at today's first mention of "RRSP," if not "stock market," leaving behind only those newspaper faithful of roughly my vintage (a delightful 1960 Le Farmboy de Saskatchewan), and factor 2, a recent website brought to my attention.
"Obsolete Skills" is a repository of tips and advice, quite useful to antique collectors and historians, I imagine, on how to operate anachronisms of the 21st century. "Churning butter" is one entry. Another: "Washing clothes on a washboard." "How to ride a penny-farthing bicycle." More than 400 how-to items make up the "Obsolete Skills" catalogue, including:
"Dialing a rotary phone."
This is true.
"Place your finger in the hole that shows the number you want to dial and rotate the dial clockwise until your finger reaches the finger stop and let go," say the instructions, in a calm, explanatory tone as if directed at somebody's half-wit hillbilly cousin. "Repeat this process for each digit."
Pop quiz:
When did the last rotary-dial phone disappear from your life?
Well?
You're rubbing your chin, aren't you? You're sucking on a tooth, pondering, all geezerly, and reckoning -- yes: reckoning, if not plumb figuring -- that, gosh, last dial phone, around these here parts? Must be going on two, maybe even three, years now.
You poor, memory-fogged oldster. Truth is that by now millions of Canadians are not only so young as to need instructions for a dial phone, but also old enough to read the words. A couple of weekends ago our family was watching a movie in which one of the characters placed a call on a rotary phone. Judging by the bamboozled looks on the faces of our 11-year-old triplets and their eight-year-old brother, the fellow in the movie might as well have been making toast by jamming bread in a mail slot. I found myself explaining that, yes, once upon a time, phones were tethered by a cord to the wall, and that the phones had a number wheel, which couldn't "text," and that, no, the olden-days telephone didn't take pictures, either, and that "telephone" is just an old-fashioned name for "phone," and, hey, hey, hey, quit snickering at your dear old dad.
Nothing comes close to offspring for making a fellow feel historical - that, and the artifacts in basement storage. A few years ago the kids dug out their mother's old portable typewriter and were positively wowed ("It makes words! Right away! Without a printer! Cool!"). More recently it was the triplets' discovery of my old 8-track album of Aerosmith's Toys in the Attic, a cartridge on which the kids, for the life of them, could not find a power switch or a jack for the earbuds.
After some further rooting around, I located my portable 8-tape player, and soon all four of us were getting down to to the timeless Walk this Way and Sweet Emotion ("Except, dad, how did you know, way back then, that someday there'd even be an Aerosmith?") Then there was the day, vice versa, several years ago, when I couldn't seem to get a Superman game started on the computer. The littlest guy, then maybe three, nudged me aside with all 24 pounds of his body. "Give me da 'puter and I shows you." The lad hadn't even mastered speech, yet with a few jabs of his stubby fingers on the keyboard - ta-da! - the Man of Steel was leaping tall buildings in a single bound.
(Walk this Way is your complimentary weekend brain worm, an infectious song to play over and over in your head, like a loop tape. Sorry.)
Lest I leave any of you fellow oldsters today with some impression that our time and purpose on this planet isn't spent, you should also know that, besides dialing a telephone, other "obsolete skills" on the website include: "adjusting a television's horizontal and vertical holds"; "rewinding VCR tapes"; "pumping the accelerator to start a car"; "using a bottle opener"; "counting back change"; "putting a needle on a vinyl record"; "winding a watch"; "operating a credit-card imprinter"; "licking stamps" and "popping corn in a pot with oil."
There.
Feeling better? I thought you might.
My dad's trade is defunct; he was an ornamental plasterer.
Newbie
Posts: 13
Location: Edmonton Area
Location: Edmonton Area
March 24th, 2008, 03:20 PM
The rotary telephone, I still actually maintain some, mine you they are explosion proof and are about 4500.00 to replace, I have about a dozen of them in my garage ( not the explosion proof) and have had alot of conversations over them, whats really funny is that all the Telco's still support pulse dialing(rotary).
My ancestors were Stone Mason's from Wales, something you don't see anymore.
The rotary telephone, I still actually maintain some, mine you they are explosion proof and are about 4500.00 to replace, I have about a dozen of them in my garage ( not the explosion proof) and have had alot of conversations over them, whats really funny is that all the Telco's still support pulse dialing(rotary).
My ancestors were Stone Mason's from Wales, something you don't see anymore.
