(HOST) January temperatures take commentator Willem Lange back to the not-so-good old days.
(LANGE) The coldest weather in New England follows the winter solstice by about five weeks, so we’re just about into it. January prompts all kinds of memories. Like many of you, I recall taking the car battery indoors on cold nights. Six-volt batteries were okay for most operations, but on cold mornings, before the invention of multi-grade oil, they lasted about ten seconds before the starter ground to a horrible halt. Some of you may recall draining the radiator on cold nights. But almost none of you can remember putting the car up on blocks for the winter.
150 years ago, electric and steam power made all kinds of new applications possible. Today we’re into technological innovation – computers, MRIs, GPS – but to me the biggest steps forward in my lifetime have been the development of painless dentistry and the improvement of automobiles. The dentist of my childhood, whose foot-powered drill resembled that of a primitive Indian starting a fire (and produced much the same result), has been replaced by a person in gloves, mask, and protective goggles who warns, "Just a little pinch." And it’s been decades since I’ve had to put a shoulder to a fender to get a vehicle rolling fast enough to pop the clutch and get it to start. That doesn’t work today, anyway, with automatic transmissions.
Can you imagine a car without directional signals, a heater, seat belts, or a radio? Now, when I was a kid, the heater and radio were extras . The windshield was kept clear by a rubber-bladed electric fan that we used to dare each other to stick our fingers into. The radio crackled and screeched at the slightest interference. Directionals and seat belts were available at Sears and Western Auto. The directional control lever clamped to the steering column, and the belt anchors were bolted through the floor. You installed those yourself, if you were handy.
For lack of seat belts, I once left a basketball-sized dent in the dashboard of a 1946 Ford with my head. Now my truck complains if I don’t buckle up before turning the ignition key, and it somehow weighs the body, if any, in the passenger seat and tells me whether to belt it or turn off the air bag. I used to be under the hood of my Plymouth at least twice a week. Now I’m hard put to find the hood latch. When I do, there’s not much I can accomplish in that eye-glazing maze of hoses, shields, and mysterious electronic units.
Trouble is, all this gadgetry is seductive. It weans us from our rugged independence of old. I’ve disliked electric windows because they won’t work without an ignition key and are bound to fail. But when my new truck came without them, I was miffed. On the other hand, isn’t it great to wake up on a subzero morning without worrying whether your vehicle will start?. And all we have to fear from the dentist and the mechanic (I mean; automotive technician) nowadays is the bill.
This is Willem Lange in East Montpelier, and I gotta get back to work.