I spent four hours at a senior living center yesterday "job coaching" a client of mine. However, since I am not "authorized" to provide direct care, I found myself stashed away in the corner completing the crossword puzzle. Still, this gave me an opportunity to absorb my surroundings in the freakish way that I tend to.
I thought that I was in trouble because I was in for a four hour sit-fest and the only thing on the tele was Good Morning America and after about 30 minutes, classic music from the first half of the 20th century. I didn't think that I would be able to stay awake listening to classic jingles like "A Bushel and a Peck", especially with the 97 year old dozing off every five minutes.
When I saw three of the residents staring off into space, I couldn't help but wonder what they were thinking about. Perhaps the music was bringing them back "to the day". I could imagine the gentleman to my left, in his WWII uniform, with dark and dapper hair, dancing with a younger version of the lady across the room from him who's legs now no longer allow her to dance. I thought about the 97 year old woman and the history flowing through her veins. I wanted to ask her if we would "be alright", knowing that despite all the chaos currently in our world, she had seen much more and had survived to tell about it (maybe a lesson for us?). Knowing what she had probably been through suddenly put my historical lens into focus. We aren't nearly as bad off as we had been in the early 20th.
I determined that this music was making me nostalgic for them. I wondered what music they would play at my senior living center, assuming that they still exist when I reach that age. I imagined Third Eye Blind coming from the stereo and some young twenty-something sitting quietly in the corner doing the crossword. I would probably quip to him that he had it easy and that back in my day, Pluto was a planet, the world shit their pants at the words terrorism/socialist/wmd/swine flu, our economy tanked, we elected a dumbshit, then we elected an African American, American auto companies became shadows of their former selves, capitalism failed - but then wasn't allowed to, political parties became gangs and ruffians rather than representatives, newspapers became obsolete, iPhones and social networking sites ran our lives, and we became so self centered that we twittered so that EVERYBODY COULD KNOW WHAT WE WERE DOING.
What are some of the other things that my generation has to reflect on, knowing well that most of our lives are still ahead of us? Lets see: texting, sexting, the lost generation, school shootings, a rise in teen pregnancies/drug use, a decline in grades, a focus on college life rather than college, ENTITLEMENT, dressing like wealthy homeless people, spending more money on consumer goods than any other generation (but probably to be surpassed by the next), "pimping" out cars, Sparks, reality television obsessions, celebrity obsessions, more votes for American Idol than American Politics, disconnect, energy drinks, digital photography, online computer games, trying to recreate Woodstock, boy bands, Disney, crappy alt-rock that sounds the same, death metal heads exercising prejudice, Gulf War I and II, domestic and foreign terrorism, cotton-candy Christianity, computers, the Internet, green energy, eco-friendlism, volunteering, protest.
Sorry for the apparent rant...I don't have a completely bleak outlook on the history of my generation, but we are very unique. Still, I think that it's important to pay attention to the elderly in our society. Kids these days don't even respect their parents, not to mention their grandparents. The elderly today are part of the Greatest Generation. We are the Millennials.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5IfsNqJcmA
Word.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
A Deeper Look Into Sliced Bread
As I prepared my sandwich for work this morning, a quote on the bag perked my attention. "What was the best thing before sliced bread?". Trader Joes is historical for these little "haha's" on their products, but for whatever reasons, this one caused my early morning speculation to kick into over drive.
Before deciding what the best thing was before sliced bread, I had to figure out a little bit of history regarding sliced bread which I share with you now. As far as I can tell, sliced bread was the conception of Otto Frederick Rohwedder of Davenport, Iowa. Evidently he made a prototype in 1912 for a whole loaf bread slicer. This prototype burned in a fire and it wasn't until 1928 that he had finally created a working model. A few other guys got into the business shortly after and with better success. The first loaf of bread was sliced on July 7, 1928 in Battle Creek, Michigan (which claims this achievement to this day) and Wonderbread would be the first company to commercialize sliced bread in 1930 using a slicing machine that sliced and wrapped.
Sliced bread was originally marketed as "the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped."
In 1943 bread slicing was banned by the US Government in order to combat rising flour costs and to prevent bread from drying out too quickly (can't have waste after all). The ban only lasted about three months...We can thank the French for a successful protest! (In case you forgot, France and the US were allies during this time).
Well, as noted above, wrapped bread was the greatest thing since sliced bread. But that seems to be a lame precursor to one of our greatest hyperbolic phrases.
Of course there are so many stellar achievements that must be considered like anti-septics, horse drawn coaches, spiral barrels on rifles (a Civil War ooolala), the printing press, Bibles in the vernacular, submarines (I'm thinking about the Civil War ones), trains, crude oil drills, you're getting the point.
Since bread is a food, and slicing bread is to increase convenience, I have chosen to focus on a food item that was convenient before sliced or wrapped bread to address the original question of this post.
I have chosen, beyond a reasonable doubt: Beer.
Beer has been tracked back to 9000 BC in the writings of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Chemical evidence of beer goes back to 3100 BC in what would become Western Iran, and Germanic and Celtic tribes in 3000BC. This beer wasn't "normal beer" however. It was brewed with fruits, and cereal grains, and random wild flowers and berries. Beer as we appreciate it was best tracked down to 822AD and 1607AD when hops became the wonder weed of beer making. Before the Industrial Revolution, beer was made in small batches in monasteries and local breweries. After the Industrial Revolution, beer was made on a commercial level (don't' worry "micro brewing" will return as a phenomenon of the 1990's-2000's). By the end of the 1800's, beer had become a precise art due to the advent of thermometers and hydrometers which enabled consistent and quality results.
How great is this? A bread product being the best thing since sliced bread! Bread was, and forever will be, a staple in the human diet. How appropriate that it should expand upon itself. Beer has been used in substitute for water in Europe (historically) and in Mexico (currently) and attracts hundreds of billions of dollars in world sales. That's the power of bread man.
The next time you grab for that turkey sandwich, grab yourself a beer as well. You will experience a jubilee of historical awareness as you munch and savor the flavors of history's good fortune. Don't believe me? Try a FatTire. That stuff is bread in a bottle.
(Thank you wikipedia for your support in this speculation.)
Before deciding what the best thing was before sliced bread, I had to figure out a little bit of history regarding sliced bread which I share with you now. As far as I can tell, sliced bread was the conception of Otto Frederick Rohwedder of Davenport, Iowa. Evidently he made a prototype in 1912 for a whole loaf bread slicer. This prototype burned in a fire and it wasn't until 1928 that he had finally created a working model. A few other guys got into the business shortly after and with better success. The first loaf of bread was sliced on July 7, 1928 in Battle Creek, Michigan (which claims this achievement to this day) and Wonderbread would be the first company to commercialize sliced bread in 1930 using a slicing machine that sliced and wrapped.
Sliced bread was originally marketed as "the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped."
In 1943 bread slicing was banned by the US Government in order to combat rising flour costs and to prevent bread from drying out too quickly (can't have waste after all). The ban only lasted about three months...We can thank the French for a successful protest! (In case you forgot, France and the US were allies during this time).
Well, as noted above, wrapped bread was the greatest thing since sliced bread. But that seems to be a lame precursor to one of our greatest hyperbolic phrases.
Of course there are so many stellar achievements that must be considered like anti-septics, horse drawn coaches, spiral barrels on rifles (a Civil War ooolala), the printing press, Bibles in the vernacular, submarines (I'm thinking about the Civil War ones), trains, crude oil drills, you're getting the point.
Since bread is a food, and slicing bread is to increase convenience, I have chosen to focus on a food item that was convenient before sliced or wrapped bread to address the original question of this post.
I have chosen, beyond a reasonable doubt: Beer.
Beer has been tracked back to 9000 BC in the writings of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Chemical evidence of beer goes back to 3100 BC in what would become Western Iran, and Germanic and Celtic tribes in 3000BC. This beer wasn't "normal beer" however. It was brewed with fruits, and cereal grains, and random wild flowers and berries. Beer as we appreciate it was best tracked down to 822AD and 1607AD when hops became the wonder weed of beer making. Before the Industrial Revolution, beer was made in small batches in monasteries and local breweries. After the Industrial Revolution, beer was made on a commercial level (don't' worry "micro brewing" will return as a phenomenon of the 1990's-2000's). By the end of the 1800's, beer had become a precise art due to the advent of thermometers and hydrometers which enabled consistent and quality results.
How great is this? A bread product being the best thing since sliced bread! Bread was, and forever will be, a staple in the human diet. How appropriate that it should expand upon itself. Beer has been used in substitute for water in Europe (historically) and in Mexico (currently) and attracts hundreds of billions of dollars in world sales. That's the power of bread man.
The next time you grab for that turkey sandwich, grab yourself a beer as well. You will experience a jubilee of historical awareness as you munch and savor the flavors of history's good fortune. Don't believe me? Try a FatTire. That stuff is bread in a bottle.
(Thank you wikipedia for your support in this speculation.)
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