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Don Locke: Lookin Thru Bifocals

A few days ago our home air conditioner went bonkers- no cool air. The man came and installed a new capacitor. The bill was $72.00: fifteen dollars for the house call and $57.00 for the capacitor, a silicon chip if you will…. Used in the manufacture of transistors, solar cells, computers, rectifiers, etc. Silicon is a part of the chemical element SILICIUM, one of the most abundant chemical elements in nature. Abundant should equal-cheaper. Not ($57.00). Remember? 

A capacitor simply receives, absorbs and holds an electrical charge until it is needed to do its task, then it is expelled by some trigger mechanism; like the ignition contact point in a gasoline engine. In older automobile this electrical charge was stored by a condenser; a small round metal cylinder device resembling an old-fashioned pill box… inexpensive by today’s standards. It performed functions as a capacitor.  

Today, silicon chips are manufactured in great abundance-quicker, simpler, maybe. However there is one thing they haven’t improved: sound. The old vacuum tube in radios, TV’s, and phonographs gave us deeper, more pleasant, less harsh, resonance. Too, vacuum tube weren’t that expensive to replace. Never is not always better. 

Changing horses… maybe in mid-stream: Eating habits are different-I’m talking here about the manipulation of mealtime tools; knife, fork, and spoon as it were. 

The Bible pushes their food up on the back of the fork with their knife. Then they insert the fork into their mouth that way-with the food riding on the fork’s back. 

As I recall, to old men especially, the fork was a secondary tool and the knife was the main implement: opposite from the Brits. Of course eating-knives were broader and thinner then. I remember my maternal granddad eating his food perched on his knife blade.  Years later I saw a verse that might explain the secret of the successful knife blade eating maneuver:

“I mix my peas with honey, I’ve done it all my life; it makes the peas taste funny; but it keeps them on my knife.” 

I’ll leave you with this: “I’ll see your cow in bloomers, and raise you one hog with a sidesaddle” … and you thought I didn’t know nothing about poker…

Kindest regards…. 

 
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