What great convenience of modern life was only introduced because of a labor dispute. What’s an oenophile – and is there a medication for it? Hear the answers on The Off Ramp with Bob & Marcia Smith.
Bob and Marcia Smith discussed various aspects of communication, including gender differences, security in public buildings, and the origins of words. They also shared interesting facts about inventions, such as the corn harvester, traffic light, and hair straightener process, as well as the history of the term ‘hooker.’ They later discussed the potential of vertical farms in cities as a solution to food security concerns, with Bob arguing that COVID-19 has spurred interest in vertical farming and Marcia adding that this could be a significant shift in agriculture. Personal anecdotes and reflections on their parents’ impact on their lives were also shared.
Outline
Wine, labor disputes, and language usage.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the adoption of direct dialing in 1919 by AT&T due to a labor dispute, despite the company’s initial rejection of the technology.
- The couple also touches on the history of dialing and how it has evolved over time.
- Marcia and Bob discuss wine, with Marcia revealing she’s an oenophile and the vaccine is on the kitchen counter.
- Bob and Marcia discuss gender differences in communication, with men uttering more words per day and women more than making up for it in their daily speech.
Inventions by African Americans.
- Marcia and Bob discuss exterior doors opening inwards for security and safety reasons.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss African American inventors who contributed to modern life, including Henry Blaine (corn harvester), Garrett Morgan (traffic light), and Granville T. Woods (electrified rail).
- The hosts highlight the impact of these inventions on farming, transportation, and daily life, and how they paved the way for future innovations.
Word origins, language, and agriculture.
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith discuss the origin of the word “backlog,” which comes from a large log kept at the back of a fire, ready to be used later.
- Bob Smith shares a fun fact about the German language, which has more ways to say “love” than any other language, with 30 different kinds of kisses described in the language.
- Bob and Marcia discuss St. Patrick’s Day, agreeing that it’s on March 17 due to a committee’s decision.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the potential of vertical farming in cities, with Marcia mentioning the growth of crops in empty office buildings and the potential for locally produced food.
- Vertical farmers are adding a variety of crops, including lettuce, root vegetables, and fruit, in controlled environments with LED lights and no soil.
Etymology of “hooker” and marine life in Antarctica.
- Marcia and Bob discuss the origins of the term “hooker,” learning that it refers to an area in New York City where entrepreneurial women were found in abundance.
- Scientists discover new marine life beneath the Antarctic ice sheet.
Coffee, toilet seats, and family influences.
- Marcia and Bob discuss coffee and its potential health effects, as well as a valuable toilet seat in Hong Kong.
- Marcia Smith finds it fascinating that a man created a diamond artifact worth $334 point 68 carats, embedded with bulletproof glass, and plans to display it in a diamond art museum.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss how Henry Ford’s family forced him to change his ambition from producing inexpensive wristwatches to cars, highlighting the influence of parents on their children’s choices.
- Bob and Marcia discuss the importance of patience and a famous Shakespeare insult.
Bob Smith 0:00
What great convenience of modern life was only adopted because AT and T was involved in a labor dispute. What’s
Marcia Smith 0:08
an oenophile? And is there a medication for it?
Bob Smith 0:11
I hope so, because I’m itching all over. answers to those and other questions coming up in this episode of the off ramp with Bob and Marsha Smith.
Welcome to the off ramp, she has to slow down steer clear of crazy take a side road to sanity. and have some fun with trivia. Marcia, this is our 45th consecutive trivia show since we went into COVID. In 2020. You’ve weathered it very well, I must say. Okay, I have a question for you. Please start. What the heck is that thing you asked me about? Now? I
Marcia Smith 1:00
want you to start okay.
Bob Smith 1:02
I’m starting with this question. Then what great convenience of modern life did AT and T only adopt because it was involved in a labor dispute? Lord, I would the year was 1919 100. And some odd years ago. Is it the telephone? It involve the telephone? Yes. Well,
Marcia Smith 1:22
was it a transcription machine? A telephone, a answering
Bob Smith 1:26
machine? Something you use every day when you want to call someone? My phone? Yeah, I know that. How do you use your phone? You pick it up and you hit buttons. You dial someone, right? Yeah, we call it dial still. But it’s dial you’re actually hit your buttons and call someone well, direct dialing or direct communication was not a part of AT and T in 1919. The American Telephone and Telegraph Company earlier rejected dial telephones. But they finally came around in 1919 when they introduced them in Norfolk, Virginia, because telephone operators were threatening to go on strike. So the company wanted a way to cut its losses if that happened and to prevent service disruptions. So they adopted direct dial,
Marcia Smith 2:11
I’ll be darned well, that. Wow. So
Bob Smith 2:14
they only used it for key purposes and probably kept using it as a hammer against the unions or the workers at the time.
Marcia Smith 2:20
Yeah, if you don’t, we can do this. We can always
Bob Smith 2:23
go to direct dial. And eventually they did
Marcia Smith 2:27
a they did and I don’t know if you dial Oh, today is there anybody there? Probably not. Yeah. All right, Bob, what’s an oenophile?
Bob Smith 2:36
oenophile, that’s somebody file pH i l e is somebody who is usually it means you have a fear of something right in ino file or somebody has a fear of something correct? No or there are they are a audio files or people who like audio, right? So it can so ino files are people who like E knows there’s the answer. Next question. What does that mean? I can
Marcia Smith 2:58
give you a hint, Bob. Okay. And also, I don’t know if spelling it for you would help. Okay, oenophile is spelled Oh, ENOPHI le,
Bob Smith 3:07
that makes all the difference.
Marcia Smith 3:10
Well, if it helps, I’m an oenophile and the vaccine is on the kitchen counter.
Bob Smith 3:16
Okay, you better explain that.
Marcia Smith 3:17
It’s a lover or connoisseur of wine.
Bob Smith 3:21
Oh, ino file, spelled out again. O E N. O
Marcia Smith 3:24
file, OE and o file. Yeah. I got it from one of our listeners, Robert Dittmer. Oh, no kidding. Hi, Bob from the enchanted village of Thiensville, Wisconsin. He also wants to know if you know the number one wine producing nation in the world as of 2020. Want to take a guess?
Bob Smith 3:45
Well, let’s see. It could be well could be the United States just from the size of things, then of course, you’d normally go to France, but I’ll say it’s a bet. It’s like a South American country like Argentina or something like that.
Marcia Smith 3:58
Yeah, you got a couple there, but not in order. The number one 20% of the world’s total is Italy. Well, that makes sense. Yeah. Followed by France, Spain and the USA. So those are the top four. You know what the most popular worldwide wine is the
Bob Smith 4:13
most popular worldwide wine? Are you talking about a brand name or are you talking about? A type? I’d say? What you like? Yeah. Cabernet? Right Cabernet? Cabernet? sold me y’all.
Marcia Smith 4:26
That’s right. I was on the cutting edge. Your wife. Thanks again from Robert, my fellow why No. Or you know, file. And
Bob Smith 4:35
he submitted that through our website, didn’t it? Yes. Okay. So if you have a question you’d like to give to me so I can stop Marsha. Go to our website at the off ramp dot show and go all the way down to contact us. Give me the question and the answer please. Speaking of answers, Marsha, I have a question here for you which requires an answer. Okay, which of the sexes Speak more words per day, women or men?
Marcia Smith 5:03
How many words speak?
Bob Smith 5:05
Which of the sexes speak more words per day, women or men? Women a definite Okay, any idea how many? I’ll
Marcia Smith 5:11
bet twice as much, three times as much. Try almost four. Okay? I believe it.
Bob Smith 5:16
On average men are just over 2000 words a day. And that includes grunts and all kinds of
Marcia Smith 5:24
because they ask for things and the woman has to respond also, like she has to use more. Of
Bob Smith 5:29
course, that’s the reason. Okay, so anyway, men utter just over 2000 words per day, women more than make up for that women utter on average. 7000 words really 7000 words, cuz
Marcia Smith 5:42
you and I are opposite that way. You’re more chatty than me. Yeah,
Bob Smith 5:45
I am more.
Marcia Smith 5:46
It’s nice.
Bob Smith 5:47
So now we’re talking about male and female differences. Here’s another question. Not okay. Which sex which gender among Americans say they would marry the same person? If they had to do it again. More of them say yes, I’d marry the same person. Men do. You’re right. Yeah, this comes under the maybe she’s just not that into you category. A full 80% of American men say they’d marry the same person if they had to do it all over again. Women 50%. Yeah.
Marcia Smith 6:22
So many women think they have to get married and then they don’t always choose wise. So oh my god, I’m 21
Bob Smith 6:29
I’m so old. I better get married. Not when we were younger. That’s that was the way it was 22 women get married then.
Marcia Smith 6:37
Not me and my friends. That’s why we’re so happy. Took care of ourselves. And don’t ask me to iron your shirts and make your meals right was
Bob Smith 6:47
what Marsha said. We were dating. Of course, why would I ask that then it was damn.
Marcia Smith 6:54
Okay. My favorite was don’t ask me to send your relatives birthday cards because I wasn’t going to be that person. You
Bob Smith 7:00
never sent your own relative. That’s right. So all of our bad habits coming out in the show. Bob,
Marcia Smith 7:04
why do exterior doors in your house tend to open inwards? Why
Bob Smith 7:11
do exterior doors open inwards as opposed to opening outwards?
Marcia Smith 7:16
That’s exactly why
Bob Smith 7:18
I guess it makes it easier to shut from the inside. Like if you open you see it somebody you don’t want to have come in your house, you could shut the door. But if you’re opening it out, then they’ve got the upper hand. You’re
Marcia Smith 7:30
getting to it. It’s security. It’s security and you want those door hinges and pins on the inside. Right? Because the burglars on the outside they can just pop those come on in. But now in public buildings is just the opposite. When you go into public buildings, they always open going in That’s right. They tend to open out because if a lot of people rush to the exit in a panic, they will push not pull.
Bob Smith 7:59
So it safety in a public building and security in a private building. Well put Bob That’s one of my key attributes. The ability to synthesize emphasize
Marcia Smith 8:08
sink that Yeah, right. Okay. Even the force of a mob rushing out of a fire will propel the door forward so you want to go with the if there’s a crush or fire somebody to go with what’s happened. Yeah, you
Bob Smith 8:22
don’t want to be crushed there because you can’t open the door and people try and get
Marcia Smith 8:26
a lot of emergency exits have those panic bars and then instead of doorknobs and that makes it even faster to escape in case of problem
Bob Smith 8:34
now it makes sense. Thank you for clearing that. Oh, that’s why I’m here but you forgot you are and you enlightened me so much. You know any any man out there that claims a woman has too many clothes. She’s not like this woman. Okay.
Marcia Smith 8:46
Imelda Marcos.
Bob Smith 8:49
This was Elizabeth the First of Russia. She died in 1762. She was well known for her love of clothing. It was confirmed when her aides went to her closets they found 15,000 dresses. They’re 15,000. She used to change what she was wearing two even three times every evening.
Marcia Smith 9:09
God did they all bring her joy. She has a two year rule.
Bob Smith 9:14
She didn’t have that tidy up rule. If you haven’t worked on this, get rid of it. Oh, holy cow. Okay. February is Black History Month and I’ve got a question about black inventions. They’ve contributed more than is widely known to our modern life. What three great inventions did African Americans give to country living and city living? Say again? What do people in the country traditionally do? Marsh farm? Yes. Okay. So
Marcia Smith 9:43
it’s the Thrasher something or the thresher?
Bob Smith 9:47
It’s thresher Marsh. Oh, yeah. Pressure. Thrasher is what you do when you’re you know got a little smart aleck little kiddie
Marcia Smith 9:54
farm girl like me. She got thrashed. Yeah, so it’s like you It’s like that. It’s like that it said it wasn’t the cotton mill. No, it’s a corn harvester axe. Oh, okay. Very good.
Bob Smith 10:06
Yeah, the corn harvester Henry Blaine patented the corn harvester he became the first black American to receive a US patent that was all the way back in 1834. So that was one of the inventions that started revolutionising farming was the corn harvester. In 1923. Garrett Morgan, who was the first black man in Cleveland, Ohio to own a car came up with the idea for a traffic light. So anyway, Garrett Morgan came up with the idea for the three lights, you know, the green, red and yellow. Yeah. And Morgan also invented other things a belt faster on a sewing machine and a hair straightening process. The hair straightener process that was that enabled him to buy his car.
Marcia Smith 10:46
Really good for him to produce a third
Bob Smith 10:49
invention. Granville T woods. He was the black American who invented the third rail that was the electrified rail for trains and that freed city streetcars from those overhead cables. Okay, very. So those are three great inventions that really did help American life.
Marcia Smith 11:06
It did. And do still. Okay, you know, what a backlog is? We get it when we’re working, don’t we? Yes, we do. But you ever wonder what’s the origin of that word backlog?
Bob Smith 11:19
That must have something to do with the logging industry? I’ll bet and maybe it was a log that gummed up the works and kept things from rolling or something. It was a backlog detection.
Marcia Smith 11:30
Yeah, it’s wrong. But that’s a good. Oh, okay. This is 1860. It. And it’s oddly enough, it makes perfect sense. It was originally was a large log kept at the back of a fire. So it was ready to go later on when you needed it. You know, you burn your logs and the back of the great use of backlog, a backlog. You just roll that forward when you’re ready. And eventually it became a synonym for a supply of things that need to be processed or attended to, you know, oh, yeah, there’s a backlog on there. Let’s let’s get it out here. Okay.
Bob Smith 12:05
That makes sense. It does.
Marcia Smith 12:06
I was worried.
Bob Smith 12:07
Because you can think of it in a negative sense to backlog. We got a backlog of me. But it’s also can be positive. Yeah. supplies that need to be used. That’s right. It
Marcia Smith 12:16
came up in a novel I was reading and I thought, Well, Bob loves words. By golly, Well,
Bob Smith 12:23
speaking of word origins bars, you know, you and I, on a recent show, we’re joking, we both have German backgrounds, but we talk about the Germans kind of having a harsh reputation, right. And many people consider German a very harsh guttural sounding language, but there’s one statistic that shows it has a softer side. Any idea what that is has to do with words, a statistic about the German language
Marcia Smith 12:47
about the German language, it has more ways to say love than any other language.
Bob Smith 12:53
It has almost more ways to say kissing than any other. German language has words that describe the 30 different kinds of kisses. As a matter of fact, now that’s romantic. They even have a word called Nacht cousine. That describes kisses that make up for those that were previously omitted. I’ll relay it to give you some knocked caution. Did the kiss you some more? Oh,
Marcia Smith 13:16
I Oh, wow. I prefer to embrace the French side of my family.
Bob Smith 13:20
And so do I. Oh.
Marcia Smith 13:24
Yeah. Although not cousin is good for just about everything. And speed. And we don’t we have some Irish and as to Oh, yeah. Okay, so why? Why Bob? is St. Patrick’s Day on March 17. Every year? Well,
Bob Smith 13:40
that had to do with St. Patrick. Obviously, because they call it St. Patrick’s Day. Do they? Isn’t that supposedly the day he drove the snakes out of Ireland or something? Tame the snakes? No. Okay. Yeah. Well, you need to tell me I know if I’m wrong, you need to correct
Marcia Smith 13:55
I like to answer according to The Big Book of answers. When the time came to honor the patron saint of Ireland. To honor his birthday church officials got together and they had to figure out his birthday. But they were committee and they couldn’t agree on what day it was. Was it March 8, or March 9? So how do you think they got to march 17? They added them
Bob Smith 14:24
none of us are right if we add them up both the right I love that idea shipped
Marcia Smith 14:29
by committee now there’s an example of what’s wrong with that
Bob Smith 14:33
or what’s right with it. They came up with something they both agreed on. I guess so but and then they could argue about whose idea was it? Yeah.
Marcia Smith 14:44
He was born on the eighth No, it was the night Whoa,
Bob Smith 14:47
that’s pretty good. Let’s take a break here and we’ll be back in just a moment. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and
Marcia Smith 14:52
Marsha Smith.
Bob Smith 14:55
Okay, we’re back. This is the off ramp with Bob and my shop Earth. And I have a question for you about what revolution in agriculture is COVID-19 currently spurring on something that’s taking place as a result of COVID 19. Oh,
Marcia Smith 15:15
people are doing a lot more home gardening and growing thing it has to do with growing things. Yes. City. Yeah. In their own garden.
Bob Smith 15:24
It’s not people though it’s not regular people.
Marcia Smith 15:26
It’s animals that grow agricultural
Bob Smith 15:27
revolution that’s going on in cities. I don’t know. They call it vertical farms. Oh, yeah. Going up farms inside tall buildings, within cities, a lot of buildings. There are people saying of some of these buildings will never be used anymore. The way they used to these office buildings are using them. This has been a thing for a decade. But now COVID-19 the pandemic has spurred an interest in them as an answer to what they call food security for cities. So it may be solution for the commercial real estate dilemma. Like if people don’t come back to cities right away? What are we going to do with these buildings, so hundreds of multi storey buildings are empty as workers do their jobs from home. And hundreds of indoor farms are sprouting in some of those buildings as the landlords are looking for new tenants. Where’s that in multiple cities? There, it’s happening. And the idea is they can grow crops in water or misted air instead of soil. And they use LED lights that provides 24 hours of sunlight. And since you don’t need soil, there’s no need to dig till or plow. And since it’s a controlled environment, storms and pests don’t wreak havoc, Jean Giacomelli, who’s a professor of Biosystems Engineering at the University of Arizona, he says in a vertical farm 95% of outdoor seedlings can grow to maturity and harvest. Well, the survival rate for outdoor crops can be as low as 70%. Yeah. And then you get drought years floods, you’re
Marcia Smith 16:53
not going to have that. And the difference, of course would be in the taste and that there is a difference. Yeah, that’s what if it there’s no difference. I’m not that discriminating. But I can’t tell that much difference sometimes between an ocean shrimp Anna, and a raised shrimp. So this
Bob Smith 17:10
is happening in paintball arenas, warehouses and empty office buildings. And here’s what they’re growing. Okay. Vertical farmers are starting to add crops other than just lettuce, root vegetables, like potatoes, radishes, carrots, and celery seemed to work well in this environment. Plus green beans, peppers and tomatoes, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries. So that’s, that’s what’s happening could be a significant shift of agriculture to the cities. But then that’s where 60% of the people live. So the market for locally produced food is there. Just an interesting idea that came from a Wall Street Journal article.
Marcia Smith 17:46
Let’s keep an eye on that. Okay, let’s
Bob Smith 17:47
do vertical farms. Okay.
Marcia Smith 17:49
Let’s get to prostitutes. What? Wait a minute. Ever wonder why we call prostitutes hookers? You want to guess?
Bob Smith 17:58
Well, that is a good question. hookers. Because they hook their bait. It’s like fishing for something.
Marcia Smith 18:03
I guess. Yeah. Also, there
Bob Smith 18:05
was a myth you reel them in? Yeah, real those John’s in? Yeah, they call them a lot
Marcia Smith 18:10
of people think it’s General Joseph Hooker from the Civil War.
Bob Smith 18:14
That’s a story I
Marcia Smith 18:15
always heard. Yeah, cuz the ladies
Bob Smith 18:16
he had a an entourage of people, including ladies who
Marcia Smith 18:20
would follow him. Correct. But you know, Nene, it wasn’t him. It wasn’t okay. The word hooker first appeared in 1845 as a reference to an area in New York City. Really? Yeah. An area known as the hook. And it just happened to be where a lot of entrepreneurial women could be found in abundance.
Bob Smith 18:40
Third, there on brown the hook. That’s right. So sounds like a, like a part of land a peninsula that looked around thing.
Marcia Smith 18:47
I don’t know what area but there were tons of ladies there. Entrepreneurial ladies. Yeah. All right. I’d like entrepreneurial ladies. A lot of men do too.
Bob Smith 19:01
Okay, anything else to that story? Because that sounds interesting.
Marcia Smith 19:04
It does. No, that’s all. All right. Give you a factoid though. Sure. The silkworm suit comes out of its mouth as a thread of gooey liquid. Which means that that nice silk blouse that I have is just really warm spit.
Bob Smith 19:19
Hey, but it’s better than coming out of the other end of the animal right. All right, speaking of creatures, what living creatures did British scientists just discover in Antarctica?
Marcia Smith 19:34
Under the ice that was the good paws. creatures they had never known were
Bob Smith 19:40
there or they never saw these things before apparently. I mean,
Marcia Smith 19:44
this is a new life form that we had never well how can I guess that if I never heard
Bob Smith 19:48
of this is just coming out and they have don’t have a lot of information on it yet but just happened in the past? I don’t know 6090 days but researchers from the British Antarctic society drill by boreholes through a half mile thick ice shelf and then they bring these samples up and they see you How old is this? Well, they were recently doing that and they hit a boulder. Yeah. And when they dropped a camera down the hole, they found something far more exciting beneath the ice in total darkness and in near freezing water. They saw a variety of sea animals clinging to the rock that included 16 sponges, which are animals and 20 other unidentified creatures. It’s the first time this kind of marine community has been found beneath an ice sheet. And it’s a reminder of how little we really know
Marcia Smith 20:35
better this stuff down there be amazed you they said
Bob Smith 20:40
that Antarctica is surprisingly full of life they it was I had a five week mission under the Antarctic ice. And how did the animals get there? How did they get their food? Are there more than they don’t know? They floating ice shelves in Antarctica. Although they cover the area the size of Mongolia scientists have only explored about a tennis courts worth of space really is that amazing person in the whole history of man. That’s all the more than explored underneath. Yeah,
Marcia Smith 21:07
no, just I didn’t get the memo on that. Interesting. Yeah. Okay. Can coffee kill you, Bob?
Bob Smith 21:14
Yes, it can.
Marcia Smith 21:15
How
Bob Smith 21:15
if you drink too much of it. I think it’s like 50 cups in a row or something like that. Well, you’re
Marcia Smith 21:22
up on it. It hurts your heart. Well, yeah, there’s a reason we always say moderation and all things because pretty much anything can kill you if you overdo it. Even love. So no fear of dying for a while. Oh, what will kill you is lots of coffee in a short amount of time. That is 100 cups. Over four hours. Cheese will kill the average human
Bob Smith 21:47
being 100 cups over a four hour period will kill the average human could be really tired to want that much coffee. Wow. Yeah, this is a colorful fact. You did something the other day on Shakespeare, an expression of Shakespeare. And I have a really funny expression on Shakespeare. It’s a descriptive insult or you’ve probably never heard of this. This comes from a Much Ado About Nothing. Listen to this. You have such a February face. So full of frosted storm and cloudiness. Wow, that’s a descriptive.
Marcia Smith 22:18
Sorry, face. Yeah.
Bob Smith 22:20
Isn’t that funny?
Marcia Smith 22:21
We have February faces right now. Wow. That’s funny, isn’t it? There’s a toilet seat in Hong Kong Bob.
Bob Smith 22:28
That sounds like a beginning of a song and a limerick.
Marcia Smith 22:31
So it’s a romantic tune.
Bob Smith 22:34
A toilet seat in old Tonka.
Marcia Smith 22:38
That is valued at $1.3 million in 2019. Wow, what makes that toilet seat so special? Like gold? Probably that something
Bob Smith 22:48
else? Well, it’s made out of a precious metal. Yeah. A Hong
Marcia Smith 22:53
Kong jeweler named Aaron shum or shoom. Embedded his gold plated toilet seat with 40,815 Diamonds. Oh my goodness, it’s 334 point 68 carats worth of diamonds. And just to be safe. The diamonds were embedded with bulletproof glass.
Bob Smith 23:16
Oh,
Marcia Smith 23:17
the creator’s goal was to make the Guinness Book of World Records, which you have to assume. Couldn’t have been a hard category to get into. You know, I’ll give out who has the most diamonds in their toilet seats. And what does he plan to do with this fabulous artifact here? He doesn’t plan to keep it or to sell it. Apparently he doesn’t need the money. He’s going to put it in the diamond Art Museum.
Bob Smith 23:44
There’s a diamond Art Museum.
Marcia Smith 23:46
I guess where it is in his?
Bob Smith 23:48
I don’t know. Living room? No,
Marcia Smith 23:50
it’s in Wuhan, China. Really? And what else is in Wuhan bar? COVID. Right. That’s
Bob Smith 23:55
the Ground Zero really gotta want to see this.
Marcia Smith 23:58
You gotta go there for diamonds and ground zero for oh,
Bob Smith 24:02
so funny.
Marcia Smith 24:03
It is I just found that particularly fascinating. I diamond museum. I mean, you know, and diamonds aren’t that scarce. I mean, you know, they’re just made to be expensive because they, they only let out. You know so much. Well, there’s a control over it control. But there are tons of diamonds.
Bob Smith 24:21
Marsha and I got a great gift from our children this year. Oh, we did for Christmas called story worth. I’d highly recommend it. It’s a great way to get your parents to start writing down their history of their lives by sending them a question every week and then all they have to do is email it back. And if they want to hang pictures on it, they can, you know, post pictures too. And what that brought to mind in our discussions recently Marsh was the influence our parents had on certain things we did. So here’s a question along those lines. Okay, okay. Now today we associate the name Henry Ford with
Marcia Smith 24:57
cars Bob. Thank
Bob Smith 24:58
you, Marcia coping Need to come up with something? But why? Why don’t we associate Henry Ford with wristwatches?
Marcia Smith 25:07
Well, I don’t think he made wristwatches.
Bob Smith 25:10
But he wanted to make wristwatches Marsh. Isn’t that interesting? Did he try and fail? Well, Henry Ford’s family forced him into something he didn’t want to do because his original ambition was to find a way to produce watches. So they could be sold inexpensively for $1 apiece. So
Marcia Smith 25:27
he had that good thinking about mass production that you could wear.
Bob Smith 25:30
Yeah. Well, his father convinced young Henry no work on the family farm instead. And that’s where he became convinced about the importance of machinery. And he, you know, some of his first tinkering with machines was on the family farm so and that
Marcia Smith 25:46
mass production line that he came up with was that was the game changer.
Bob Smith 25:51
That was actually idea some other people came up with and he kind of he in his own team kind of fine tuned it. So there are various fathers or mothers of the assembly line. But yeah, obviously he and his team, they are the
Marcia Smith 26:03
people who perfected the assembly line.
Bob Smith 26:07
This is another insult from Shakespeare. Okay, this is an insult villain. I have done my mother. Oh,
Marcia Smith 26:15
your mama. Funny. So that kind of in your face. prac goes back way back to Shakespeare. But
Bob Smith 26:22
when you say it that way, it sounds more insulting and more cultured at the same time. I have done my mother. All
Marcia Smith 26:30
right. I’m gonna finish and follow through with the Chinese proverb that I like, okay. One moment of patience may ward off great disaster. One moment of impatience may ruin a whole life. Well, that’s true. Yeah. I was thinking about patience, because we’re waiting to get on some list. Any list anywhere for our vaccine vaccine. Yeah, I’m thinking about patients and well, that’s
Bob Smith 26:55
great. Okay, one more Shakespeare insult. Imagine saying this to somebody? would thou wert clean it off to spit upon? If only you were clean enough to spit? I gotta write that. That’s a cutting until and not a single swear word. Yeah,
Marcia Smith 27:12
that’s a good I’d like to text that to somebody would thou words
Bob Smith 27:16
clean enough to spit upon? If only you were not so dirty. All right. That’s it for the day. We hope you’ve enjoyed our show and we hope you’ll join us again next time. I’m Bob Smith.
Marcia Smith 27:30
I’m Marcia Smith,
Bob Smith 27:31
and you’ve been listening to the off ramp. The off ramp is produced in association with CPL radio online and the Cedarbrook Public Library Cedarburg, Wisconsin.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
