Monthly Archives: May 2015

It’s time to double back a bit in the photographic saga of my most recent trip to Boston. I say “most recent” because it was a city I visited often when I was in high school, given that I could get there easily from Southern Vermont. It’s also a favorite city so I plan on going back every chance I get.

For this trip I was the “Trophy Husband” the Long-Suffering Wife on one of her business trips. (She calls me that, but someone has pointed out that she never said it was a first-place trophy. It could have been for “best effort,” “most enthusiastic participation,” or “best cookbook collection.”) We were in a hotel downtown, she was in meetings all day, so I walked The Freedom Trail, starting at Boston Common, up Fremont Street to the Old State House and Faneuil Hall, into the North End to Paul Revere’s house and the Old North Church, then finally across the Charles River and into the Charlestown Navy Yard.

Last time I showed pictures of the USS Cassin Young and mentioned that she was the second-most famous attraction in the Charlestown Navy Yard. That is, of course, because she sits across the pier from the USS Constitution, otherwise known as “Old Ironsides.”

The USS Constitution is the oldest commissioned vessel in the world, launched in 1797.

She is not just a museum piece, but a seaworthy, commissioned US Navy vessel. When you go onboard you’ll have to go through a brief security check (about like going to a ballgame) because technically you are entering onto US military property. Tours are free. (But check if you’re going in the next year or two, she may be in dry dock and unavailable for tours from time to time.)

She earned the nickname “Old Ironsides” in the War of 1812. Taking on and defeating four British frigates, it seemed that the British cannonballs were simply bouncing off of her sides.

She was a primary ship in the 1804-1805 engagements between the young United States fleet and pirate ships operating out of Tripoli. You know, “From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli…”

She made a round-the-world excursion in May 1844 through October 1846, briefly participating in the Mexican-American War while enroute.

Today her uses are ceremonial (I don’t see her taking on any Russian subs or Chinese aircraft carriers any time soon) as one of the finest tall ships from the United States. She sailed during the “tall ship” celebration of the US Bicentennial in 1976, after previously occasionally undertaking several multi-year US coastal tours. For example, in 1930-1934 she toured from Maine to the Caribbean, through the Panama Canal, and up the West Coast to Washington, and back to Boston. The controversy on that trip was that she was towed by a mine sweeper instead of travelling under sail, because the Secretary of the Navy at the time didn’t believe that a crew could be trained to properly handle her in actual sea conditions..

In 1997 she sailed under her own power in celebration of the 200th anniversary of her launch. In 2012 she sailed again for the 200th anniversary of her victories in the War of 1812. In 2014 she sailed around Boston Harbor five times in anticipation of a return to dry dock for maintenance in 2015. She’s expected to sail again in 2018.

The Constitution is crewed by sixty regular members of the US Navy. It is obviously a great privilege to serve an assignment as part of her crew. The care that the crew takes with every line, every beam, and every bolt onboard is quite apparent. This is a vessel which is honored, revered, and respected.

In a round of restorations and upgrades from 1930-1934, modern amenities were installed belowdecks, including modern toilets, water piping, and electrical lighting. In recent maintenance and upgrade cycles the entire ship has been gone over inch by inch, with modern techniques such as radiographic scans used to check for damage and rot hidden inside timbers.

The original bell for the Constitution weighed 242 pounds and was cast by Paul Revere in 1798. That bell was lost during the 1812 battle with the HMS Guerriere, and the Constitution took the Guerriere‘s bell as a replacement. The Guerriere‘s bell is now in the on-site USS Constitution Museum.

The current bell shown above is inscribed, “U.S. frigate Constitution – bell presented by descendants of officers and men who served on Old Ironsides – 1926.” (The closed circuit security cameras and flood lights on the mast above the bell are, presumably, not original equipment from 1797.)

If you get a chance to walk the Freedom Trail (and I really hope you do, it’s a great way to spend a day), a visit to the Constitution is a great way to relax and rest for a bit before pushing on to the final end of the trail. She’s a great old ship and it’s a joy to see her riding at anchor.

Next time, we press on toward the end of the Freedom Trail, and that slightly mis-named monument in honor of the battle fought in 1775 on Breed’s Hill.

We’re all quite aware of the “technological advances” that are happening all around us. But when you ask anyone to name some “technological advances,” you’ll hear about the latest and greatest Apple or Samsung or BMW or NASA. And it’s true, all of these examples (and thousands more just like them) demonstrate how the stunning advances in high tech. Your new watch has more computing power than an Apollo spacecraft, your phone does more than the entire Radio Shack catalog of a decade ago.

That’s not what I want you to think about today.

In spending two weeks on the road in April, it struck me at some point that very quietly, without much fanfare at all, there are aspects of our lives that are decidedly low tech that are still making progress all the time to make our lives better. These advances might not ever get a press conference at their introduction and you might not ever even notice their existence at all — but they’re there.

For example, the shower curtain.

Think back even fifteen or ten years. A shower curtain was a plastic sheet, yellow or white, possibly with floral prints or some such decoration, hung on a straight pole (metal or wood) above the edge of the bathtub. It was generally semi-opaque, or at best translucent — every serial killer in the world was on one side when our femme fatale was showering and she was always clueless. It just dangled there, hanging by wire hooks that were like giant safety pins, except they were made of wire thicker than hangers and you could lose a finger if you weren’t careful. You had to buy a new shower curtain every couple of years because even if you were religious about cleaning the things to keep them free of mildew and fungus, the cheap plastic would age, get brittle, and crack. They would stick to you as you moved around in your narrow shower, pulling back and moving to allow water to spray all over the bathroom if you weren’t constantly vigilant.

The basic shower curtain came straight out of the introduction of indoor plumbing in the early 20th Century and didn’t change much at all for a hundred years.

But now…

A few years back, hotels started using the curved rod. It gives you more room in the shower without taking it away from anyone else  using the bathroom.

Those nasty metal hooks are gone, replaced by these clever nylon rings with slits between them. Not only does it make it trivial and fast to snap a curtain onto or off of the bar, the nylon also slides much easier than the metal hooks would, particularly after the hooks started to rust and get nasty.

The shower curtain isn’t all one part, and they’re not made of that cheap, brittle plastic any more. Most appear to be made of some sort of synthetic cloth instead of a sheet of plastic. They have a top and a bottom part, snapping together quickly and easily. If a curtain gets dirty or torn, it’s almost always going to be the bottom part, which can simply be unsnapped, replaced, and thrown into the laundry for cleaning.

Many hotels now have top halves that are a transparent mesh — no serial murderers sneaking up on us any more!

In the bottom corners, many modern shower curtains have magnets sewn in. Not only are they heavy enough to keep the shower hanging down rather than crimping up and sneaking out of the tub (where they become useless or worse), they also will grip onto the metal tub and keep the curtain where you want it.

Five simple, obvious, low tech improvements to a completely forgettable household item — yet look how much easier it is to clean, how much more functional it is than it was before. No press conferences, no fanfare, just doing its job better and easier and faster.

In addition, if you don’t want hotel off-white, yellow, or white, there are all kinds of options for color and patterns. Places like Think Geek even have shower curtains designed for high tech geeks and space cadets!

Of course, all of that low-level high tech won’t do any good if there’s a basic user error. For example, the magnets shown in my Holiday Inn room were only useful as weights, not magnets. The tub was fiberglass with no metal beneath to allow the magnet to stick. Maybe it was those useless magnets dangling all over the hotel that interfered with the Wi-fi and screwed it up so badly.

What other low tech improvements have been made to fundamental and functional items in our homes, schools, and offices? What other advances and improvements are we looking at but not seeing simply because they’re part of the background of life?

Finally, what simple but fundamental improvements are still there waiting to be discovered, waiting for that “A-ha!” moment by someone who might make a significant pile of cash by seeing something that’s hidden in plain sight?