When I was little, adages were popular. For the younger generation, an adage is a saying, a proverb, if you will. Most of them were pretty good even if you had to figure them out, which sometimes took some thought.
Recently this one came to mind. Buy it new, wear it out, fix it up or do without. The mere fact that it came to mind is an indication of how our society has changed. Fix it up is no longer a priority. It used to be, twenty or more years ago, that you bought something with the expectation was that it would last for years. It wasn't unusual that things would last a lifetime. Sure, they may have had to be fixed or repaired a number of times, but they worked, sometimes for generations. Well, times have changed.
I had a pair of shoes, wing-tips, if you are old enough to remember shoes before they went to canvas and plastic. Had them about four years, only wore them for church, business meetings, nights out, that sort of thing. They didn't get a lot of use. A couple of weeks ago the sole wore out. A hole appeared in one shoe sole. No big deal, I thought. I'll go to the shoemaker and he put on a new set of soles and heels and bingo, a new pair of shoes. No so.
I went to the shoe repair shop in New Philadelphia and was told that the shoes could not be repaired. Seems that the stitching which held the soles and heels onto the shoe required a special stitching machine which he didn't have. Cost a bundle to purchase. Turns out no shoe repair shop in this part of Ohio has such a machine. Okay. So now I have a pair of shoes in great condition, shined up, ready to go, but with soles like Adlai Stevenson's. If you weren't around in 1950s you probably don't remember him. I needed a pair of shoes, so headed for the mall.
I'm a guy, so that shouldn't take that long. I knew what I wanted. Cordovan wing-tips, size 9 1/2 D. First store we went to, took the wife along, had hundreds of shoes but no wing-tips. Matter of fact they had all sorts of other shoes, but nothing in a size 9 1/2 D. The sales gal looked at me and asked, "What is a 9 1/2 D? Our shoes only come in small, medium, large, and extra large. I never heard of D." Obviously, she hadn't been in the shoe business all that long. Shoe widths used to come in sizes from AAA, which were very narrow, to EEEE, which were really wide. I had a friend who wore a 12 EEE shoe. They looked like rowboats. They were so big that he was almost rejected by the Army during the war because there was a question if the Army could supply shoes in that size. They could and he thought his tour of duty in the Pacific was "interesting".
Next store had leather. When I asked for cordovan I got another blank look. "Gee," the sales gal said. "I don't think I have heard of that brand." I explained to her that cordovan wasn't a brand, it was a color. She said she had shoes which were black, brown, and one or two in gray, but never heard of cordovan. Obviously she had never heard of the Marine Corps either.
Finally ended up at a clothing store on High Street and settled for a pair of shoes which were not wing-tips, not cordovan but infra-red brown in color, couldn't be resoled, had shoe strings which were nine inches too long, were 9 1/2 medium in size, and made in China for the Hush Puppy Company. They also cost a bundle. A few years ago, I could have had the old ones resoled and saved sixty-five dollars in the deal. It was getting on to cocktail hour, a time of day that was really needed after shoe shopping, so out came the credit card.
But that's not the worst of it. We had two VCR players. They were ten and twelve years old. While most everything now is on DVD, a big improvement over tape, we have one large stack of tapes which contain a lot of family history. You know what is coming, right? Within a month of each other both VCRs broke. They wouldn't even turn on let alone play. After a number of phone calls we came to the realization that one, they have no value because two, they can't be repaired. So what to do? The options are limited. Buy a new VCR, throw them away, or give them to our friends Jim and Sandy for use as boat anchors. The first choice won't work because plain VCRs are hard to find. You can get combination VCR and DVD players and recorders. I don't need a another DVD player but may be forced into buying one. Not a good deal for me as a consumer.
We bought a Bose CD player five or six years ago. It worked so well that we bought one for the office and a multi-CD player which will play three additional CDs. The first one still works fine. The second one has developed a problem. It doesn't play CDs. I called Bose for help. The accessory player not only didn't play a CD, but was hungry as well, and tried to eat it. Bose told me that the warranty had expired so there wasn't a lot they could do to help. If I would send it in, they would take a look at it and try to get the CD out. There would be a minimum charge. No, they said, there is no shop locally which can fix it, it has to be done by Bose. The minimum charge, which was shocking, and shipping and handling, helped make the decision to throw caution to the wind, grab a screw driver, and get the CD out myself. A friend of mine who has a complete Bose home music center, which has six speakers and cost about the same as a Caddy, had one of his speakers go out. He called Bose about getting it fixed or getting a replacement. Bose told him no, he couldn't do either. Some modifications had been made to the speakers and the new ones are not compatible with the old system. More boat anchors.
Now the surprising part about this is that folks evidently don't care. If it doesn't work, buy a new one. That way you get all the neat things you don't need, that will cost more, last less, and give you more frustration and trouble. We live in a throwaway society, not by accident, but by design. Folks today accept this as a way of life, albeit a very expensive way of life.
Children have been taught that money is expendable, that planning for the future isn't important. Businesses have lost concern for consumer needs, placing profit before quality. Manufacturers have discarded quality products for cheap products with made with minimal quality control. Retailers accept poorly manufactured goods on the premise that if there are problems with what they sell, they will take them back without question, eat the loss which will be paid for by their markup, or hope they will get reimbursed by the wholesaler.
And who pays the bill for all this? The consumer. Buy it new, wear it out, fix it up or do without? Forget it. That died when we lost pride in our work, our ethics, ourselves, and our country.
Recently this one came to mind. Buy it new, wear it out, fix it up or do without. The mere fact that it came to mind is an indication of how our society has changed. Fix it up is no longer a priority. It used to be, twenty or more years ago, that you bought something with the expectation was that it would last for years. It wasn't unusual that things would last a lifetime. Sure, they may have had to be fixed or repaired a number of times, but they worked, sometimes for generations. Well, times have changed.
I had a pair of shoes, wing-tips, if you are old enough to remember shoes before they went to canvas and plastic. Had them about four years, only wore them for church, business meetings, nights out, that sort of thing. They didn't get a lot of use. A couple of weeks ago the sole wore out. A hole appeared in one shoe sole. No big deal, I thought. I'll go to the shoemaker and he put on a new set of soles and heels and bingo, a new pair of shoes. No so.
I went to the shoe repair shop in New Philadelphia and was told that the shoes could not be repaired. Seems that the stitching which held the soles and heels onto the shoe required a special stitching machine which he didn't have. Cost a bundle to purchase. Turns out no shoe repair shop in this part of Ohio has such a machine. Okay. So now I have a pair of shoes in great condition, shined up, ready to go, but with soles like Adlai Stevenson's. If you weren't around in 1950s you probably don't remember him. I needed a pair of shoes, so headed for the mall.
I'm a guy, so that shouldn't take that long. I knew what I wanted. Cordovan wing-tips, size 9 1/2 D. First store we went to, took the wife along, had hundreds of shoes but no wing-tips. Matter of fact they had all sorts of other shoes, but nothing in a size 9 1/2 D. The sales gal looked at me and asked, "What is a 9 1/2 D? Our shoes only come in small, medium, large, and extra large. I never heard of D." Obviously, she hadn't been in the shoe business all that long. Shoe widths used to come in sizes from AAA, which were very narrow, to EEEE, which were really wide. I had a friend who wore a 12 EEE shoe. They looked like rowboats. They were so big that he was almost rejected by the Army during the war because there was a question if the Army could supply shoes in that size. They could and he thought his tour of duty in the Pacific was "interesting".
Next store had leather. When I asked for cordovan I got another blank look. "Gee," the sales gal said. "I don't think I have heard of that brand." I explained to her that cordovan wasn't a brand, it was a color. She said she had shoes which were black, brown, and one or two in gray, but never heard of cordovan. Obviously she had never heard of the Marine Corps either.
Finally ended up at a clothing store on High Street and settled for a pair of shoes which were not wing-tips, not cordovan but infra-red brown in color, couldn't be resoled, had shoe strings which were nine inches too long, were 9 1/2 medium in size, and made in China for the Hush Puppy Company. They also cost a bundle. A few years ago, I could have had the old ones resoled and saved sixty-five dollars in the deal. It was getting on to cocktail hour, a time of day that was really needed after shoe shopping, so out came the credit card.
But that's not the worst of it. We had two VCR players. They were ten and twelve years old. While most everything now is on DVD, a big improvement over tape, we have one large stack of tapes which contain a lot of family history. You know what is coming, right? Within a month of each other both VCRs broke. They wouldn't even turn on let alone play. After a number of phone calls we came to the realization that one, they have no value because two, they can't be repaired. So what to do? The options are limited. Buy a new VCR, throw them away, or give them to our friends Jim and Sandy for use as boat anchors. The first choice won't work because plain VCRs are hard to find. You can get combination VCR and DVD players and recorders. I don't need a another DVD player but may be forced into buying one. Not a good deal for me as a consumer.
We bought a Bose CD player five or six years ago. It worked so well that we bought one for the office and a multi-CD player which will play three additional CDs. The first one still works fine. The second one has developed a problem. It doesn't play CDs. I called Bose for help. The accessory player not only didn't play a CD, but was hungry as well, and tried to eat it. Bose told me that the warranty had expired so there wasn't a lot they could do to help. If I would send it in, they would take a look at it and try to get the CD out. There would be a minimum charge. No, they said, there is no shop locally which can fix it, it has to be done by Bose. The minimum charge, which was shocking, and shipping and handling, helped make the decision to throw caution to the wind, grab a screw driver, and get the CD out myself. A friend of mine who has a complete Bose home music center, which has six speakers and cost about the same as a Caddy, had one of his speakers go out. He called Bose about getting it fixed or getting a replacement. Bose told him no, he couldn't do either. Some modifications had been made to the speakers and the new ones are not compatible with the old system. More boat anchors.
Now the surprising part about this is that folks evidently don't care. If it doesn't work, buy a new one. That way you get all the neat things you don't need, that will cost more, last less, and give you more frustration and trouble. We live in a throwaway society, not by accident, but by design. Folks today accept this as a way of life, albeit a very expensive way of life.
Children have been taught that money is expendable, that planning for the future isn't important. Businesses have lost concern for consumer needs, placing profit before quality. Manufacturers have discarded quality products for cheap products with made with minimal quality control. Retailers accept poorly manufactured goods on the premise that if there are problems with what they sell, they will take them back without question, eat the loss which will be paid for by their markup, or hope they will get reimbursed by the wholesaler.
And who pays the bill for all this? The consumer. Buy it new, wear it out, fix it up or do without? Forget it. That died when we lost pride in our work, our ethics, ourselves, and our country.
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