A Truly Lovely Day

By G. E. Shuman

          In celebration of our recent anniversary, about a week ago Lorna and I got into my old VW Beetle and putted up Route 2 toward Burlington. Our destination was Shelburne and The Shelburne Museum.

          It was a truly lovely day; the air was clear, the greens of summer bright, and there was not a cloud in the big blue sky. It was a perfect day for a ride to what has become one of our favorite Vermont attractions.

          We have loved that museum for many years and in recent ones have purchased a membership there. Having the membership lets us enter as often as we like within the year. Several times we have just stopped in for lunch and visits to a few of our favorite buildings, without feeling like we needed to ‘see it all’ that day.  We like that idea.

          On this particular visit we simply strolled around, got lunch at the Weathervane Café, and sat on a bench at the small duck pond watching a mother duck rest on the bank with her seven ducklings, only several feet from us. It was, without a doubt, one of the most relaxing afternoons we have had in a long time.

          I began to ponder as we leisurely rode home ‘the long way’, as Lorna refers to it, up and over Smuggler’s Notch and through the villages of Stowe and Waterbury, just why Shelburne Museum keeps drawing us back. I believe it is because when there you seem, at least I seem, separated from ‘today’. You are somehow briefly immersed in a simpler time. You wander through an internet free, social media free era, if only for a few hours. I sometimes wonder if we realize what freedom we have sacrificed for the supposed advancements of speed and availability of communications and even of information. To me, sometimes, simpler really is better.

          While at the museum you are in a time of carvers and craftsmen of wood, of blacksmiths and tin knockers, of quilters, and of artists of every artistic hue and medium. Most importantly, in my view, you are there involved in a slower, more careful time, when almost nothing was mass-produced, when food was grown and carefully prepared, not dumped from a mix or microwaved from a frozen box. Hand-stitched quilts were marveled at and cherished; everything from door locks and horseshoes to huge wagon wheels was made by the craftsmen of the day.

          My ninety-five-year-old Mom recently visited our home. She lives on her own in sunny Florida most of the year and visits the North in the summer. She is very fussy about some things that from her life’s experience, are important to her. She is picky about what is involved in making a ‘good’ donut or pie crust and would never waste even the smallest bit of food. Her eyes are now failing, but she can spot a well-made blouse or dress, I think, from a mile away. She would completely appreciate the craftsmanship, the intricate and painstaking artistry, the careful and unhurried care of the ghosts, the contributors from another time whose wares and pieces of art are displayed at the Shelburne Museum.

The Greatest Invention

By G. E. Shuman

          Okay, so, today I want to talk to you about what I think is mankind’s greatest invention. If asked what that invention might be, most people would probably mention penicillin or computers, medicine or manned flight, the internal combustion engine or artificial intelligence, or some other invention that is great, but in my mind still not the greatest invention of them all. Others would mention fire, which was not invented, but rather, discovered, or the wheel, that old circular standby when talking about man’s greatest inventions. In the case of the wheel, it was a good idea, but the greatest invention? I think not.

          Without keeping you in further suspense, (as if you have been in suspense,) I think that the greatest invention is something the value of which will soon become crystal clear to you. As you think about this, you will see right through every other invention’s attempt to be the best. Without this invention, most of the others would not exist at all.

          You see, I think mankind’s greatest invention is another thing, like fire, that isn’t strictly an invention at all. Lightning strikes on beaches have been producing it for thousands of years. The invention is more about finding uses for this great thing: glass, which is basically made by simply heating sand.

          Yes, friends and neighbors, I think our best inventions involve the many uses of glass. After all, without this substance we would all still be buying pickles in huge wooden barrels, right? Without glass, there would also be no mirrors and we would only see our slight reflection in still lakes and ponds. All right, so that might not be such a terrible thing for me and a few others. We would never have played with marbles as kids, and never have heard the word Pyrex. Where would we be without Pyrex? Okay, so we could live without the word Pyrex, but what if we lost our marbles?

          The first catheters were made of glass… ugh. The first medical thermometers were also. Ugh again. Without glass, soda could not have been sold until the invention of plastic bottles, but without soda, I guess there would have been less need of catheters. So, I guess I just proved that the invention of glass can be a negative too.

          On the positive side again, the chuckle when coming around the end of a supermarket aisle and seeing some young employee dutifully scooping up the remains of a glass jar of mayonnaise would never have been experienced. (Okay, so I’m a bad person.) We would also not have cameras, telescopes, microscopes, lightbulbs, or laser beams. Those gorgeous lighthouses would never have been around to guide the ships of the past to shore. See, glass and sea glass are beautiful things.

          Phones without glass would not have screens, but also would have no screens to break. There would be no microscope slides or aquarium sides. There would be no windows in your home, but also no curtain industry or Windex, I guess. (By now you must doubt my sanity even more than I do.)

          And what would modern English be without glass? Sayings like ‘as fragile as glass,’ ‘as transparent as glass,’ ‘glassy-eyed,’ or ‘We see the glass is either half full or half empty.’ Alice would never have gone through a looking glass, and in fact, many of us could not read these words without our ‘glasses.’ Again, I’m not sure if that is a positive point or a negative one in the case of this column. We would also not be able to make spectacles of ourselves if there were no spectacles. (I know, that was especially bad.)

          There are many great inventions and uses of natural resources in our world, but glass is, clearly, the best one, in my view. (See what I did there? clearly, and in my view?  Ha!)  Life would be plain and dull without it. Besides that, you would get rain in your face and bugs in your teeth every time you drove your car, and a metal or wooden goldfish bowl would be no fun at all, especially for the goldfish.