WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT

by Webb Garrison ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 22, 1978

An arbitrary, alphabetically arranged selection of some 60-odd ""modern marvels,"" Addressograph to Zipper, and brief anecdotal accounts--misleading to harmless--of how they came to be. All were ostensibly brainstorms, which may be true of such practical aids as the Shopping Cart or the Traveler's Check but not of a mechanical device like the Bicycle-whose lineage Garrison suppresses and whose immediate antecedents he distorts (the relevant ""hobby home"" was not a four-wheeled steed but a primitive two-wheeler). The Alarm Clock came about, according to Garrison, because Levi Hutchins was oversleeping and ""at four in the morning in New Hampshire, there wasn't any sun"" to wake him, directly or indirectly; so ""he tried fitting a bell inside one of his clocks."" How he got the bell to ring on time we'll never know: ""It wasn't difficult,"" says Garrison. This is frivolous foolishness for the unmechanically minded, pictured to match and barely literate: ""John B. Curtis was twenty-one when he got a job clearing brush midway through the last century."" (Chewing gum, you'll be glad to hear, got him out of the woods.)

Pub Date: Dec. 22, 1978

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Prentice-Hall

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1978

Categories: NONFICTION