Jumper Cables

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The Greatest Generation liberated Europe from the Nazis, created NATO and the United Nations, embarked on massive public works and laid the foundation for a booming post-war economy. 

To that list of contributions to civilization I inherited, I can now add jumper cables.

My 98-year old father this weekend decided he no longer needed the jumper cables he bought six decades ago.

It was not a sudden or rash decision. He stopped driving 15 years ago.

He bought them in the early 1960s when he would drive to Vermont on Friday nights in the winter to go skiing.

He figured he needed to be ready in case he got stuck in a snow drift. 

Aware that it can be difficult to maneuver two cars nose-to-nose, he specifically bought the version with long wires. 

Dad doesn’t recall ever using the cables. He last remembers jumping cars in the 1940s in high school. Batteries weren’t as reliable then. 

He gave me a similar gift a few years ago: empty Tropicana orange juice bottles filled with sand. Dad thought my son — who was driving to upstate New York — might need sand to put under the tires in the snow. 

I tried to explain that it doesn’t snow as much, cars have four-wheel drive and anyone could call AAA with a cell phone. 

It used to be different. Back in the 1930s, Dad said towns didn’t salt the roads. So streets were often packed white with snow for weeks. The kids in his neighborhood would mount sleds and hold on to car bumpers.

About a decade ago, people started replacing jumper cables with rechargeable electric battery boxes. 

A major advantage was that if you got stranded on the side of the road you wouldn’t need to flag down another motorist and tap their car for power. You could fix it yourself.

The preference for and reliance upon electronic technology compared with the kindness of strangers seems like a metaphor for parts of modern America.

In the old days, anyone stuck in a Vermont snow bank needed to knock on the door of the nearest farmhouse and ask for help.

These days you can go it alone. 

Of course, the electronic boxes have the same major disadvantage as the car batteries they are used to boost: they have to be charged.

Maybe that’s why Dad never bought one.

Traditional jumper cables still work fine without any charge even after 60 years.

(Part of a series of life lessons from my father.)  

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BRIEF OBSERVATIONS

TOUGH TIMES: The Wiz was just acquired by Google for more than $30 billion. The WSJ has this take:

Marion: Marion was a friend of my dad’s from elementary school. She passed recently and her obit had this moving detail about a tree she planted with her husband.

THE WIND: The trees across from my parents’ house have been bent by the wind. Love that metaphor for life.

THERE IS ALWAYS AN OPPORTUNITY: Love that someone built a business by creating an device to wrap umbrellas so you don’t get everything wet.

BREXIT: A cautionary tale about protectionism.