The Rural Voice, 1991-10, Page 10`/_rVtrlW%0%0
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6 THE RURAL VOICE
A HAIRPIN WON'T
FIX IT ANY MORE
Keith Roulston, a newspaper publisher
and playwright who lives near Blyth,
is the originator and publisher of The
Rural Voice.
Farmers don't have much money
these days, but they still can dream.
As this is written, a whole lot of those
dreamers are down at the Intemational
Plowing Match looking at the shiny
new tractors and combines and other
gadgets and saying "If only ..."
Most of us are fascinated by gadg-
ets. It seems to be part of human na-
ture. Just imagine eons ago at a huge
gathering of a tribesmen, one member
demonstrating for the first time that
things could be moved more easily by
putting round logs under them. Most
of those present went away saying
"I've got to get me one of them"... or
something like that in the dialect of
the time.
Part of the fun has gone out of fall
fairs today. When I was young, you
could see things you wouldn't see the
rest of the year. The local car dealer,
for instance, always had the new line
of cars in the parade, and people lined
up all aftemoon around those cars.
That was in the late 1950s and early
60s, of course, when cars looked dif-
ferent each year. The frame and drive-
train might be the same but the pack-
age was redesigned, and with our be-
lief in the value of progress, we were
sure that our lives would be complete
if only we could afford to buy one of
those sleek beauties.
In those days too, we could look
under the hood and comment knowl-
edgeably about the engine. Today,
when you open the hood there are only
two things you're allowed to touch:
the radiator cap and the windshield -
washer tank. Everything else is only
supposed to be handled by qualified
technicians. Farmers assure me that
most farm equipment is the same.
Farmers who used to do nearly all
their maintenance, now find they have
to take their combine to the shop when
something goes wrong (and pay mech-
anic's wages, as if corn was $5 a
bushel).
In a way, this should make me feel
better, since misery loves company.
I've always felt mechanically illiterate
living in this rural area where every-
body in high school seemed to be able
to take a car apart and put it back to-
gether in a weekend. Now we're all in
the same boat, and none of us today
are able to do anything with our cars
or equipment.
Which wouldn't bother me if to-
day's mechanics knew what they were
doing. But most of the time, even
when I get expert help, I still get the
feeling things don't work. I take a car
in because it's got a vibration and it
comes back with the same vibration. I
spend $20,000 on a new computerized
typesetting system, then find out it
doesn't work the way I was promised
it would, and the guy who sold it now
makes it sound like I'm being unreas-
onable for asking him to make it work
the way he said it would.
You, I'm sure, can add your own
horror stories to the list. Technology,
instead of freeing us, has made us
captives of the expert technicians who,
we often find out, aren't as expert as
we think.
Which is why, I think, there is so
much interest in an event showing off
antique tractors and farm machinery,
and why so many people are taking up
restoring these machines as a hobby.
Those were machines you could un-
derstand. There was a logic you could
see: this pulley turned this wheel
which ran this piston which made this
arm go back and forth. You could fig-
ure it out for yourself, and most likely
fix it yourself. Today, unless you've
taken a degree in electronic engineer-
ing, and have $100,000 worth of com-
puterized testing equipment, you're
held hostage to high-priced experts.
Once upon a time, we thought
machines would free us: now they
enslave us. Me, I'm about ready to
get a horse!O