The Genius Who Invented Stairs
Normally, when we ask, “Who was the genius who…,” it’s in a sarcastic tone. As in, “Who was the genius who left the car windows open when rain was forecast?”
But who was the genius who invented stairs? I think of my grandparents’ house which had an embankment in front of it. In the Olde Days, people probably just scrambled up things like that. Then someone came along, looked it over and said, “I’ve got an idea; let’s cut little flat spots in it.”
They looked over his plan and said, “This guy’s just another liberal leftist and out to change our way of life. Let him be with his new ideas and we will continue to climb to our houses as God and Nature intended. Besides, they look so out of place and disgrace the natural flow of the landscape."
And so did the summer turn into fall and the fall into winter. The winds roared and the snow fell; it fell all day and it fell all night. The genius came out and did shovel his stairs for easier ingress and egress to his house. The others, attempting to attain entrance to their homes, did slide on their feet and land on their rears.
This did they approach the genius begging floor plans for this marvelous device which seemed liberal and leftist no longer. “The ground is frozen and hard to dig, dear neighbors, but I will draw it for you and you may use pick and shovel to carve it out. As they turned around and left, he placed his thumb on his nose and waggled his fingers.
But who was the genius who invented stairs? I think of my grandparents’ house which had an embankment in front of it. In the Olde Days, people probably just scrambled up things like that. Then someone came along, looked it over and said, “I’ve got an idea; let’s cut little flat spots in it.”
They looked over his plan and said, “This guy’s just another liberal leftist and out to change our way of life. Let him be with his new ideas and we will continue to climb to our houses as God and Nature intended. Besides, they look so out of place and disgrace the natural flow of the landscape."
And so did the summer turn into fall and the fall into winter. The winds roared and the snow fell; it fell all day and it fell all night. The genius came out and did shovel his stairs for easier ingress and egress to his house. The others, attempting to attain entrance to their homes, did slide on their feet and land on their rears.
This did they approach the genius begging floor plans for this marvelous device which seemed liberal and leftist no longer. “The ground is frozen and hard to dig, dear neighbors, but I will draw it for you and you may use pick and shovel to carve it out. As they turned around and left, he placed his thumb on his nose and waggled his fingers.
posted by Tom Carten at 3:22 PM
1 Comments:
You know, someone could probably do a doctoral dissertation on this. What is the earliest archaeological evidence for stairs? When did different cultures develop stairs? Did this idea develop independently in different cultures, or was it borrowed by one culture from the next - or even transmitted by that most effective means of cultural cross-fertilization, war?
I suppose this could become a major book, to share shelf space with "Salt" and "Cod" by Mark Kurlansky (the histories of salt and cod, respectively) and "The Book on the Bookshelf" by Henry Petroski (the history of bookshelves.)
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