Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/1410310
6 UCW SEPTEMBER 15-21, 2021 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM PITT DICKEY, Columnist. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomin- gweekly.com. 910-484-6200. America lost a great man this summer, a man who rivaled Ben Franklin, omas Edison and Henry Ford in inventiveness: the incom- parable Ron Popeil. Ron passed away in July leaving us alone and friendless. Readers of a certain attenuated age will recall his many contributions easing the way in which Ameri- cans encountered life's vicissitudes in the last quarter of the 20th century. Ron was the King of late-night TV, the impresario and inven- tor of the Informercial, the founder of Ronco, the purveyor of gadgets to the masses. What was so rare as a Ron Popeil invention? Let me count the ways. Would a Kitchen Magician Food Slicer by any other name smell as sweet? Nay, a thousand times nay. I am not just saying that because I have been taking pumpkin spice Ivermectin to ward off the Rona. My personal physician, Dr. Mr. Ed the Talking Horse asked me to request both my readers not to buy iver- mectin from the farm supply as the shortage of ivermectin is causing horses to walk around full of parasites. But I digress. Allow me to return to Ron Popeil. To mis- quote Marc Antony at Caesar's funeral oration: "Friends, Romans, Cumberland County country- men, lend me your ears and Visa cards, I come to bury Ron Popeil, not to praise him. e evil men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones." Let not the great and good inventions left behind by Ron be forgotten. We should cherish them, honor them, and hold them up as a bright light against the darkness that currently enfolds us. Is it not better to use a Chop-O-Matic hand food processor than to cut off your thumb slicing tomatoes? Opposable thumbs are all that separate humans from banana slugs. We must preserve our opposable thumbs as well as our precious bodily fluids. Without opposable thumbs mankind and womankind, (note: gender sensitivity on display here) humans would be condemned to compete with banana slugs eating moldy bananas and be un- able to text while driving. e horror, the horror as Colonel Kurtz would say. Consider some of the Ronco products which made life in the 1970's more tolerable. e 70's were a hard time for everyone. Disco was popular then creating a bleak time for anyone who had ears to hear. Ronco commercials were a light in the gloom of the post-midnight forest of television when only 3 channels were available. Who can forget the hap- piness that GLH-9 Hair Spray in a can brought to millions of bald men? Spray on hair was the bee's knees. e GLH stood for Great Looking Hair. No one could tell your bald head was covered in black paint. e Chop-O-Matic begat the Bass-O-Matic on Saturday Night Live as sold by Dan Akroyd. Ponder the wonderful Electric Food Dehydrator from Ronco. To quote Sir Walter Scott: "Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, is is my own native Electric Food Dehy- drator!" Wouldn't it be great to dehydrate a ruta- baga by merely dropping it into your Electric Food Dehydrator? If you give a man a fish, he can eat for one day. If you give a man a Ronco Pocket Fisherman he can eat for the rest of his life. He will always have a food source for an endless supply of Bass-O-Matic protein shakes. How many times have you been trying to crack an egg to scramble it only to have the egg shell splinter into tiny pieces in the frying pan? You futilely try to fish out the egg shells with a spoon only to have the slippery little devils evade capture. Ultimately you stick your fingers into the frying pan to get the shell out thereby burning your fingers and endangering your all-important opposable thumb. Ron knew of this silent kitchen tragedy and invented the Inside-the-Shell- Egg-Scrambler. e scrambler inserted a pin into the egg, swirled it around, thus producing a perfect scrambled egg every time. Ron must have shouted "Eureka" just as Archimedes did when he discovered buoyancy while bathing. After the invention of the Inside the Egg Scrambler, the yolk was on anyone who was foolish to try to scramble an egg the old-fashioned way. Ron brought us possibly the great- est invention since Turok the Caveman invented the wheel- the amazing Mr. Microphone. Mr. Microphone allowed teen age boys to drive around yelling sweet nothings at teen age girls. Who can forget the immortal lines from the commercial when a carload of boys uses Mr. Microphone to yell: "Hey Good Looking! I'll be back to pick you up later." According to the commer- cial this was a surefire way to pick up girls. Results may have varied in real life. As my readership becomes older and grip strength declines, who wouldn't want the Cap Snaffler? Hard to open caps came off in a jiffy. It "snaffles caps off any size jug, bottle, or jar." Who among us wouldn't delight in spending an afternoon snaffling the caps of every container in the kitchen, including those jars of pimentos which have been sitting in the back of the cabinet since the first Bush Administration? Snaffle away America, your opposable thumbs will be safe. Have we learned anything today? Finally, the an- swer is yes. Ron Popeil was a great man. We shall not see his like again. As Marc Antony concluded: "Bear with me; My heart is in the coffin there with Ron. And I must pause till it comes back to me." OPINION Alas, Ron Popeil, we hardly knew ye by PITT DICKEY Ron Popeil was an inventor, pitchman and television star who popularized the phrase "But wait, there's more!" He introduced Americans to the infomercial. Christian music station local your