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Show High Time T(Si(3D0DS(!Sa By FLORENCE BITTNER Geologists and archeologists and antique buffs and history students and all those who peer into the past have in them something of Sherlock Holmes. They deduce a great deal, often from little tangible evidence. IMAGINE being able to construct an entire human form with only a few bone bits to work with. And coming up so accurate too. Well, they are accurate, aren't they? If they're not, they're not getting any complaints from the individual whose portrait they have reproduced, so it might be alright. WHAT DO you suppose those who dig into our garbage gar-bage heaps will think of our civilization in a thousand years from now? Or two thousand when the 'memory of this early civilization will have faded. Probably one of the most common artifacts they will uncover will be pull tabs from drink cans, and what do you think they will decide they were used for? Grenade pins? A section of harness for horses? Or perhaps some mystical religious rite medal? How about a clever toothpick? SINCE plastic doesn't rot, probably much of what they find from this age will be plastic, and since they are most common, probably household gadgets and toys will be most apt to survive. In my second kitchen drawer there is a plastic egg slicer which took me five minutes to figure out and I ' had the instructions. What do you think a future archeologist will make of that little jim dandy kitchen handy? Hair curler? Animal hide scraper? Perhaps an obscure form of torture? I'D LIKE to will them my automobile tire jack. Perhaps they could figure out how it works I certainly have my problems with it. Do you think future generations will give us credit for the unbelievably complicated civilization we have evolved? OF COURSE everything which can be invited has been and of course things are just about as involved as they can get, so eventually things are going to become more simplified. Someone is going to figure out how to make paper in a plant less than a half mile long and how to turn out steel without the huge complexes we have evolved. So wouldn't it be fun to somehow save an entire oil refinery for the year 4000? I'VE WALKED through oil refineries several times with engineers who work in them and I have always asked the same question: "Do you know what all those pipes are for?" The answer has always been "no." EITHER NO one knows all about an oil refinery, or someone has a brother-in-law in the pipe manufacturing business. Anyhow, since no one today seems to understand under-stand all about an oil refinery, wouldn't it be jolly good sport to stand back and watch an archeologist try to decide what that monstrosity could have been used for? When all else fails, blame it on religion. Perhaps they would decide this was a gigantic effort on the part of our society to distill the essence es-sence of spirit and to communicate com-municate through this intricate in-tricate pipeline structure with the dear departed. THERE ARE a lot of little gadgets I'd like to hand to a history buff of the year 3088. An egg beater, a mix master, a zerox machine, a Polaroid camera, a caulking gun, a pipe threader, a three-hole paper punch, a stapler, a paper clip, a surfboard, a hair dryer. There is one thing I'd like to hand to an antique buff of today. There's this little gadget gad-get I bought at a home demonstration about three years ago which the hostess said was one of the nicest little lit-tle tools in her kitchen. Only I forgot what it was supposed to be handy for and it didn't come with any instructions. SINCE IT'S so valuable, I can't throw it away, but I can't figure out what it's for. I wonder if it could have any ritualistic symbolism. |