Archive: Opinions

Short, sweet (perhaps), certainly speculative this week. It's too soon to jump back into politics as we lurch into a new year. "...Meet the new boss, same as the old boss...".

I have discovered, in talking with a few contemporaries (OK, boomer) that my habit of going to the obituary section of a newspaper is not odd behavior. It seems that as we age we have a curiosity (morbid?) about 'who's died', and the co-morbidity of 'Do I know them?' Of course, as we age the odds increase that when we open a local newspaper we will recognize a name or photo, and in my previous career iterations (talk show host and addiction counselor) I certainly met enough people to increase the odds of recognizing the deceased. Or, in the case of the recent incident at Ithaca Police Department, recognizing with shock the perpetrator.

I have to admit that when I do recognize the recently departed, their obituary is frequently a source of admiration. The high points and accomplishments of their lives , the people who loved them, their hobbies and passions. It's always nice to think that someone might be that kind to my memory someday, should it turn out that I'm mortal.

I do admit that the obituaries of the not so famous, but fascinating people draw my attention, too. I did an entire radio piece, one morning, about a woman who gained her fame/notoriety doing clandestine broadcasts to "Free France" in World War II, and started her broadcasts with a shrill whistle to blow out the eardrums of the Nazi radio people trying to hone in on her broadcast location. Combining reading her obituary from the NY Times with Leonard Cohen's Le Partisan was a little joy to remember years later.

Two death notices were in the Wall Street Journal this week that I feel deserved attention, side by side as they were, and in a way a slim and sly connection of their outstanding accomplishment in life.

The first was Mark Butler. Never heard of him? Neither did I, but I loved his 'invention'. Mark Butler was co-founder of Ollie's Bargain Outlet, of which Ithaca is home to one of these 345 stores. Ever been in Ollie's?? It's an absolute scream, a joy of mild insanity.

It's best to let the obituary describe an Ollie's in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania (no different from the Ithaca location on Meadow Street): "...merchandise is stacked higgeldy-piggeldy in rummage sale fashion. Fishing rods are next to hangars, crayons share a corner with carpets. A Lane sofa is priced at $300, a King James Bible is $1.99. The store's motto is 'Good Stuff Cheap'.

Butler died at the young age of 61, and had been CEO since 2003, expanding the store concept from 27 outlets to 345 in 25 states, and was listed on the NASDAQ exchange. What may be his deadpan face is in the advertisements and on the store walls, easily eliciting a laugh, alongside the store's simple guarantees.

All this and never, never contemplating 'going online'. His merchandise would always be in a 'brick and mortar' store for one simple and beautiful reason: he wanted his customers to have a feeling of a 'treasure hunt'. And I can tell you (needn't tell you if you've ever been in an Ollie's) that a treasure hunt was a fine way to describe the place. It is a chaotic, adventurous joy to walk through that place and dare myself not to buy anything. The guy, apparently, was a real merchandising genius ("...whatever we could find..."), and those of us who marvel at the craziness of Ollie's (and perhaps people like me who wonder how the hell they ever took inventory or found anything) hope that Ollie's survives well into the 21st century and never goes 'online'. Long live the 'treasure hunt'.

And, speaking of inventory, the other obituary was, in a way, kind of the opposite of the above accomplishment. His name (in the obituary next to Butler's) was George Laurer. Never heard of him, either, but his invention is all over your home, and workplace. He died at the age of 94, and he gave the world the Universal Product Code. The UPC. We call it, commonly, the bar code. He was working at IBM and his supervisor thought that an inventory system based on concentric circles, like a dartboard, would be a fine idea. Well, Laurer thought that idea sucked, was deficient, and, instead, while the boss was on vacation, invented the parallel lines of varying thickness and depth that worked like a charm in conjunction with a laser beam.

The grocery industry adopted the idea in 1973, and as they say, the rest if history. Libraries, warehouses and factories all found the ingenious way of 'tracking' product and inventory to be the answer and solution to chaos, thus even spawning the 'parts on time' revolution. The Wall Street Journal said that years later he was still amazed that it worked so well, also helping to invent the 'wand' that enhanced the original idea.

Guess what? He never made a dime from his invention. No royalties. He was inducted into the 'Innovation Hall of Fame' at the University of Maryland and IBM gave him a 'technical achievement award'. His memoir was titled "Engineering Was Fun", but I surely hope his gravestone does not have a bar code inscribed on it.

So, my interest in these two obscure men lies in a feeling that there are many people who labor anonymously bringing the world 'gifts' that we take for granted. Perhaps the gift they received in return was 'fun', a treasure hunt of the soul.

Another thought is that while one of our deceased notables reveled in organizing everything in sight, literally organizing the world into bar codes, the other reveled in the chaotic fun of not knowing what you might find when you walk in, and that was the other half of the fun. Both of these men, I think, loved life and what they could bring to it. I, and I suspect many many others, appreciate their creative 'fun'. May we be so lucky to recognize that fun, and smile at their legacy. Happy New Year!!