One of our great joys of any summer season like the one just wrapped up is spending time outdoors with family and friends. Often that is at some kind of performance on the grass, usually music spanning the gamut from pop to orchestral to folk, and often accompanied by dinner and drinks. At these varied events we see lots of like-minded folk. And just as their dining arrangements vary... some have sandwiches, others takeout, others tables laid with full sets of china... so too does their seating span the spectrum. And while I am always curious what others are having for dinner, I am just as curious as where they are parking their butts.
After all, it's hard to think of anything that hasn't changed so much in 20 or 30 years that the newer thing is not seriously better. This is not about style: some prefer higher or lower hems, flatter or puffier coats, wider or tighter jeans. This is about advances in the underlying technology that renders stuff that is decades old obsolete, dangerous or just plain quaint.
It goes without saying that those advances include phones and computers: size, capabilities, ease of use and battery life all make current models not just evolutionary from their grandchildren but revolutionary. You can say the same about automobiles with their computerized engine management, anti-lock braking and driver assist features. Even cooking has advanced: back then no one had ever heard of induction cooktops or sous vide machines.
In many cases it's not like you even wanted these advanced capabilities. Steve Jobs famously said, "Some people say, 'Give the customers what they want.' But that's not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they're going to want before they do." He's wasn't wrong. I didn't know I needed a mapping system that wasn't a folded-up piece of paper before I had it. Now I find myself keying in an address even if I'm just going 10 miles to find the least trafficked way to get there.
But in other cases, I don't know if I need all that new stuff. Call me old fashioned, but my kettle boils water just fine. There are many other products that count their age in decades or longer that work just fine, and any advancements don't seem to do a whole lot in the way of advancement. Which brings us winding back to folding chairs.
Ours have some serious history on them. Not the sand models that sit low that one uses for the beach, nor the higher version from backyard barbeques in the sixties made of nylon webbing that that leaves waffle marks on your thighs, they are as basic as can be. They have an aluminum strut arrangement like a squared off teepee that folds up, capped by a nylon seat and back. On each arm is a cutout for a drink, though at this point the mesh that makes up that pocket is ripped and disintegrated to be basically useless.
For sure we could upgrade... perhaps there is a better way to perch. As I look around at any event, I see the range of advancements that seating scientists have turned into the state of the art over the past 20 years. Over there is a model that sports a footrest. Over there is one that has hydraulic struts on the rear legs so that the chair effectively is a rocker. That one there has a canopy that flops over, while that one has two wide arms, each capable of supporting a plate with a slice of pizza. And that one there extends from the size of stout travel umbrella to what looks like a bucket seat. I watched the owner put Strut A into Slot B, Strut C into Slot D, Cross Brace F into Channel Y, and slide Collar M over and through Assembly CKG. Or was that into Channel JWP? As Ed Norton put it on the classic "Better Living Through Television" episode of "The Honeymooners" as Ralph demonstrated his Handy Housewife Helper, "Zip, zip! It's zipping the modern way. Amazing!"
The question is a simple one: for all their zipping, are any of them any better? Envy being a terrible vice, I have to say that from afar I coveted my neighbor's chair, indeed, several of them. One at a time I ordered them from Amazon, set them up and test squatted in them in the backyard, only to pack each up and send them back. I have come to the conclusion that I am a simple man with a simple butt. Or as attributed to Satchel Paige but ultimately traced to a Maine fisherman in the 1900's, "Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits."
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Marc Wollin of Bedford is still looking for a better chair. His column appears weekly via email and online http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/ and https://marcwollin.substack.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
