Evolution

By Tracy K. Lorenz

One of the things that fascinates me about sports is the evolutionary progression that keeps all things equal. Runners have gotten faster but so have throwing arms, a third baseman can still field a ball and throw a runner out by half a step the same way the did in 1920 when their uniforms could easily fit two people. The scores at Augusta aren’t all that much different now than they were when Bobby Jones was playing with a cane and a ball of feathers. Nature just has a way of making everything equal out.

Well, most of the time anyway…

Miracle fibers: No matter how large people have gotten over the years scientists have come up with ways to reign them in. It doesn’t matter if the first law of hydraulics is “you can’t compress water“ people still try. It started out long ago with corsets and now I see commercials for something called “Spanx.” I guess they call them “Spanx” because “Run!” was already taken. Near as I can tell women wear Spanx right to the edge of public safety and if that fiber ever lets go the resulting release of energy will be like Satan coming to breakfast. In any event, the bigger we get, the faster technology works to hold us in.

Hair Styles: No matter what hair style you’re sporting today it will look stupid in twenty years but good again in forty. In the 50’s guys wore short hair and so did the kids in the 90’s, in the 60’s hippies had long hair just like kids do now, it’s cyclical. Where we’re lucky is that no really really famous statue-worthy people have popped up between the 70’s and now. What if George Washington started a country in 1987? Two hundred years from now people would be looking at a founding father wearing a skinny tie and a mullet. It’s hard to imagine Ben Franklin wearing Hammer Pants and a fade. Somehow nature times it out so really famous people only appear when the fashion market is in a somewhat neutral period.

Telephones: In an odd case of reverse engineering telephones have actually gotten worse. I remember back when phones were hooked to a wall, I never lost one, I never broke one, I never dropped a call, and it didn’t cost me $300 a month. Okay, I couldn’t text anyone but didn’t society decide texting was mundane back when Morse Code was phased out? Instead of one guy in a visor sitting behind a Western Union window we now have hundreds of roaming zombies typing absolutely nothing of importance. I’m going out on a limb here but I predict texting, face book, and Twitter will all disappear by the end of the decade. If the reverse engineering trend continues people will be writing “LOL” in smoke signals by 2021.

Wing tips: Then there are things that don’t change at all no matter what society at large is up to. Wing tips serve no real purpose but they won’t go away. Winston Churchill wore them, Ward Cleaver wore them, and Barack Obama wears them. The only difference is Winny and Ward didn’t do a girly little jog-walk when they went down a flight of stares like Barry does. The girl-trot and wing tips just don’t mix.

Cars: They make family cars now that can easily top 100 mph but for some reason the one in front of me is always going 52. They have cars with navigation systems, air bags, DVD players and yet every car in front of me tops out at 52. The only exception is if it’s a gigantic van with handicap plates and a guy the size of Orson Wells behind the wheel, those go 51 and change lanes without hesitation or warning and make REALLY wide turns. With all the car technology we have available couldn’t we step up the speed just a little?

Pretty Women: Something happened where women got better looking but guys just sort of stayed the same. Seeing a drop-dead gorgeous woman with a toad used to be a rarity now it’s as common as Starbucks. The big difference seems to be at the high school and college level, have you ever been out on the town on Prom night? The eighteen-year-old girls look like Victoria Secret models and the guys look like, well, dorks. Their ties are too short, their jackets don’t fit, and their hair looks like a squid is giving birth on their head. Somehow nature skipped guys when it came to the natural advance of societal looks, maybe it’ll catch up some day but right now women have a huge lead.

Then again, they could all be wearing Spanx.