My name, Lolita, sits on our coffee table. When we were on a bus tour of Savannah, Georgia, I saw a young man crafting names using electric fence wire. I had to have one for two reasons: (1) while I was growing up, barrettes bearing popular girls’ names such as Pat and Carol were on sale in Woolworth’s Five and Dime stores. I was always disappointed that my name was never there; and (2) once in a while when I was growing up on the farm, Dad used a temporary electric fence to pasture the cows in a different area. To make sure the battery-operated fence was working, I touched the wire with a long, dried-out horseweed. I could faintly feel its pulse in my wrist.
Another item that was useful on the farm was baling wire. Balers used a pair of wires to hold the hay together. During the winter. when dairymen fed the cows, they saved the wire.
When my first teenage boyfriend came to visit me during the summer of 1952, he drove a decrepit, pick-up truck. The front bumper was held in place with baling wire.
Until plastic hangers became popular, the old-fashioned ones made from wire provided material for household projects. In our bedroom, a piece was salvaged and became a fastener to keep our pair of closet doors closed.
When my husband was a deputy on patrol, he became quite adept at using a wire hanger to open car doors for motorists who inadvertently locked their keys inside.
Dry cleaners still return garments on wire hangers. Recently, I found one in an upstairs closet which provided a temporary repair for our shower until a professional plumber could visit and solve the problem.
Do you use any wires as a fix-it in your household or do you rely on duct tape and super glue?