Let the Forks Be with You (blatant Star Wars reference)!

by Tom Shafer

January 22, 2018

So I was recently thinking about the marvels of our world, namely the wonders of modern technology.  We’ve come so very far in a very short period time.  Precursors to today’s computer, the difference engine and analytical engine were conceived (by Englishman Charles Babbage) in the 1820s and 1830s respectively, but financial issues prevented them from completion.  It would be another hundred years before German Konrad Zuse and American Alan Turing separately created the first truly programmable computer – rudimentary as it was.  And, back in the 1960s, while my Uncle Harry was using these rudimentary computers to work on logic and game theory analysis for Project RAND (now RAND Corporation) in Huntington Beach, California, my dad was helping build the first supercomputer for FTD (Foreign Technology Division) at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.  In the early ‘80s, I was using that supercomputer as a systems engineering student at Wright State University, diligently and meticulously typing (yes, on a typewriter) cards that I would feed into a card reader tied to that computer at the Base, hopeful that my large deck of cards would produce a successful program and product.  Today, the android phone on which I am fingering this essay is far more powerful than that first computer – er, supercomputer – which unceremoniously rejected many of my mathematical programs.

But then I had a more interesting thought.  While many of the items and tools that we take for granted today have evolved over time, some have changed very little: saws, planes (think wood), files (think wood and metal), knives, and compasses.  But of these “ancient” items, I believe the fork is most remarkable.  Dating back to the Bronze Age (in bone form), the fork evolved slowly in both form and acceptance.  Early Chinese dynasties embraced it while most of Europe tolerated gradually its usage until widespread acquiescence in the nineteenth century.  Some Roman Catholic leaders rejected it because they viewed it as excessive extravagance.  And, America didn’t start fully utilizing the fork until the time of the Revolution.

I mean, think about it: four tines fused to a long neck, manufactured in plastic, stainless steel, sterling silver, silver silver, gold-plating, even gold gold.  Little has changed at all in over four thousand years (okay, few of us are requesting bone utensils for wedding presents).  And, can you imagine someone trying to improve it?  And no, the spork is not an improvement – convenient – perhaps – for campers, but I doubt any of you ladies are soliciting sporks for your wedding showers.  Over time, some tine experimentation (wasn’t that fun!!) has taken place.  In the nineteenth century, some clown (not an actual clown – correction, not a confirmed clown) added three tines to the fork, exactly two times the conventional three tines utilized during that period.  Six tines might look good on a pitchfork but look terrible struggling to enter my mouth.  You can still purchase three tined forks today, but personally, I would feel sorry for those lost food morsels that an extra tine captures – though my forearms might be even more jacked from the repeated plate-to-mouth trips needed with just three tines.

And, if you were thinking that the fork’s time has come and gone, well, think again.  I would venture to keyboard that most if not all of you have used a fork in the last twenty-four hours and will likely use one again in the next twenty-four.  And as our citizenry looks to live healthier lives, it may well be the fork leading the way.  You vegetablanarians (lovers of vegetables and libraries) know what I’m referencing; it’s the fork, stupid!  As in the forks-over-knives movement!  Many of you are throwing your knives away (creating a new national crisis and movement, Duck NOW!), along with your beef, chicken, and pork.  A vegetablanarian lifestyle requires no knives, just forks, vegetables, and books – oh, and a security system since you will otherwise become an easy target for every thief within a fifty mile radius with all those knives missing.

So the next time you are contemplating today’s marvels, take a little extra time to appreciate those once-marvels that we now take for granted.  Though not necessarily glamorous, those saws and compasses and forks have certainly made our lives easier for hundreds of years.  Yes, the iPhone 26 with 3,000,000 megapixels and semi-passive aggressive impulse control – SPA-IC™ (yep, just made it up – but am trademarking it just in case) is impressive, but can it efficiently park some mac and cheese into your left cheek or quarter some two by fours for that deck you’re building?  I think not.  Yogi Berra, perhaps channeling Walt Whitman, said it best: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”  Amen, Yogi, amen.

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