History. It may be true!
The story, as I heard it, goes like this.
Two Okies were sitting on their rockers, one sucking a corn-cob pipe and the other chewing plug tobacco, both whittling wood, and one says to the other, 'My wife's got herself the urge to dandify the fence by hanging up pots of Ge-ranium flowers, like see seen in a garden book, but I told her there ain't nothing round here what'll do that.'
His friend said, 'Jed, maybe we could twist up some fence-wire to do the job.'
'Jethro, I'm thinking if we put a wire noose round the neck of a pot it'd hang funny, like we lynched it. We should just let it be. Her notion might just float away.'
But Jethro said, 'Jed, if you do nothing you'll to be pecked at till the day you die. I'm thinking I could whittle up something.'
'Likey what?'
Jethro picked up a clay flowerpot, scritched his chin awhile, and said, 'When you hold one of these pots, you can stick your thumb over the top, and let your knuckle set in under the rim.'
They started whittling, and before sundown they'd made the world's first pot latch.
The truth is, such wooden latches were made, but they were slow to make and prone to cracks and splits. Eventually a plastic replica was developed, reportedly rather thick and ugly, but soon the idea caught on and variants were developed using cast iron, sheet steel and various plastics. It was a good idea.
Find / draw suitable images. Add caption, 'Well, Jed, Ah reckon one day some young sprat down in Noo Zealand will cobble up some dang improved version of your there gadget.'
Two Okies were sitting on their rockers, one sucking a corn-cob pipe and the other chewing plug tobacco, both whittling wood, and one says to the other, 'My wife's got herself the urge to dandify the fence by hanging up pots of Ge-ranium flowers, like see seen in a garden book, but I told her there ain't nothing round here what'll do that.'
His friend said, 'Jed, maybe we could twist up some fence-wire to do the job.'
'Jethro, I'm thinking if we put a wire noose round the neck of a pot it'd hang funny, like we lynched it. We should just let it be. Her notion might just float away.'
But Jethro said, 'Jed, if you do nothing you'll to be pecked at till the day you die. I'm thinking I could whittle up something.'
'Likey what?'
Jethro picked up a clay flowerpot, scritched his chin awhile, and said, 'When you hold one of these pots, you can stick your thumb over the top, and let your knuckle set in under the rim.'
They started whittling, and before sundown they'd made the world's first pot latch.
The truth is, such wooden latches were made, but they were slow to make and prone to cracks and splits. Eventually a plastic replica was developed, reportedly rather thick and ugly, but soon the idea caught on and variants were developed using cast iron, sheet steel and various plastics. It was a good idea.
Find / draw suitable images. Add caption, 'Well, Jed, Ah reckon one day some young sprat down in Noo Zealand will cobble up some dang improved version of your there gadget.'
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The 'Spanish Hoop'
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???
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The story continues.
There were some design and distribution problems to be solved in New Zealand .... etc TBC
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Our design.
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