On the nature of becoming outdated

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Two hundred years ago in Springfield, Mass., Hiram Hull invented a plaiting machine so he could automate the production of buggy whips and fire the local girls who had been braiding his whips.

In 1917, Henry Van Deusen built a new buggy whip factory, offering premium goods. Edwin Sanford's Sanford Whip Co. sold buggy whips into the 1920s. Both discovered cars didn't require whips. Henry switched to making lawn swings. Edwin made novelty toys.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Whatever your life's work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better."

Some of us have a knack for doing jobs well that become unnecessary.

I once was highly skilled at navigation. Give me a sextant, star tables, a clear evening and 15 minutes, and I could tell you where you were, give or take a few hundred yards. With GPS you can find out instantly, within a few feet, in any weather.

Later I became highly skilled at direct mail marketing: I could tell you the message, the offer and the package format that was most likely to work. Now you can email, text or use social media and let AI track results.

Sometimes it's not the industry that grows out-of-date but the individual. Forty-plus-year-old baseball players; thirty-plus-year-old running backs; twenty-something gymnasts. There are exceptions, of course, but they are exceptional.

The other day Rosalie, the exceptionally advanced 6-year-old granddaughter, watched me wash the car with a hose and sponge. "Grandpa," she asked, "Is this the way the old-time people cleaned their cars?"

The stars are still there; satellites are more accurate. The need to do effective marketing is still there, but the mode and means have changed. The pleasures of car washing are lost on the very young.

Recently I've been chatting with George, a retired bus driver who sits on the bench above the beach where I swim. He reads the paper and watches the girls walk by. "Anything new?" I asked, as I wiped sand off my feet.

"Yes," he replied. "I've co-founded a group. 'Guys Who Nap.' Nonprofit. The only rule is that we don't call each other between 1 and 4 p.m."

Some kinds of expertise endure.

Doug Wilhide is a writer in Minneapolis. This article first appeared in Nutshells, a collection of writing that he distributes.