Is there anything duct tape can't fix?
It might not be able to fix a burned tuna casserole, but outside that, it can probably fix just about any other problem. As a matter of fact, now that I think about it, some duct tape with a little bit of ketchup and hot sauce would probably be better than a burned tuna casserole, so no, there isn't anything duct tape can't fix.
Duct tape as been around almost as long as mankind has walked the earth (or since 1915). And the stuff is tough. During the Vietnam War, military personnel used the grey miracle tape to repair rotors on helicopters.
Since its inception, duct tape has undergone very few changes. The colors available have increased, of course. Now you can go to the local dry goods store and pick up a roll of duct tape in everything from pink to camouflage to neon green to the classic grey and black.
Fans of the miracle tape have also taken to making creations with duct tape. People have created everything from purse and wallets to actual prom dresses out of the stuff. I only used my duct tape for fixing stuff, but to each his own, I suppose. There's also books dedicated the stuff: "The Jumbo Duct Tape Book," "Just Duct Tape It!," "Ductigami: The Art of the Tape," and "The Duct Tape Recipe Book: How to Fix a Burned Tuna Casserole."
It is amazing.
In 1983, I purchased my first car, a brown 1974 Buick Century with a tan landau top and tan interior. I bought it for $900 and I thought it was a steal — mostly because it was probably only worth about $350. It was a classic car and I loved it.
The very first thing I did when I got that beauty home was put a KATT radio station sticker in the back window. Anybody cool that drove anything cool, had to have a cool KATT radio station sticker. It was the picture of a yellow and black cat with a red bowtie and blue suspenders and the stations call letters and number 100.5 of the best rock-n-roll station in Oklahoma City. They played everything from classic Led Zepplin to the new Journey stuff during the early 1980s and it's the station everybody listened to. They put on the coolest events at the coolest locations for the coolest people. My car had to have a KATT bumper sticker.
After the KATT sticker, I also included other necessities, like a new sound system for the interior and duct tape, bailing wire and two extra quarts of oil for the trunk. And I used it all.
In rural Oklahoma in the 1980s, there wasn't anything that couldn't be fixed with bailing wire and duct tape. Got a hole in your radiator hose? Put some duct tape on it. Is your muffler falling down? Wrap a little bailing wire around it. Springs showing through the seat? Duct tape. Run out of gas on a deserted road in the middle of the night? Well, you're just gonna have to walk. Duct tape can't fix stupid.
But Duct tape is a powerful tool.
You know what else is a powerful tool? The human mind. The human mind can literally move mountains. Don't believe me?
Have you ever traveled on a winding mountain road? I have. There are very scenic and beautiful. But those roads don't just get there overnight. Those roads were once just a twinkle in some engineer's eye. One day that engineer put some plans together and said "we are going to build a road over the mountain so folks don't have to drive around it."
Other people gathered around and said, "heck yes!" And they started moving those mountains, flattening those surfaces and paving the way through the mountains. What was once only an idea in somebody's mind, becomes a shortcut for modern-day travelers.
We have that mind in us. The mind can cause depression and sickness or it can cause happiness and health. Our minds can help us achieve a dream or convince us that we will never amount to anything. It all starts with that organ between our ears, what we call "grey matter" (is it a coincidence that duct tape was originally grey? I think not).
Even the Provers says, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."
The more I learn about the human body and the brain, the more I'm blown away. I want to harness that power. I believe we can. I believe we should.
I have to go now. I have a tuna casserole in the oven that is about to burn.
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