Photo by Cynthia Larsen

Much of what follows is true—a sea-change for this column

By Ed Goldman

In the hubbub of the holidays, one headline that might have escaped your notice announced the death of the man who gave America one of its most durable but most unnecessary inventions.  

I refer, of course, to Mr. Duane Roberts, creator of the flash-frozen burrito. 

How many times during the course of a year—as you pop one of these mouth-watering treats into your frying pan, lock it up in your microwave, place it firmly atop your idling car engine or put it on a stick and hold it next to a recycling bin in a state of total conflagration—do you pause and muse aloud, “The flash-frozen burrito is akin to godliness. Dear Lord, whom may I thank—besides Thee, natch?” 

And when the answer comes–in the form of a resonant baritone (if you view God as male), rich contralto (if you think of God as a woman) or annoying screech (if you worship the late Jerry Lewis)–do you hear what I hear? 

“Just plain Duane.” 

Yes, just plain Duane Roberts. The man. The legend. Born “Duane Roberts” in Riverside, California in 1936, young Duane worked for his dad, owner of the momentarily ubiquitous Butcher Boy Products, a meat-processing enterprise. Eager to prove his Duaneness, the lad was told by one of the family company’s Hispanic butchers what a burrito was. History tells the rest. By the time he sold the family business in 1980, “the company was making a million frozen burritos a day,” according to a Wall Street Journal obituary that appeared a full month after Duane had shuffled off this mortal heating coil. He will be missed, probably. 

The item made me think of other obscure inventions we should think of from time to time, especially when the internet’s down, the cable’s out and your dinner plans with the Trumps get rain-checked. I’m not talking about the products so ingenious that many “creators” have leapt forward to claim credit—such as black dandruff (to sprinkle on white shirts) or self-polishing desert boots—but rather, the great unsung ones. All of these are real, Ardent Reader, compiled from a variety of sources, websites and my most invaluable reference work, “Fax Me Facts” (don’t Google that, I just made it up):    

–THE BABY CAGE. About 100 years ago, give or take a Leap Year, you could put your babies in a wire cage and hang it out the window to allow the little ones to get some fresh air and an early fear of heights. Sadistically invented by Emma Read.  

–GLASSES FOR CHICKENS. About 125 years ago, a few inventors—whose names have been lost either to the ages or when the person with the list laughed himself to death before archiving the names—thought they could prevent chickens confined to small areas from bumping into each other. (This was before the dawn of free-range chickens, who probably need to wear glasses for distance.) The accessory was attached with hooks and pins and straps. Some had red tint to obscure signs of blood on a fellow chicken, making it particularly peckable. And no, chicken contact lenses are not being researched and developed. That would be silly.

-THE CAT-MEW MACHINE. About 60 years ago, in the swingin’ 1960s, this was a device you switched on to frighten away invasive rodents and possibly, anyone who asked you what your astrological sign was. The deal was that it had blinking lights and made the sound of a small cat mewing, as its name suggests. The trouble is, if you’ve ever had a cat, you know they “mew” only when trying to persuade a bird to hop out of a tree and into their mouths—or, ironically, once the cat has dined well on something either you or the tree had provided and is now snuggling into your lap and pretending to love you.