Word: brickly
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Instead of trying to improve on what they call "the world's best mousetrap," the Knesses are now concentrating on making a smaller model more suited for residential use. Brick's trap, retailing for $8.95, is too large and expensive for a householder with a minor mouse problem. As a result, most traps go to nationwide exterminating companies and large distributors who market the traps to grain elevators and other food handlers. Professional mice catchers love the trap because it can be wound up and just left in a likely spot. With one full wind, it has been...
Nevertheless, the world took its time beating a path to the Knesses' door. When Brick made the first trap 55 years ago, he was a widower with six children. He stayed on at the high school for several years before he could risk full-time work with the trap and other inventions. Then the Depression hit, and like millions of others, he had to make ends meet by doing anything that paid. But whenever there was a little cash around the house, Brick would go back to his workroom...
...When Brick's three sons, Mike, Lester and Arnold, came back from World War II, the family moved to Albia, some 65 miles southeast of Des Moines, and set up a factory in an old barn. Five railroads then intersected in town, making it a likely place for manufacturing. (Other captains of industry did not flock to Albia, however, and two of the railroads are now gone.) When orders were down, as they often were, the Knesses built houses. They farmed and did some landscaping. They installed toilets and dug septic tanks. They fixed almost any machine that needed...
...would have made it," says Mike, recalling the years he, Lester, 60, and Arnold, 56, struggled to keep the trap going. "Each of us faltered at times, but then the others were there to help. Teamwork isn't easy. We learned it out of necessity." Four years ago, Brick's old barn got too small for the growing business. The family decided to construct a new factory and pretty much built it themselves. Brick died of Parkinson's disease just after the decision was made. He never saw the new place, but he would have liked...
...University of Massachusetts' Amherst campus the red brick façade of the 28-story library has turned into a new sort of flying buttress. Since last fall, chunks of brick have come crashing onto the surrounding concrete patio, which is now fenced off to protect passing students. At California's San José State University, badly fitting window frames caused drafts that sent shivering nude models scurrying from the art studio. The 30 models, aged 21 to 52, went on strike, in part because they were tired of posing clad only in "goose flesh." At San Francisco...