Word: shelf
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...rusty safe was consigned to the shark tank of the New York Aquarium. Twenty-five years ago, on July 26, 1956, only eleven hours after colliding with the Swedish liner Stockholm, the Andrea Doria, flagship of the Italian Line, sank some 250 ft. down to the continental shelf. Fifty lives were lost. The next day Department Store Heir Peter Gimbel, then 28, went chugging out to sea looking for the buoy that marked the Andrea Doria 's grave about 50 miles south of Nantucket. Gimbel dove through a cloud of rising air bubbles to the ship...
Another entree: a la Carte-brand foods from Kraft. They are single-serving main dishes, like beef burgundy or creamed chicken, which are neither frozen nor canned but packed and vacuum-sealed in a new kind of aluminum and plastic pouch that can be stored on a shelf, popped into boiling water and eaten in five minutes. Kraft publicity identifies the market as: "Dual income families, working single parents and single people who lead active lives." Kraft is pleased with test-market results of a la Carte in half a dozen cities, and the product will soon be sold nationally...
Along with diet books, cat books and advisories on how to make a profit from the coming apocalypse, there is a growing shelf concerned solely with mastering that infuriating, six-sided, six-colored, 27-part boggler with 42.3 quintillion possible combinations known as Rubik's Cube. The latest entry: You Can Do the Cube (Penguin; $1.95) by Patrick Bossert, 13, a London schoolboy who discovered the cube only this spring during a family ski vacation in Switzerland. Within five days he had mastered the monster, and later began selling his schoolmates a four-page, mimeographed tip sheet...
...that not a binding deed? Many Americans found themselves distantly disturbed that what was once a matter of some human solemnity should be brushed aside as if it were merely a technical detail. The social edifice shuddered slightly; down in the basement, a dusty little taboo fell off a shelf and shattered...
Indeed, the entire subject merits serious attention. What is clearly needed is a Five-Foot Shelf of Nice Stories. Some initial possibilities...