The beautiful summers we are blessed with here in Colorado are near perfect. Warm days, cool evenings, with sweet air and low humidity. Everything's just about perfect until you hear that irritating buzz of the mosquito.
Dang. Time to go indoors in the protection of the bug screen.
And that's what I'd like to celebrate today. The unsung heroes who invented the screen. Ever think about it?
To not be bothered by the nasty little pests we could just close the windows and doors and lock ourselves inside, insulated and isolated from the out of doors, but then…no summer breeze, no sweet smells of the jasmine, songs of the birds and the buzzing of the bees (and if no air conditioning…).
Best I can tell, it was in the 1800s, here in the United States, where settlers were venturing into the southern areas of the land—hot, humid, and mosquito infested. What to do?
Turns out some clever folks started weaving screens out of available materials like horse hair and cotton. They'd make a frame, stretch the woven material across it, enjoy the breeze and deny those nasty mosquitos access to inside. And across the Atlantic the same sort of woven techniques created mosquito netting that covered their beds so one could get a decent night's sleep even in the worst of conditions.
Today, we take for granted the wire or synthetic mesh that keeps out those pesky invaders, but hats off to those pioneers and inventors of yesteryear.
