STL - Toaster

It's just a toaster, you say. Ok, it's just a toaster. But it's also a 1930's toaster that has never failed in 70 years. It came out of my mother's parents home when they lived in Boise Idaho. My maternal grandfather came to the US from Germany, where his name was Muller, around the beginning of World War I. He wanted to join the US Army and go back to fight the Kaiser. He did and after the war joined the US postal service, eventually becoming the Postmaster General for Boise, Idaho.

When he was there he met a beautiful young socialite from Soda Springs, Idaho. My maternal grandmother who's family name is Shufeldt. Her family moved from Ohio around the time of the Civil War after immigrating to the US in the 1830's. They married and bought a brick home in one of the then better neighborhoods in Boise. My Dad, a young Army officer stationed at Mountain Home Air Base, met their daughter, my Mom, who also was a young socialite.

And the rest of the story is obvious. When they closed my grandparents home so my grandmother could move in with us, most of her household goods were either sold or stored. Somehow this toaster made it through the hussle and bussle of belongings gone everywhere. It sat in a box until I married and we needed a toaster. And so we got this one, and I've never had another one.

I like this toaster for its simplicity. It toasts one slice of bread at a time, sorry no bagels, but it will do frozen waffles, and it has only one control, lighter-to-darker, but once set, I've never changed in decades. If it doesn't toast the first time, you simply push it down a second time and watch. And listen to the tick of the timer.

How hard is that? With all the fancy multi-slice toasters and toaster-ovens in the world today, this toaster does one thing very well, toast bread. It has a bottom panel you unscrew to get the crumbs out. And it still has the original cloth cord and plug. Not bad for a seventy year old toaster. And I'll keep it shiny for a long time too, occasionally spotted with butter and fingerprints.