All you need to know about duct tape is in those scrolls

I don't fly in commercial jets very often. When I do, I have the same jitters as all the other infrequent fliers.

Last September, my wife and I flew from the St. Louis airport on our vacation. While we were waiting on the runway to take off, I glanced out the window and saw something flapping on the wing.

It was duct tape.

A lot of people might have been upset about flying in an airplane held together by duct tape.

Me?

As the nation's leading spokesman for the wonders of duct tape, I took a large measure of comfort in flying in a jet plane whose structural integrity relied on some gray sticky stuff.

I have a lot of faith in duct tape, as you can tell.

This week, when a huge crane was parked in the middle of Broadway to lift some batteries (size: extra large) to the top of the Hirsch Tower across the street from the newspaper, I couldn't resist a front-row view from the bay window in the newspaper office.

All my life I have been awed by workers whose skills build buildings and dam rivers -- or do just about anything else involving power tools.

So there I was, watching that huge crane go up, up, up to the top of the tallest building in our fair city.

As the operator lowered the crane's hook down to the street where the truck hauling the giant batteries was also parked, I noticed the end of the long cable was held securely by -- yep, you guessed it -- duct tape.

I nodded my approval.

The crane operator didn't seem to take notice.

That's OK. Those of us who gladly rest our fates on a roll of duct tape don't carry on a lot.

A while back, I was chopping sod with a hatchet. You don't need to know all the gory details. But the hatchet hit a rock, and the handle broke. I decided to wrap the handle with duct tape until I could get to the store and buy a replacement. That was 30 years ago. The taped-up hatchet still hangs over my workbench. I don't chop sod anymore.

Until a couple of years ago, I had an aging automobile that used to be brown -- the color of mud on a rainy day. When I discovered duct tape came in colors other than gray, including rainy-day mud brown, I bought a big roll and slapped some on the sagging rear bumper. For the sake of neatness, I put some of the brown duct tape on the other end of the bumper to even things out.

Most duct-tape users have an artistic flair. Have you noticed?

Recently, I was reading an article about the Dead Sea scrolls -- the ones found in the desert in the Holy Land that are some of the earliest biblical texts in existence. The article told all about how most of those scrolls have been translated and are being used by scholars.

The article used a lot of big words, so I'm not sure I understood all of it. But I was amazed to see so many references to -- I think I got this right -- duct tape.

I had no idea duct tape was that old.

One of the scrolls was plumb full of the creation story which, as you know, is repeated two or three times in Genesis. The scroll told all about how Adam invented duct tape, which was just fine with Eve, because it meant Adam wasn't always running off with her Scotch tape anymore.

I'm pretty sure it's like that at every house.

My wife says, "Where's the Scotch tape?" because she can't find it in the kitchen cabinet where it's supposed to be.

And I say, "Uh, I don't know."

Which is a complete lie. There is another part of those scrolls that makes a big deal about lying, by the way.

Of course I know where the Scotch tape is. But I wouldn't have taken it from the kitchen cabinet if I hadn't run out of duct tape.

In case you hadn't noticed, it's harder for a man to admit he ran out of duct tape than it is to confess that he let the battery go dead in his power drill.

I thought the scroll's story of duct tape in the Garden of Eden was pretty interesting.

I always wondered what held those fig leaves in place.

Here's some other interesting tidbits from those old scrolls:

When God asked Noah to build an ark (Noah was living in a desert at the time), he tried to weasel out of the project. It wasn't because he wanted to disobey God. It was because the hardware store's last shipment of duct tape was on back order.

I'm not making this up. All I know about old duct tape is what I read in the scrolls.

When Levi's daughter had a son right about the time the pharaoh was ordering all the Israelites' sons to be thrown in the river, she went to the riverbank to gather reeds. Then she went to the toolshed to get some duct tape. She made a basket and set her son afloat in the river.

The neat part of this scroll version of the story is that technically Moses was thrown into the river as ordered by old what's-his-name. Thanks to duct tape, he grew up and led his people out of bondage so they could wander in a desert for 40 years and eat manna, which I'm pretty sure was fruitcake. The scroll isn't entirely clear on that point.

Well, I could go on and on about duct tape in the Bible. I personally think the reason we have mummies thousands of years old is because they were first wrapped in duct tape. And I'm assuming you already know the story about Capt. Chris Columbus and how his three ships made it to the New World, but his own vessel, the Santa Maria, fell apart at a Caribbean beach resort because Chris had run out of duct tape patching up the Pinta and Nina. A lot of history books don't even mention the duct tape.

Don't ever forget the importance of duct tape.

Your next plane ride may depend on it.

R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.