‘Oops’ moments; lessons learned

REMEMBER the leisure suit? Ever wonder what happened to that double-knit polyester outfit so popular with men of all ages, classes and lifestyles back in the 1970s? On one hand, you could say it turned out to be nothing more than a silly fad. But on the other hand, as Martin J. Smith and Patrick J. Kiger point out in their latest collaborative effort, “Oops: 20 Life Lessons From the Fiascoes That Shaped America,” you could also say that the leisure suit, far from being a forgettable fashion joke, was a garment that permanently altered the way American men dressed. Although this nifty, wrinkle-resistant outfit, equally suitable for daytime, nighttime, workplace and yes, leisure, did not become the standard male uniform that fashion mavens predicted, Smith and Kiger would have us remember that “the notion behind it -- that men felt constrained and uncomfortable in traditional business attire -- did ultimately resonate within the American male psyche.” Casual Mondays through Fridays, anyone?

Smith, a Southern California journalist and mystery writer who’s a senior editor at West -- the Los Angeles Times magazine -- and Kiger, a Washington, D.C.-based writer, are the same team responsible for an earlier light-hearted foray into pop history aptly titled “Poplorica.” In their new book, they’ve assembled 20 true-life stories, drawn from a variety of fields, to illustrate their two-part contention: that seemingly bright ideas can sometimes fail, and fail disastrously, but that there are also valuable lessons to be learned from these spectacular failures.

Perhaps the best -- and most chastening -- example can be found in their third chapter, warning us to “Beware Solutions That Create New Problems.” This tells the story of the innovative and doubtless gifted inventor Thomas Midgley Jr., whose brilliantly successful solutions to two immediately pressing problems ended up causing far more serious ones.

Applying himself first to the area of automobiles, Midgley, an engineer at General Motors, figured out a way in 1921 to get rid of those annoying engine knocks: by adding tetraethyl lead, even then known to be a neurotoxin, to gasoline. “Unfortunately,” the authors note, “car engines make terrific aerosolizers, and thus began decades of unnecessarily toxic spew from car exhaust pipes that left an estimated 7 million tons of lead in soil, air, and water, not to mention in the flesh and blood of every organism exposed to it.” Even though the scientist himself became ill from working with this lead-based substance, he stubbornly insisted it was perfectly safe in small doses: “The exhaust,” he assured doubters, “does not contain enough lead to worry about, but no one knows what legislation might come into existence fostered by competition and fanatical health cranks.”

Midgley’s second big “oops” came in the field of refrigeration, where he managed to discover a substitute for the noxious and sometimes explosive ammonia, methyl chloride, and sulfur dioxide that were then being used. His solution: chlorofluorocarbons, nontoxic and nonflammable. But these substances, more familiarly known as CFCs, though apparently harmless enough when close to the ground, make trouble when they rise up through the atmosphere and damage the ozone layer that protects us all from the sun’s dangerous radioactivity. And though CFCs were widely used as coolants, the straw that really seems to have broken the camel’s back was their use as propellents in the spray cans of innumerable products such as shaving cream and deodorants, particularly maddening because these far-from-essential products can easily be delivered via other forms or with less noxious propellants.

Not all these fiascos are equally intriguing. The authors’ account of the John Hancock insurance skyscraper that rained down 500-pound plate-glass windows onto a Boston sidewalk in the early 1970s is a fascinating and sobering lesson in the perils of architectural hubris.

But the stories of the flying automobile and Howard Hughes’ notorious plywood flying boat, the Spruce Goose, are less riveting. The tale of kudzu, the Japanese vine that was imported to the United States in 1876 and flourished largely in the South, where it was used in the hope of preventing soil erosion but ended up taking over yards and gardens wherever it was planted, is perhaps already too well-known to hold our attention.

And although it’s amusing enough to revisit silly ideas such as “Smell-O-Vision” and the 1955 Dodge La Femme, complete with pink-and-gold lipstick holder, by the time we get to the Cleveland Indians’ 10-cent beer night on June 4, 1974, a promotional idea that, not surprisingly, resulted in overly rowdy behavior in the stands, our attention may flag. Still, if you’re in the mood for reading matter that’s informative, entertaining and, in the gentlest way, educational, there’s a lot to be learned from the lessons to be found in the curriculum of “Oops.”