Duct tape has saved me only once. I’ve used it plenty but only needed it one time. My Oldsmobile ruptured a radiator hose on the Mass Pike on the way to a Boston Bruins playoff game. I fixed the hose in no time with duct tape and was on my way. I drove the car that way for weeks. That’s mv duct tape story. But that’s not duct tape’s only story.

Remember when you were little how much you loved being the one to tell your younger cousins there was no Santa Claus? That perverse pleasure of being the bearer of bad news never goes away. An equally pleasing ritual, this one of early adulthood, is catching your savvy friend saying “duck tape” instead of “duct tape” and being the one to tell him he’s an idiot.

The thing is, duct tape was once called duck tape, so who’s an idiot now? It could very well be that that honor goes to Tim and Jim, the Duct Tape Guys, who bring you Duct Tape on the Web (www.ducttapeguys.com). Jim and Tim, who are brothers-in-law and look like supporting cast members on an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger, came up with their idea for a federation of duct-tape enterprises one Christmas Eve when the power went out in the small Wisconsin town where they were having a family gathering. Jim said, “I bet I could fix this power outage with duct tape.” Tim, having grown up on transparent, masking, and other lesser tapes, said, “What do you mean?” The Duct Tape Guys have since authored three books documenting hundreds of uses for duct tape, marketed a duct tape Page-A-Day Calendar, written the spin-off WD-40 Book, and launched this vast website. (By the way, Jim rips right, flattens left, and Tim rips left, flattens back-handed right.)

Adhesive tape, Jim and Tim tell us, was invented in the 1920s by 3M Company researchers. But during World War II, a new tape was developed for the American armed forces, who needed a strong, waterproof tape to keep moisture out of ammunition cases. Because it was waterproof, soldiers called it “duck” tape. The versatile tape was also used as a mending material that could be ripped by hand and used to make quick repairs to jeeps, aircraft, and other military equipment. The Johnson & Johnson Company’s Permacel division, which had by then developed its own line of adhesive tapes, helped the war effort by combining cloth mesh, which rips easily, with a rubber-based adhesive and a rubberized coating. Following the war, housing in the United States boomed and many new homes featured forced-air heating and air-conditioning units that relied on duct work to distribute warmth and coolness.

Johnson & Johnson’s strong military tape made the perfect material for binding and repairing the duct work. By changing the color of the tape’s rubberized top coat from Army green to sheet-metal gray, “duct” tape was born.

Besides this etymological chronicle, the site includes information on the Duct Tape Political Party, a duct-tape curriculum for educators, a Stump the Duct Tape Guy contest, and a news service — “When news breaks, we duct tape it.” And the news does break. In Los Angeles, where the USC administration has resorted to covering the Tommy Trojan statue each fall with duct tape in order to prevent vandalism before the UCLA game. And in Ann Arbor, where when it came time for the University of Michigan College of Engineering to dedicate a new building for student design projects, duct tape was chosen for the ribbon-cutting ceremony. “There are some things that all engineers hold dear, and one of these things is duct tape,” said Dean Stephen Director as he snipped the ceremonial tape. And in Cosmopolitan, which recently told women to duct tape their breasts when they can’t wear a bra with their outfit.

Duct tapers are competitive animals, and so a spirit of one-upsmanship characterizes the anecdotes posted at the site. Lori Green, for example, boasted, “My grandmother had Alzheimer’s and we couldn’t keep her from climbing out of her wheelchair and falling. Even the most expensive medical restraints wouldn’t keep that little lady put, so we duct-taped her in. Worked great.”

Somehow our ability to find novel uses for duct tape reassures us of our independence from institutional forces. It triggers the few vestiges of an aboriginal temperament that remain in our makeup. Usually a ruptured radiator hose is devastating. It can ruin a whole day, make you miss your plane, cost you money. But you can fix the rupture in less than a minute with duct tape and drive away with a primal sense of triumph, having relied on nothing but your hands.

Jim and Tim do offer one warning, though. Duct tape doesn’t work on ducts. A recent study at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that duct tape is an ineffectual sealant of ducts and that it can’t hold up to temperature fluctuations.

More early websites - see yesterday's first story on these  for others

Where to buy Russian sub

I need a huge, wasteful engine. I need a generous captain’s quarters, a classy mess hall, and a state-of-the-art marine toilet. I need chrome detailing, lots of knobs and dials set in a mahogany control panel, and the very best periscope available. And range. I need lots of range. I’m not interested in commuter submarines. I need an attack sub. Something expansive enough for my chronic road rage.

By Justin Wolff, Nov. 9, 2000 | Read full article

Homicidal mania

CyberSleuths is able to go into the kind of detail that the avid reader of crime news craves. The typical newspaper story leaves too many questions unanswered — mainly, the hows and the whys. But a page featuring the true-crime writing of Bill Kelly demonstrates the dangers of too much information. Kelly has posted here his unpublished book Homicidal Mania: The Fifteen Most Horrific Murder Cases Ever to Shock America.

By Justin Wolff, Feb. 24, 2000 Read full article

Already miss the 90s?

In 1996, two ex-editors of Spin — which is not alternative—made a bundle with their book Alt.Culture: An A-to-Z Guide to the '90s — Underground, Online, and Over-the-Counter. The authors, Steven Daly and Nathaniel Wice, both reported on and prompted the death of the original alternative. Wice told People, “One of the guidelines we had in writing this was that my mother had to understand the entries.”

By Justin Wolff, Mar. 29, 2001 Read full article

Welcome to the Bad Fads Museum

The mere sight of a Rubik’s Cube my shoulders slacken and I exhale in a titter any good will that I might have felt toward the world. The cheap, adhesive squares of color; the chintzy, creaky cube itself; and the purposeless absorption that damned thing begets all conspire against my open-mindedness. When a friend passed word to me of the Bad Fads Museum (www.bad-fads.com), I thought maybe here is a resource that will help explain the existence of this pathetic puzzle-toy. 

By Justin Wolff, Nov. 19, 1998 Read full article

El Cajon actor wants dimes

Justin says that his inspiration for the site is a kid who wrote a letter to a newspaper columnist in 1987 requesting that he run a column asking each reader to send the kid a penny. “People sent him penny after penny,” Justin says. “Some people made MUCH larger contributions. All together the kid made about 30 grand for his college education.”

By Justin Wolff, May 11, 2000 Read full article

P.B.'s Pisser Clam Club

"Little Necks at Albertson’s are $5 a pound. If you’re buying cockles and cherrystones, the other clams that are available in San Diego, you’re probably gonna be paying $2.75 to $2.95 a pound, but you’re not gonna get pisser clams. You’re not gonna get the big siphon and the big, juicy bellies. I’ve tried for years to see if Pacific Shellfish or the Chesapeake Fish Company could get these clams. But they do not sell soft-shell clams."

By Justin Wolff, Feb. 8, 2001 Read full article

In defense of Charles Manson

Smaller pieces of Manson’s writings are exhilarating, downright revolutionary and Dylanesque: “Ain’t nobody there, man. Just the air we breathe. It’s the trees, it’s the water, and the animals. If we don’t save the air, water, trees, and animals we can’t have this love anymore. If our love is real and our love is true and our love is right, (why) do we want to run after someone and put it on somebody for?

By Justin Wolff, Oct. 22, 1998 Read full article

Cars that are lemons

The assumption that most of us bring to the table when buying or selling a car, new or used, is that we will be defrauded, which is usually the case. One unrepentant contributor to HotRodder.Com’s pages remembers his first car this way: “I bought an ’81 Cutlass for $75 with a ’69 350 Rocket motor in it from a girl that I work with in Rapid City. All that was wrong with it was a fan belt. She’s still pissed.” And the car? “It roars like a demon from hell.”

By Justin Wolff, Jan. 6, 2000 Read full article

San Diego Polo Club site developed by Heaven's Gate

Perhaps preoccupied with their imminent trip, Higher Source designed for the Polo Club a plain, insipid page, compared at least to other sites they designed, such as an animated site advertising early Madonna recordings. In fairness to the deceased designers though, not much can be made of polo. Included here are the requisite images of finery: white tents, pompous buffets, wealthy spectators decked out in their Sunday best.

By Justin Wolff, July 16, 1998 Read full article

Gulf War's hidden bloodiness

In addition to photographs and excerpts from his informative journal, Waybright’s site includes a list of Marines killed or wounded in the war, a Persian Gulf veteran locator page, a gun line diagram for his battery of M-198 Medium Towed Howitzers, stories submitted by other Gulf vets, and links to other Desert Storm sites."Many back home feel all we did was fly over and bomb everything. That is not the case."

By Justin Wolff, May 6, 1999 Read full article

San Diego's spiritualists battle local scientists

San Diego is a logical venue for disputes over the paranormal: it is home to alternative lifestylers and first-rate science and research institutions. The landscape of the region also breeds opposing explanations of odd phenomena. Desert places attract spiritualists and scientists, both pursuing answers to serious questions among extreme geography and light-streaked night skies. And the military’s presence here complicates these matters: its furtive experiments and luminescent flying machines are mistaken for paranormal activity.

By Justin Wolff, June 18, 1998 | Read full article

^^^^^^^^

The Reader has started this series of its best stories from the past 52 years — 2600 cover stories and some remarkable interior features — to help make up for the loss of its physical edition, which was once large enough to hold whole oceans of print. These stories will feature all the original illustrations and photos (plus easy-to-read typography), and will include new background information about the authors — some of it taken from personal correspondences.