Hi Paul: My father-in-law was an inventor. His one claim to fame was a cheap plastic pulley-like thing you could stick on the bottom of a telephone, and wr

Hi Paul: My father-in-law was an inventor. His one claim to fame was a cheap plastic pulley-like thing you could stick on the bottom of a telephone, and wrap the cord around it. It was called a "Cord Caddy." He made a small...no a medium fortune on this in the early 1970s. I went to a few home trade shows in L.A. with him. The creative energy at these places was palpable. (I even got to meet Ron Popeil there once). You'd go around the booths, see all these incredibly simple....no STUPIDLY simple things all these guys were making fortunes at. I'd mutter at myself, "Heck, anybody can come up with this crap." And then a voice from above thundered down, and slapped me upside the head. My ears are ringing thirty years later. The Voice from above said, "Yes...but you DIDN'T, did you!" That's the secret. ANYONE can come up with stuff...but almost nobody does. The real inventors in this country are a minuscule percentage of the population who actually DO something with their dumb ideas. I have unmitigated respect for Ron Popeil and his ilk, regardless of the obnoxious late night commercials. eric