You Don't See Walls Like That Very Often

Usage note for the day. In my professional writings, I've been referring to the Panic of 2008, and so far no editor has changed my phrasing. I've read the phrase in a few other places, too. Good. I want to encourage the usage.

Near the American Club are a number of other Kohler Co. properties. Across the street is company headquarters, with the main structure topped by a clock tower, looking more like a university administration building than a corporate facade. Behind that building, and running far down the street behind a fence, is a large complex of brick industrial structures, old buildings covered with ivy here and there. From the street, I could hear sounds coming from within -- a radio, for example -- but couldn't tell if anything is still being made in there. Kohler, after all, is a worldwide operation with factories in a lot of other places.

Down the street is the Kohler Design Center, also brick on the outside and looking like something on a college campus, but dating from the 1980s. One of the conference events was held there, so last Friday evening I had the run of the four levels of the 36,000-square-foot building, though much of my time was taken up talking to other people. The place is a palace of plumbing fixtures, faucets, baths, showers, toilets and bathroom accessories across a wide variety of shapes, colors and sizes. All no doubt unimaginable to most of humanity down the centuries, but available now from the Kohler Co.

Down in the basement was a museum with exhibits of older Kohler manufactures, including early bathtubs. It seems that old man John Kohler was a pioneer of cast iron vitreous enamel baths, though he didn't invent the process. Curiously, that's attributed to David Dunbar Buick, who later when on to design automobiles. The Kohler Co. also made (and still makes) various kinds of machines, including generators. On display in the basement of the Kohler Design Center are generators like the ones -- or maybe they are the ones -- that Adm. Perry took to the pole.

Almost by itself, the back wall of the design center was worth the drive up. It was a wall of toilets. Or more exactly, an ordinary wall fitted with small platforms in columns. On each platform was an example of the art of the flush-commode by Kohler -- sometimes as many as 10 or 11 all the way from the floor to the ceiling, three stories up.