Throwback Thursday: a prophetic editorial cartoon

The Dec. 12, 1983 issue of National Home Center News, the forerunner of HBSDealer, included a cartoon on the editorial page that was decades ahead of its time.

The cartoon, by an artist whose identity fallen into obscurity, depicts large crates carried by a airborne agents -- specifically, homing pigeons working in concert with weather balloons. This was a ful 33 years before Amazon.com rolled out is idea for drone-based delivery of packages. 

In the cartoon, the warehouse manager says to a colleague: "It's a novel approach, but I just don't see it as a long range solution to our freight cost problems."

The cartoon was sandwiched between two editorials, one singing the praises of Payless Cashways, and the other commenting on the spectacular growth of the home center industry in 1983.

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