As I was driving out to Folsom Lake this morning I stopped at a gas station to top up my car’s tank and give the windshield a quick cleaning. It was only after I’d got back on the road that I noticed the service station’s worn-out squeegee had left a bunch of water lines across the glass — my windshield looked worse than before I cleaned it! Sort of annoying, but I soon forgot about it, until I noticed this episode of California’s Gold. Huell visits with the family of window washer and inventor Ettore Steccone, and he learns that with fine attention to details like the handles, the channels, and the high-quality rubber, all squeegees are not the same!

The squeegee was such a simple invention, but like Kleenex and Jell-O, its name has become synonymous with all rubber-bladed window cleaners. Join Huell Howser as he visits the Ettore Corporation in Oakland to learn first-hand about squeegees developed in 1936 by Ettore Steccone.

(Click on the linked image below to see the video.)