…they finally found it.
…the perfect amount of GO! and STOP! to get things done.
“GO!” shouted Little Green, and the cars raced across the bridge.
Then Little Yellow slid into town. He had something to say.
“Slow down.”
They were the perfect words for a busy bridge.
from GO! GO! GO! STOP!
written and illustrated by Charise Mericle Harper
Alfred A. Knopf, 2014
My 16th birthday flew past me without a driver’s license. I didn’t really need one. I rode the bus to school and walked to my after-school job at a department store. When I had a babysitting job, the parents would pick me up and take me home. The few dates I had worked the same way.
A year or so went by. I studied traffic laws. My dad was the perfect coach for parallel parking. I practiced right-hand turns, left-hand turns, and coming to a full stop at stop signs and traffic signals. Soon after, I got my license and only needed one try to pass both parts of the test.
Fast forward. I was driving home in my brand-new 2013 Prius when, in my rear-view mirror, I saw the dreaded cherry atop a police cruiser begin to rotate. Of course I pulled over and reached for my driver’s license. By that time, the officer was standing outside my open window.
“Do you know you drove right through a stop sign?” he asked.
I was aghast. I did not know.
“I could have killed someone!” I answered. No cars were in sight. No pedestrians, no dogs, not even a scampering squirrel was in view, but no matter.
“I just got this car and my husband called. I was talking to him on my new Bluetooth.” My explanation sounded desperate, even to me.
The officer must have seen how upset I was. He reminded me (as if I didn’t already know) that the phone is not connected to the brake pedal. Sheepishly, I answered, “I know.”
I was lucky. The officer believed me, but who wouldn’t? I got a warning to always pay attention to my surroundings and always drive my car when I’m behind the wheel.
I thanked the officer and went on my way, wiser and thankful that no one was hurt.
Now flashback to the early 1900s when street traffic was a jumble of pedestrians, bicycles, horse-drawn carriages and delivery vehicles, and new-fangled motor carriages.
The first automobiles were built by hand by The Winton Motor Carriage Company in Cleveland, Ohio. Alexander Winton transitioned from making bicycles to designing and building motor-powered vehicles in 1897. That year, he produced two fully operational prototypes. He began selling automobiles the next year for about $1,000.00 each.
In 1898, Cleveland, Ohio, was the automobile capital of the United States and Henry Ford was still working on his second Quadricycle in Detroit.
Winton catered to an elite market, producing custom-made cars to order, one at a time. By 1922, his company could not keep up with the demand. He closed his factory in February of that year.
Meanwhile, we all know what Henry Ford was doing with his assembly line and mass-produced products. By the end of its first year (1903) the Ford Motor Company had turned out about 1,000 cars.
More and more cars meant more and more traffic. By 1910, over 130,000 cars, 35,000 trucks, and 150 motorcycles clogged US roads and byways.
Around this same time, in 1891, when he was just 14 years old, Garrett Morgan, son of two formerly enslaved people, moved from Kentucky to Ohio to look for work. By 1907, he had learned enough about sewing machines that he opened up his own repair shop. In Cleveland.
But he discovered a problem. Sewing machine needles moved through fabric so quickly that it was not unusual for a hot needle to scorch the fabric. Morgan looked to chemistry to solve this problem. He used a chemical solution to reduce the friction and discovered that it straightened the material’s fibers. He tried it on his neighbor’s dog. Straight hair. He tried it on his own kinky hair. Straight again!
The G. A. Morgan Hair Refining Company sold so much of his hair cream to his Black customers that Morgan achieved the financial security to follow his interests, wherever they led.
In his heart, Garrett Morgan was an inventor.
In 1914, he patented a breathing device, the precursor to the gas mask used in WWI and later used by firefighters and rescue workers. He also invented belt fasteners and car parts.
In Garrett Morgan’s day, traffic signals had just two lights, stop and go. Some lights were still operated manually and none had a warning interval to allow drivers to consider oncoming traffic: foot; bicycle; or automobile.
After witnessing a particularly horrible carriage accident at a busy intersection in Cleveland, Morgan realized drivers needed a warning to avoid a collision. He put his creative juices to work and invented his most widely used device: a three-position traffic signal. Run on batteries, it included an all-directional stop position. All vehicles (and people) in an intersection had the chance they needed to “take a breath” and wait for their turn.
Morgan was granted his patent in November 1923. Later, it was also patented in Great Britain and Canada.
While I’d love to say Morgan’s traffic light eliminated all vehicle crashes and fatalities, we all know that is not true. What is, though, according to the National Safety Council, in the hundred years since Morgan’s signal was first used, fatalities per 10,000 motor vehicles decreased significantly: from 12.8 in 1923 to 1.5 in 2022.
That’s quite a legacy!
I’m reading Jennifer Donnelly’s Beastly Beauty (Scholastic Press, 2024). If a girl is beastly because she is ambitious, proud, and loud, her “rescuer” must be a most handsome and gentle boy. When Arabella’s desperate attempt to suppress her emotions backfires into a curse that traps her in a castle, it takes Beau, who sees her for who she is and loves her despite her “faults,” to break the curse. Love wins in this gender-swapped re-telling of Beauty and the Beast. Recommended!
Be curious! (and know when to stop)
…the perfect amount of GO! and STOP! to get things done.
“GO!” shouted Little Green, and the cars raced across the bridge.
Then Little Yellow slid into town. He had something to say.
“Slow down.”
They were the perfect words for a busy bridge.
from GO! GO! GO! STOP!
written and illustrated by Charise Mericle Harper
Alfred A. Knopf, 2014
My 16th birthday flew past me without a driver’s license. I didn’t really need one. I rode the bus to school and walked to my after-school job at a department store. When I had a babysitting job, the parents would pick me up and take me home. The few dates I had worked the same way.
A year or so went by. I studied traffic laws. My dad was the perfect coach for parallel parking. I practiced right-hand turns, left-hand turns, and coming to a full stop at stop signs and traffic signals. Soon after, I got my license and only needed one try to pass both parts of the test.
Fast forward. I was driving home in my brand-new 2013 Prius when, in my rear-view mirror, I saw the dreaded cherry atop a police cruiser begin to rotate. Of course I pulled over and reached for my driver’s license. By that time, the officer was standing outside my open window.
“Do you know you drove right through a stop sign?” he asked.
I was aghast. I did not know.
“I could have killed someone!” I answered. No cars were in sight. No pedestrians, no dogs, not even a scampering squirrel was in view, but no matter.
“I just got this car and my husband called. I was talking to him on my new Bluetooth.” My explanation sounded desperate, even to me.
The officer must have seen how upset I was. He reminded me (as if I didn’t already know) that the phone is not connected to the brake pedal. Sheepishly, I answered, “I know.”
I was lucky. The officer believed me, but who wouldn’t? I got a warning to always pay attention to my surroundings and always drive my car when I’m behind the wheel.
I thanked the officer and went on my way, wiser and thankful that no one was hurt.
Now flashback to the early 1900s when street traffic was a jumble of pedestrians, bicycles, horse-drawn carriages and delivery vehicles, and new-fangled motor carriages.
The first automobiles were built by hand by The Winton Motor Carriage Company in Cleveland, Ohio. Alexander Winton transitioned from making bicycles to designing and building motor-powered vehicles in 1897. That year, he produced two fully operational prototypes. He began selling automobiles the next year for about $1,000.00 each.
In 1898, Cleveland, Ohio, was the automobile capital of the United States and Henry Ford was still working on his second Quadricycle in Detroit.
Winton catered to an elite market, producing custom-made cars to order, one at a time. By 1922, his company could not keep up with the demand. He closed his factory in February of that year.
Meanwhile, we all know what Henry Ford was doing with his assembly line and mass-produced products. By the end of its first year (1903) the Ford Motor Company had turned out about 1,000 cars.
More and more cars meant more and more traffic. By 1910, over 130,000 cars, 35,000 trucks, and 150 motorcycles clogged US roads and byways.
Around this same time, in 1891, when he was just 14 years old, Garrett Morgan, son of two formerly enslaved people, moved from Kentucky to Ohio to look for work. By 1907, he had learned enough about sewing machines that he opened up his own repair shop. In Cleveland.
But he discovered a problem. Sewing machine needles moved through fabric so quickly that it was not unusual for a hot needle to scorch the fabric. Morgan looked to chemistry to solve this problem. He used a chemical solution to reduce the friction and discovered that it straightened the material’s fibers. He tried it on his neighbor’s dog. Straight hair. He tried it on his own kinky hair. Straight again!
The G. A. Morgan Hair Refining Company sold so much of his hair cream to his Black customers that Morgan achieved the financial security to follow his interests, wherever they led.
In his heart, Garrett Morgan was an inventor.
In 1914, he patented a breathing device, the precursor to the gas mask used in WWI and later used by firefighters and rescue workers. He also invented belt fasteners and car parts.
In Garrett Morgan’s day, traffic signals had just two lights, stop and go. Some lights were still operated manually and none had a warning interval to allow drivers to consider oncoming traffic: foot; bicycle; or automobile.
After witnessing a particularly horrible carriage accident at a busy intersection in Cleveland, Morgan realized drivers needed a warning to avoid a collision. He put his creative juices to work and invented his most widely used device: a three-position traffic signal. Run on batteries, it included an all-directional stop position. All vehicles (and people) in an intersection had the chance they needed to “take a breath” and wait for their turn.
Morgan was granted his patent in November 1923. Later, it was also patented in Great Britain and Canada.
While I’d love to say Morgan’s traffic light eliminated all vehicle crashes and fatalities, we all know that is not true. What is, though, according to the National Safety Council, in the hundred years since Morgan’s signal was first used, fatalities per 10,000 motor vehicles decreased significantly: from 12.8 in 1923 to 1.5 in 2022.
That’s quite a legacy!
I’m reading Jennifer Donnelly’s Beastly Beauty (Scholastic Press, 2024). If a girl is beastly because she is ambitious, proud, and loud, her “rescuer” must be a most handsome and gentle boy. When Arabella’s desperate attempt to suppress her emotions backfires into a curse that traps her in a castle, it takes Beau, who sees her for who she is and loves her despite her “faults,” to break the curse. Love wins in this gender-swapped re-telling of Beauty and the Beast. Recommended!
Be curious! (and know when to stop)
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