 | ||||||
| ||||||
Lights
I once had a car with a delay cut-off switch for the headlilghts, which allowed me to walk from my car to my home with a clearly lit path. This convenience, however, had some disadvantages. When I left my car in parking lots, well-meaning people often called out to say I'd forgotten the lights. Then I usually had to explain. One night as I rushed from my car toward the supermarket, a man in a car lowered his window as I passed
and told me about "the lights."
Just then, I turned toward my car, folded one arm over the other and blinked "I-Dream-of-Jeannie" style. At that precise moment, the headlights turned off. I leaned down toward the astonished man, thanked him and hurried into the store.
When man invented the bicycle he reached the peak of his attainments. Here was a machine of precision and balance for the convenience of man. And (unlike subsequent inventions for man's convenience) the more he used it, the fitter his body became. Here, for once, was a product of man's brain that was entirely beneficial to those who used it, and of no harm or irritation to others. Progress should have stopped when man invented the bicycle.
~Elizabeth West, Hovel in the Hills
In 1916, 55% of the cars in the world were Model T Fords.
|
.gif)
