I’m not a very good ice skater. I think a lot of it has to do with my memory. As kids, we used to go down to the “lagoon,” which was really just part of the Great Miami River near Island Park in Dayton, Ohio. I had been there in the summer months. And. I knew, very early on, that this was a body of water. I remembered.
So, when we’d go, as a family, to ice skate, I was not keen on the idea of being on the top crust of this water. Besides, I’m sure I saw some episode of Lassie, where someone fell through the ice, and everybody was yelling at Lassie — once again — “Lassie, go get help.” There was a lot of weight on that dog’s shoulder every week.
Anyway, when we’d go out on the ice, as kids, I would gingerly wobble around near the bank for a couple of minutes, and that was it. This has stayed with me all the way through adulthood. Frozen water scares the holy heck out of me. I don’t even take ice in my drinks.
I only went to an ice rink once in my grade school years. By that time, I was hopeless at balancing my entire body on a skinny little metal blade. I think those of us with clown feet are at a disadvantage in this.
All of this ice skating came to my mind because of today’s date. December 4. It was this date in 1858 when Chester Greenwood was born. I know he sounds a little bit like a country-western singer, but he is not. He was born in that cold, cold state of Maine, in Farmington.
Of course, everyone ice skates in Maine. At least, Chester Greenwood did. He was out skating one day when he was 15, and his ears must have gotten terribly cold. When he went home, he asked his grandmother if she could sew a couple of tufts of fur on the ends of a wire. She could. And did. After patenting the design, he went on to manufacture them, providing employment in the Farmington area for 60 years, making ear muffs.
A couple of gaps came up in the story for me. I’m not sure why he didn’t ask his mom to do this for him. And, I wonder why he wasn’t wearing a hat like everyone else in Maine. He was a nice enough looking kid. Maybe he didn’t want to muss his hair.
Anyway, Chester Greenwood had all sorts of ideas in his life. He invented numerous other objects, including a tea kettle, a variation of the steel-toothed rake, an advertising matchbox, and the machine used to produce wooden spools for wire and thread.
I am amazed by these “inventive” types of people. Greenwood rolled out a lot of other good things. He invented (but did not patent) an umbrella holder for mail carriers. I’d love to know the stories about how these things came about.
There’s a bit of controversy over his legacy. Some people say he only had a few patents, but others claim he held well over a hundred. Not only did he invent things, but he also owned a bicycle shop business and another business involving heating systems. I suppose heating systems for the homes up there in frigid Farmington?
Good old Farmington. He’s still a big dang deal there today. The state of Maine declared “Chester Greenwood Day” on December 21. At his home town, they have a parade for him, every year on that date. I bet they all wear earmuffs.
I don’t wear ear muffs when I’m not skating, or anywhere else, for that matter. I think it is because one of my ears is so much lower than the other. They never fit me right. And for the record, that’s why I always look a little lopsided, among other things.
All of these thoughts bring me to this. While most of us don’t own a patent, we are all inventors. To invent is to “create or design something that had never existed before.” It could be anything. A warm smile. A positive word. An inquisitive thought. Today, I hope we can all invent something good.
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“Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Case of Identity
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“The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can’t be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.”
― Elbert Hubbard
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“Give me but a firm spot on which to stand, and I shall move the earth.”
― Archimedes, The Works of Archimedes
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They might help you hear no evil. But not by design.
