Random History

History is full of horrible things... It is not our job as educators of children to show them the horrors yet. The kids I teach are 10 years old. But sometimes it can't be avoided… Sometimes the kids will find a book about Japanese internment camps, or about the Holocaust, or about refugees from Syria… So the thing I do is constantly teach about heroes. Just like Mr. Rogers said, whenever something goes wrong, look around for the heroes because they're always there. Bob Fletcher is one of these heroes.  He saw an injustice in 1942 in California and did his best to make it right.  

Do you know Rosa Parks?  Yeah, that lady on the bus, the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement?  Well, life wasn't all roses after her boycotting busses.  She wasn't some national hero immediately afterwards.  Turns out her apartment was robbed and she had to move: She just didn't feel safe anymore.  She moved to a safer, and more expensive, area.  Could she afford the rent?  Not really.  But this guy?  See this old dude?  Heart of gold, this guy.  He owns Little Caesar's Pizza and he owns the Detroit Tigers.  He quietly paid Rosa Parks rent for over 10 years.  His name is Mike Iiitch.

Mr. Clair Cameron is the greatest scientist you never heard of.  Listen to this: When cars were new, and gasoline was new, people were unknowingly poisoning themselves.  Cars, at the beginning, made this loud obnoxious sound.... you know what was added to the gasoline that made them all quieter and better?  Lead.  All the scientists who figured this out rejoiced at how they had improved the automobile!   Turns out lead makes race cars faster, too.  Then, everyone loved leaded gasoline.

Not Clair Cameron.  He was busy trying to figure out the age of Earth.

While doing some experiments to figure out the age of Earth, he could not figure out why too much lead continued to show up in his experiments... Until he realized his lab was contaminated with it.  So, he scrubbed all the glassware, used fresh clean water and started again.  The lead showed up again.   When he started looking for the source, turns out lead was now everywhere in the environment: the air, the water, the food supply, breast milk, hair follicles, tree bark.   This is when the hero inside him woke up.  After fighting relentless for decades, being ignored, bribed, threatened, going to Congress, going to the press, being ignore and ignored and ignored.... He never gave up: This was too important.  

Clair Cameron stopped the most prolific poisoning of the Earth that has ever occurred. He got the lead out of gasoline.  And the world doesn't know his name.  But, now you do.  Be a Clair Cameron.

Now, my good friends, Lewis and Clark traveled all around the North American continent. They made maps;  they took surveys and they brought back some information, still trying to find a route to Asia. Now the thing is, everyone poops. Just not everyone drinks mercury in order to poop better. One of the ways that scientists follow the exact trail is to find out how much mercury is in the soil when the Lewis and Clark party pooped with their super strong laxatives… which contained unusual amounts of mercury. Don't believe me read the article to the left.

Well, in England there is a town called Chester.  They bordered Wales.  One of the churches in Chester, England had a clock tower with only three faces: One facing north, one facing east, one facing west.  In other words, if you were south in Wales, you could not see the clock.   The English disliked the Welsh so much they purposefully built a clock they couldn't see.  They didn't even "give them the time of day."  Hence, the insult still persists today.