OPINION

NORDONIA HILLS
NEWS LEADER
WEDNESday
June 1, 2016
Page 8

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QUESTION: what was your favorite summertime activity as a child?

Playing baseball.

Camping and
spending time
with my
family.

Swimming,
camping and
horseback
riding.

Julie Neal,
Attendance secretary

Marjorie Crock,
School secretary

Swimming.

Sean Speck,
Custodian

Vacationing
in Ontario,
Canada with
my family.

Cindy McQuillen,
Educational assistant

Lori Wingard,
School secretary

Much to be admired in building of Nordonias new Safety Town

Safety Town, the
annual, week-long
camp where pre-kindergartners get lessons in
real-world safety, is a remarkable program.
Its an important job
teaching young people only a few years
into their lives that the
world is full of ordinary
things that can be dangerous, but arent beyond their ability to
deal with.
Retired Bedford
school teacher Dorothy Chlad began developing the Safety Town
program in 1964 by re-

inventing a traffic safety program created in

1937 by Mansfield police officer Frend Boals.
The original Safety
Town, which lasted decades, was in response
to the death of a little
girl killed by a car crossing the street on her
first day of school.
Chlad took the traffic safety program, expanded it and campaigned for its adoption
across the country. Today, there are more
than 3,500 in the United States and internationally.

In addition to traffic and bus safety, the

program teaches children ages 4 to 6 about
hazards they may face
in daily life from the
time they get up in the
morning, until the time
they go to bed, says
Chlad.
Sagamore Hills Patrolman Dan DeCrane
is one of the instructors
this year. Ive seen other
police officers and firefighters visit over the
years to show off their
equipment and give
children expert instruction.

Now the program

has a permanent facility at Rushwood Elementary School, thanks
to the efforts and generous donations from
Eric Marotta
businesses and indiEditor
viduals throughout the
community. In all, the
endeavor cost around
$70,000, from the pourIn past years, Safety Town has been host- ing of the concrete pad
and roadway, to the
ed at Ledgeview Eleconstruction of the
mentary School. The
temporary buildings set brick pillars and roofs
that form the towns
up on the playground
buildings.
each July and put into
Spearheading the
storage the rest of the
year had begun to show drive was the Nordonia
Hills Rotary Club, altheir age.

SOMETHING
ELSE

though partners also included Nordonia Hills

Preschool Parents,
YMCA and schools, including the Cuyahoga
Valley Career Center.
All were represented at the school on May
25, where Chlad herself
turned up to speak.
An account of Chlads
work developing and
promoting Safety Town
is found at nationalsafetytown.com. It is quite
an impressive resum.
It says that back in
1963, Chlad had been
SEE Town, Page 9

Writer discusses counting, counting devices and counting lore

I was having breakfast, when I noticed the
carton said the cereal had a net weight of
15 ounces. That made
me wonder if the factory
pays someone to weigh
every box, to make sure
the cereal weighs exactly 15 ounces. No way!
Filling and sealing cartons of cereal surely
must be done by automatic machinery. Does
the factory check now
and then, just to make
sure?
What about the
odometer in a car? If it
reads 35,456 miles, does

that mean the car has

been driven that far,
exactly? It used to be
that the speedometer
and odometer counted the revolutions of the
wheels and tires. Later on, that was changed
and a drive shaft counted revolutions. Now,
thats done electronically, but I would think
a computer counts
something, and calculates mileage from that.
Whatever method is
used, there probably is
some wear someplace,
and, over time, the actual distance is off a lit-

ment?
Several years ago, I
called my local drug
store to see if my prescription was ready
for pickup. I was told
it was ready. I went to
John Straka
the store and brought
#1,436
it home. When I opened
the package, it was evtle bit. A tiny fraction of ident that the bottle
an inch difference in the had been opened, and
diameter of a tire will
that most of the pills
add up over time.
were gone. The clerk
I have a folding carhad checked the status
penters ruler. Can you
of my prescription on a
imagine measuring the
computer and accepted
distance between Cleve- the computers word.
land and Chicago using When she said my pills
such a primitive instru- were ready, she really

THE WAY
IT WAS

meant that the computer indicated they were

but they werent.
A can of mixed nuts is
labeled to contain less
than 50 percent peanuts. Do they count the
peanuts in every can?
Or do they do that by
weight? If there are only
10 percent peanuts, I
doubt the manufacturer would miss an opportunity to say so. I think
they mix a ton of mixed
nuts with a ton of peanuts, and then remove
one peanut.
The second floor of
the company where I

worked for 26 years was

for the assembly department. When someone came with a requisition for 125 washers,
the clerk used a counting scale to count them.
One washer here balanced 100 in the pan.
Two washers there balanced 20 more. Add
five more, and you have
counted 125 in less time
than by hand counting
one at a time.
When I had a garden,
I would purchase seeds
from Park Seed Co. I
SEE Straka, Page 9

NORDONIA HILLS NEWS LEADER, 1050 W. Main St., Kent OH 44240 330-541-9400 FAX: 330-296-2698 PO Box 5199, Kent OH 44240
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Opinion

Wednesday, June 1, 2016 PAGE 9

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fronts had been sponsored at $1,000 each,

with more available for
businesses who wish
to pitch in. Dozens of
street signs and about
100 bricks were also
purchased by donors.
To cap things off, Superintendent Joe Clark
accepted the key to
Safety Town on behalf
of the school district at
the May 25 dedication.
I would like to offer my congratulations, and a salute, to
the Nordonia Rotary and others including Chlad for their remarkable efforts.
And Ill probably
back there myself in
July to take photos of
the kids on their Big
Wheels.

each piece would weigh

about one ounce.
Modern aircraft have
from PAGE 8
a capacity in excess of
wondered how the com- 200 passengers. In the
final moments just bepany counted 25 itsyfore takeoff, the cabbitsy seeds. On one of
in
crew must count the
our vacations, we visitpassengers. The count
ed Park Seed and saw
must match the numthat being done. Every
ber of passengers that
order specified a numare supposed to be on
bered seed scooper.
that particular flight.
All the worker had to
Ive seen them do it the
do was to use the right
scoop to transfer seeds easy way: if the count
is supposed to be 218
from a big bag to a tiny
in an aircraft with 225
envelope.
seats, all the crew memWhen I worked in a
bakery, the baker would ber does is count the
empty seats, which in
weigh, maybe one or
this example would be
two pounds of dough.
7.
form the chunk into a
Two men are on a
roughly circular shape
train
going through catand put into a kind of
tle country. One of the
a press. There, with
men claims to be able to
one pull of a handle, it
count hundreds of aniwould be cut into pieces, all the same volume mals as the train passand weight, but not the es by at 60 mph. The
other man does not besame shape. If there
lieve what the first man
were 16 pieces, then

claims to be doing.
When they come to a
ranch where the second
man knows how many
cows and steers are in
a specific pasture, he
is amazed because the
first guy got the count
right on the button.
He begs to know how
that man does it, and
is told there is a secret
method. Only after firm
promises not to reveal
the secret, he is told, I
count the legs and divide by four.
I wonder how many
readers know what a
revolution counter is.
You set a stopwatch
and the counter to zero.
By holding the counter to the center hole in
the end of a shaft, and
watching the clock, you
get the number of revolutions per unit ot time.
I suppose that is now
done by electronics.
All you would need is a

mark of some kind on a

rotating part or a strobe
light, to give an accurate RPM.
I have a pulse oximeter that counts my
heartbeats. It used to
be that a doctor would
hold my wrist and look
at his watch to count
my pulse.
One time the doctor said my pulse was
as regular as clockwork.
I told him, That does
not surprise me, because you are holding
my wrist watch.
For a while, I ran a
precision honing machine and used an air
gauge for measuring
with tolerances as low
as 20 millionths of an
inch. I think I was the
only person in the company who could do that.
Straka can be
reached via email at
wenceslas88plus@
gmail.com.

tasked with developing a safety education

program in Bedford
Schools as a nursery
school teacher. She
discovered the program Boals had founded years before, but was
disappointed it was limited to traffic safety. After obtaining approval
from her superintendent, she spent the
next year developing a
comprehensive, 60-page
curriculum containing
safety information as
it relates to traffic and
buses, the playground
and toys, poisons, fire,
water safety, animal
and strangers.
The first session was
in 1965, and Chlad continued developing the
curriculum.
Following local media
coverage, inquiries from

Straka

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1024603000

from PAGE 8

Cell: 216-548-3226
Fax: 330-236-4030
margie.valenti@att.net

KO-10456686

The same year NSTC

was established, the Bicycle Institute of America met to discuss material on bicycle safety
except they did not
believe that 5-year-olds
rode bicycles, according to Chlad.
So she sent questionnaires to thousands of
families to research the
issue. Four years later, she was appointed a
member of the Ad Hoc
Committee of the Consumer Products Safety
Commission regarding
bicycles.
By 1980, governors
in 30 states were proclaiming Safety Town
Day, and the program
had become a truly national movement.
In Nordonia Hills,
construction of Safety
Town at Rushwood has
been one of the most
successful community
endeavors Ive seen.
At last count, 22 store

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Town

dozens of area school

districts began to flow
in so many that after three years that included further development of the curriculum,
she began to look for a
sponsor to support its
continued expansion.
By 1974, when the
non-profit National Safety Town Center
was established, there
were more than 125
programs in the United States and four other countries.
Those years in-between had been filled
with meetings with potential public and private sponsors, where
Chlad encountered
roadblocks and rejection, according to the
organizations website.
I can imagine the reception a young female
teacher pushing such
an ambitious agenda
got in the late 1960s and
early 1970s.

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made payable to The United States of America for an amount of up to
and including my life. That is Honor, and there are way too many people in
this country who no longer understand it.
- Author Unknown

KO-10456371

News Leader Photo / Eric Marotta

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Rushwood
Elementary School
music teacher
Angela Perrine
conducts a tour of
Safety Town with a
group of students
after the May 25
dedication
ceremony. See a
video on Safety
Town at www.thenews-leader.com.

KO-10393917

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