July 16th, Tuesday | The First Parking Meter

The date is July 16th, Tuesday, and today I’m coming to you from Portland, Oregon.

On this day in 1935 the world's first parking meter was installed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in the USA. 

As much as parking meters are an accepted evil of city parking today, the first parking meters were welcomed. The population in Oklahoma had risen with the discovery of rich oil fields, and with people and money came a rise in vehicles. In 1913 the number of cars in and around Oklahoma City was about 3000. By 1930, that number had reached an estimated 500,000! Downtown Oklahoma City was a mess with everyone jostling for open spaces and staying as long as they liked. Restaurants  and retailers complained about lost business.

The first parking meters were installed on one side of the street on a main thoroughfare downtown, and by the next day requests for more meters from retailers on the opposite side of street poured in. The meters had timers and were coin operated. They successfully brought in revenue for the city, as well as sorting out the parking mess, and quickly spread to other cities facing the same problem! 

Today is the birthday of Sheri S. Tepper, American writer. Her works of science-fiction jarred readers and gave females representation in a genre typically populated by men and historically sexist. Her novels, of which she over 35, gained a reputation as “eco-feminist” for their themes of parallel oppression of women and nature (the environment). 

Born in 1929 in Colorado, Sheri Tepper was married by 20 and divorced with two kids less than ten years later. She worked multiple jobs as a single mother, managing to write a few poems and short stories along the way. Later in her career, she worked as Executive Director of a Planned Parenthood Branch in Colorado, which possibly helped reinforce her gender-equal perspective. 

It wasn’t until Tepper was in her fifties that she became a published author of novels. Her first novel was released in 1983 and her last in 2007. Her novel Grass was nominated for both a Hugo Award and Locus Award and her novel Beauty won the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel in 1992. Other notable works include The Gate to Woman’s Country and The Margarets.

Tepper passed away in 2016 at the ripe old age of 87. 

Extraterrestrial Trilogue on Terran Self-Destruction

Sheri S. Tepper (published as Sheri S. Eberhart)

Three creatures sat on the sands of Mars,

And the first, to the ancient twiddling bars

That the second played in a twalreg flute

Sang a canal lay most convolute,

While the third, with his horn in the sand, sat mute,

Considering the stars. 

At last the second stilled his fife,

And the third twonged out (his voice was rife

With a hint of fear) “Do you know that there,

Where the third planet spins in its veil of air,

I’m convinced there’s a spot, a jot, a hair,

A widge, perhaps, of life.”

The first began and amusement dance,

While the second, fourth eyes crossed, askance,

Skibbed with extreme severity,

“You ought to watch your tongues,” quoth he.

“One should not affront the Deity

By mentioning such chance.

“For years our scientists have spent

Their time in the establishment

Of reasons why the life we know

Could not exist above, below,

Or anyplace but here! They show

That fact self-evident.”

Just then their eyes were caught, aghast,

For where the air-veiled planet passed

A ball of fire has blossomed wide,

And holocausts together vied

To rip the ravens globe aside

With nothing left at last. 

Murmured the first, “You will allow,

By every old and sacred vow,

This proves my point and proves it well.

Those pyrotechnics must compel

You to recant!” The third said, “Hell,

It doesn’t matter now.”

And they sat back down on the sands of Mars

To hear the ancient, twiddling bars 

Of a Martian dirge on the twalreg flute,

In torches old and dissolute,

While the third, with his horn in the sand, sat mute,

Considering the stars. 

Thank you for listening. I’m your host, Virginia Combs, wishing you a good morning, a better day, and a lovely evening.