As a sophomore in a new high school finding my way among strangers, I became acquainted with the metric system. The media had been warning us for God knows how long, and since I wasn’t a mechanic who would need two sets of tools, I embraced it like an aggressive, friendly girl—somewhat peculiar, yet easy.
During that period in my life, the school district resurfaced our high school track, painted an Olympic curved starting line near the first turn, and hung an empty record board of all the events on our gymnasium wall. Instead of running the mile and the 2-mile, I would run the 1600-meters and 3200-meters. I was filled with hope. There was a chance at name recognition. Just be the best that year in your event and own a record.
It never happened.
Twenty-eight years later and I’m puzzling over the metric system. Why didn’t it become popular?
At our annual catfish tournament, with a half-hour left, my old man landed a 12-lbs. 5-oz., 30 ½ in. catfish—enough to secure third place. Poor Dan Ingles was bumped to fourth place and out of the money. Little did he, or anyone else at the time, know that his catch should’ve remained in third.
Here’s the goofy scoring system (combining weight and length):
3rd Place: My Dad – 12.5 + 30 1/2 = 43.000
4th Place: Dan I – 12.11 + 30 1/8 = 42.235
Do you see the error? Dan would’ve been better off reeling in a catfish at 12-lbs. 9-oz. (12.9). Oh well, I’m sure he enjoyed the tournament. And once again, I never made the board.
6 comments:
You know, this ia a really good question. What's kept the USA in sweat hog school all these years?
I like both systems, going back and forth. A good hedge against dementia, I supppose ;->
True, Erik. However, some folks can't handle two systems which in turn leads to goofy catfish tournament scoring methods.
We need a generation or two of bi-mathical folks and then gradually phase out the old system for the metric.
If the Brits can drive on the left we can keep the crown based system. I have two sets of tools(actually three if you count Wentworth) and was constantly bouncing between the two on Fords which blithely put a metric bolt in next to an SAE standard. I miss cursing them.
Jim you made it on the board..onboard!!!! ha ha ha haha ha
An old comedian from Canada, Charlie Farquarson, swears that if God had mean us to go metric, He would have given us ten apostles.
We converted to metric in Canada, and I still can't figure it out. The imperial system is so much more logical. I can visualize a yard, but I can't visualize a meter. And recipes? In metric they're impossible.
Stick with the imperial system in the US!
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