On planet Ithaca even the traffic lights talk. Some of them actually know their own address. And colors. "When crossing Meadow Street, please wait for the signal to turn green. Do not cross on red."
Yeah, we all knew Ithaca was a college town but isn't this going a little far? How much do you think the City paid for those things anyway? Do you think Al Cohen and Ed Hershey have shares in the Talking Traffic Light Company? Is that why they're both retiring this year from city government? Maybe they just signed a contract to put talking traffic lights in Baghdad? Everybody else in America got a contract to do something or other in Iraq, why shouldn't they?
If Ithaca is so damned cosmo-po-litan, why aren't all the traffic lights multilingual? What if someone didn't speak English, for christssake? They'd just be roadkill, right?
Ezra only started thinking about traffic light literacy today. Usually he ignores the little voice coming out of nowhere on Green and Cayuga Streets. It mumbles.
The traffic signal on Meadow and State, on the other hand, has great diction. You can clearly hear every word it says. Ezra was wondering how folks who haven't quite fine-tuned their medications might react to a talking traffic light? Would the experience send them into relapse? Or would they wonder if mailboxes in Ithaca
could talk too?
Ithaca would probably be a much more interesting place if they could.
Now even talking traffic lights get stale pretty quickly. But what if they could sing? What songs would you select for your favorite intersection? A Beatles tune? 'Norwegian Wood'? "Fool on the Hill'?
If Ben Nichols were still mayor, at least one traffic signal would be able to sing the Internationale. "Arise ye workers from your slumbers, Arise ye prisoners of want."
Ben Nichols was the first and only socialist mayor of Ithaca. He wanted to build a worker's paradise right here in Tompkins Country and all we ended up getting was a Target and a Barnes & Noble. I guess that means , however, we are no longer 'prisoners of want."
Ezra had an idea about 17 years ago for an electronic visitor's center. This is how it would have worked. Say you land in town, totally clueless. You'd walk up to this kiosk that looked somehwat like an ATM and push a couple of buttons. Right there on a spot, it would tell you or print out places to stay, where to eat, where to get your tongue pierced. You know, useful information. It turned out to be only an idea. The internet came along after that.
At least the guy who developed the talking traffic signal eventually sold his idea.
He sold the only prototype to some sucker in Ithaca, New York. Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 6:23 AM
