The Wright Stuff

(No, don't let the title fool you! This isn't another Grammar Nazi post! You may continue without fear!)

As I've mentioned numerous times on this blog, I live in Massachusetts. A few days ago, I spotted a car bearing an out-of-state license plate -- also known as a "license tag" in some areas of the country -- parked in the parking lot at my part-time job.

States love to put all sorts of informative crap on their license plates nowadays. State slogans, and the like. You know the drill. Anyway, I couldn't help but notice the phrase at the top of this Ohio plate: 

"Birthplace of aviation." Hmm. I could have sworn it said the same thing -- or something very similar -- on the North Carolina license plates that I've seen.

Usually, when thoughts like that occur to me, I make a mental or literal note of them, and do a quick Google search when I arrive home. This time, however, I decided to use it as an excuse for starting a series of emails with my friend Betsy, who lives in Ohio.


I put the question to her, and she replied that "the Wright Brothers were born in Dayton, Ohio."


Yeah? So? I thought. It seemed pretty "sneaky" to me (and I said so), a tenuous grasp at best on a claim to being aviation's "birthplace."


I went on to say If the decision had been mine, I would have put "Birthplace of the Wright Brothers" on the plate. That would imply that they built and flew their airplane(s) in Ohio. (I can be sneaky, too.) Of course, people are so clueless nowadays, most of the people who saw that plate would say "Who the hell are the Wright Brothers? Aren't they the guys who sang 'You've Lost That Loving Feeling?' "


I added I guess Ohio didn't want to make room to say "Birthplace of the guys who did all the groundwork [pun intended] here and then went all the way to freakin' North Carolina just to fly their stupid effin' airplane... the traitors!"


And then I thought "Hey, there's gotta be a Foxyblog post in there! Maybe I can make some really bad joke about "The Wrighteous Brothers!"


But first, being Yours Truly, I did some research on my own, and the following is what I discovered. Let's cut to the chase here and zoom in on North Carolina's plate, with its slogan.

"First in Flight," with an illustration of the Wright Brothers' famous airplane, first flown successfully in December of 1903 in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

And it gets better. Take a look at the back of these fairly recent, state-themed quarters.

As it turns out, Wilbur and Orville Wright weren't just from Ohio. They lived there for most of their lives, and had indeed done most of their "groundwork" in Ohio.

North Carolina had been chosen as a test site because it had been suggested that the Atlantic coast was ideal "for regular breezes and a soft sandy landing surface." Either that, or, as this article facetiously suggests, "they just wanted to go to the beach."

Ohio has also referred to itself as "the birthplace of aviation pioneers," since two dozen of our astronauts hail (or hailed) from there, including John Glenn and Neil Armstrong.

Naturally, this all came to a head in 2003, when Congress had to decide which state was indeed the official birthplace of aviation.

Short version (in case you didn't bother clicking on that other link): Ohio won.

However...

I wouldn't be at all surprised if congressmen in both North Carolina and Ohio realize that the two states share the same state bird, the cardinal. Maybe someone will decide to spend the taxpayers' dollars deciding who truly has the "right" to claim that?

And that debate should be reallllly interesting, seeing how the cardinal is also the state bird of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia!

Thanks for your time.