Today in 1974, the US issued a patent to one Becky Schroeder, an extremely inventive kid.
I mean, not many of us have our very own patent at age twelve.
Like many of her fellow inventors, Schroeder came up with her big idea after running into a problem.
She was trying to do some homework in the car, but it was getting dark and she couldn’t see the paper.
There was no flashlight nearby and opening the car door to set off the interior lights wasn’t an option, so she figured, what if you had a paper under your paper that glowed?
And she didn’t just think it up, she started developing the idea; eventually she came up with a board that had lines made of phosphorescent paint.
When you put those lines under some light, and then put the board in the dark, the lines would glow strong enough to let you see what was on your piece of paper.
Schroeder named it the Glo-Sheet, and she applied for a US patent with a little help from her dad, who happened to be a patent attorney.
And there were lots of different customers for her creation, from health care workers who needed to see paperwork on night shifts to movie critics who wanted to take notes during screenings.
She launched her own company to sell Glo-Sheets and received several more patents.
And she got good at handling skeptics who weren’t so sure that a kid was also an inventor.
Schroeder says she once got a letter from NASA saying they were working on some glow in the dark stuff and if she had ever been their employee, that patent of hers belonged to the government.
She sent back a reply along the lines of, I’m pretty sure I never worked for NASA, seeing as how I’m twelve.
Starting this Friday in Indiana, it’s the Marshall County Blueberry Festival.
It has lots of standard festival stuff like fireworks, live entertainment and a parade, but it also has a unique mascot.
In the 1970s local art teacher drew a berry with a smiley face, arms, legs and gym shoes, and today Blueberry Hank is the most sought after piece of fruit in town.
Girl Finds Way to Write in Dark (New York Times)