“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt
* We are reposting this MM Video due to our Team’s schedule.
This Meaningful Monday video is a repost from July 2, 2018
Meaningful Mondays - Arrows Out
Homan Walsh - Niagara Bridge*
Good morning everybody, Lee Brower here and welcome to this week's edition of Meaningful Monday. I am grateful to be here and I am glad to be here. One of my very favorite quotes is from Eleanor Roosevelt when she said that "great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events and small minds discuss people." I'll let you read into that whatever you want but you know it also reminds me of a story that I learned about over ten years ago that I first heard over ten years ago and the story was about a bridge, a bridge that was spanned the Niagara River. You see because back in the 1840s almost 170 years ago there was no way to connect except those that were very affluent to witness and to experience the grandeur of the Niagara Falls. So there was this idea that came up and a commission was was organized in an engineer by the name of Charles Ellitt and three other individuals who set around and were discussing big ideas. How can we build an expansion bridge crossing 300 feet to over 200 feet deep to be able to get traffic across so that they could see the Niagara Falls? And it was just too difficult and otherwise you'd have to go way up and take a ferry that was strong enough to withstand the currents to get to the other side and then you'd have to trek back and it was a day's journey or longer just to make that. So they consulted with the top engineers in Europe, top engineers in northern America and they were told that they thought it would be impossible to build an expansion bridge because there was no way to it was sheer rocks on both sides. There was no way to how do you get something across from one side to the other. They had to get a cable across to begin with and so how are they going to get a cable across and they thought well we could attach something to a cannonball and shoot it across or a rocket. They even thought of the idea maybe we could get a string or a rope with a bow and arrow and shoot across but they nobody that could shoot when that long but they stayed with the idea and as they continue to talk about it they came up with an idea to have a kite flying contest. Imagine if you could fly a kite across the river and get the string and then if you got the string you could make that into a cord. You could run a cord along it. Once you got the cord you could get a wire. Once you get a wire you could get a strand of woven wire that would ultimately become a cable and yes you could then have the beginnings of building a suspension bridge. So they came up with the idea that they would have a contest and a 15-year-old boy by the name of Holman Walsh who lived on the U.S. side. He decided he thought he could he designed a kite put it together did the journey going all the way up catching the ferry around coming back down finally got to the other side there was no wind. After waiting a full day the wind came up he got his kite up there high enough and then he had to just wait till the winds died down and so he could holding on the kite keeping the tension tight and then finally about midnight as he had hoped the winds came down and the kite comes down and as it's coming down the string breaks and it had been caught on the ice on the side rocks or the ice that were coming down the river it was in January of 1880 of 1848 January of 1848 so rather than discuss get did he just got back he's this 15-year-old boy took him eight days to get back across because the river was jammed because of ice eight days to get back to recover his kite rebuild it re-engineered it come back over to the other side and he finally got the kite to come over well that kite is the beginnings of a bridge that now transports millions of people every day it was within 30 days really that they were able to run a cab a cable from two towers designed a basket that could hold people and they started charging a dollar and a quarter a day to take people from one side to the other side and eventually equipment come in and within months they actually had a walking bridge and then a bridge that they could take horses over and ultimately they put another level on it that they could take a steam locomotive over the top and it all started with ideas acting on the ideas and sticking with it and a young boy and a kite string so never underestimate the power of something very small it's like John Wooden says small things become great things so I ask you you know I ask myself what kind of a mind do I have what about the people that I associate with how much time do I spend discussing people how much time do I spend discussing events and how much time do I spend discussing ideas and the great minds discuss ideas and the most courageous of those great minds are the ones that make them happen I enjoyed being with you this this Monday morning I hope it's been helpful for you I look forward to talking to you next week have a great week