The "How Far Is That In Meters?" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Had just placed a call to our realtor in the nearby village below to tell her about the couple of trees that were laying across the road in front of our villa and were blocking us from getting to the beach.  During the night a terrific storm had struck the French island of St. Martin and wreaked havoc.  When we awoke we realized that our trip to the beach may be delayed unless someone can get the trees off the roadway.  Well, our realtor asked us the size of the trees so she could see whom to get to clear the road.  I estimated the trunks to be about a foot in diameter.  When I told her she asked, "What would that be in meters?"  Wow, I had do idea.  This wasn't the first island in the Caribbean that we struggled with the metric system of measurement.  During my entire life I was taught and used the Imperial System of measurement which is inches and feet.  Tough to change after using one system my entire life.  I now know I can calculate the size or distance on my cell phone, but at the time of this event, I had no cell phone.  Found out that the United States is only one of three countries in the world that doesn't use the Metric System.  And, why is that?  The United States has been operating under the imperial system since it was colonized by the British. When America gained its independence in 1776, it kept the imperial system.  

Method of changing inches to centimeters.

Soon after, in 1790, Congress proposed converting to the metric system, which was what the British had switched to by that time.  But, Thomas Jefferson, the Secretary of State at the time, rejected the idea of using the metric system saying it was "too French."  Later, Alexander Graham Bell made a proposal to Congress to change to the metric system, but public sentiment argued that the U.S. shouldn't be a "follower", but rather a leader in the global system of measurements.  Then in the 1970s the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 was introduced to help make it easier to handle trade with the rest of the world.  Unions in the U.S. feared that by switching to the metric system it would make it easier for manufacturers to ship their jobs overseas so the battle to change was once again defeated.  Which makes it fairly clear that if I wrote a letter to Congress telling them of my problem in St. Martin, they wouldn't act on changing the rule of measurement.  Another of the three countries that doesn't use the metric system is Myanmar which is a small Asian country which was formerly known as Burma.  It uses a relatively obscure method of measurement known as Burmese measurement.  Can you imagine someone from Myanmar traveling to St. Martin and having the same problem I did.  But, Myanmar announced in 2013 that they were going to adopt the metric system, but being an election year, it never happened.  The other country is Liberia. It too uses the Imperial of Customary Unit of measurement.  I have read in several places that they plan to soon switch to the metric system, but when I don't know.  So, will we ever change to the metric system?  Probably not in my lifetime, but at least I have my cellphone handy in most instances in order to help me figure out the distances in metric.  Now I can feel better about my travels to the islands in the Caribbean.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.