- O my Luve's like a red, red rose,
me schoolbus tis canary yellow?!
In today's NY Times: Why the School Bus Never Comes in Red or Green
the article begins:
- A question came to mind as school bus drivers prepared to start their engines on Wednesday on 7,700 public-school routes in New York City and end their monthlong strike: Why are most school buses yellow? Why not some other color? Why not burnt sienna, like a crayon? Why not light-medium robin's egg blue, like a jewelry box? Why not magma orange, like a Lamborghini?
The answer is Frank W. Cyr, a professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, who became known as the "father of the yellow school bus" for research he led in the 1930s.
In the spring of 1939, Cyr called together educators, school bus manufacturers and paint experts for a Conference on School Transportation that approved the nation's first school bus safety standards - 42 pages covering everything from axles, batteries and emergency brakes to the inside height of the passenger compartment to, yes, the color that the world saw outside. The standards were published in a booklet with a yellow cover: the yellow was the color the group had chosen.
So now you know why the School Bus is yellow!
Oh and here's the rest of the Burn's poem:
- A Red, Red Rose
O my Luve's like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June;
O my Luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly play'd in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I:
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry:
Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun:
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare thee well, my only Luve
And fare thee well, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile.
Robert Burns
- Why Are School Buses Yellow? How the Iconic School Bus Color Came to Be
which doesn't really explain it like the article above