Thursday, October 08, 2009

It's Electric

So, I'm listening to this podcast about the power of books and somehow we end up on the topic of growing up on the prairie. Specifically, does interviewee recall when she first got electricity installed? The following excerpt is taken from 49:44 of that recording:

Narrator: Do you remember when you first got electricity and water?

Interviewee: Oh, it was just lovely...electricity came in '48...finally the lines were all in and they were all hooked up we were just waiting for the major flow of energy. And then the electricity was on. And I remember that night when it got dark, I remember my father and mother and my sister and one of my older brothers we stood there and looked because suddenly it wasn't a black country anymore. We could see our neighbors lights. It made it seem a lot less lonesome; a lot less isolated.

Wow. In the age of cell phones, twitter and 24hr cable news, it's hard to believe that not too long ago we were literally in the dark. And then, one day, just like that, it was light.

I'm not sure what lesson is out of all this, but I'm impressed. I guess it's kind of like that moment I blogged about a while back.

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