Leaving Maywood and heading north on the 83, there was not much to see, and I got thinking about the rural electrificaton program, which I tend to do a lot when we are out on the road in the midwest. One of the prime movers behind this New Deal program was a Nebraska senator from McCook, George Norris, for whom the main street in McCook is named. Building and generating the energy at the big dams was the hard part, but once this was done, it was just a matter of rounding up a few thousand unemployed kids from the depression stricken cities and transporting them west to stick a few million poles in the ground, string wire from one to the next, and bring electrical power to the vast expanses of rural American farms, ranches and little towns still living in the "dark ages" of kerosene lamps and wood fired stoves and largely and blissfully unaware of the world around them.
The idea was so perfect that it has barely changed a bit since its inception. It remains little more than poles in the ground with millions of miles of wires strung from one to the next, bringing "light and joy" to all. Standing in abandoned towns or looking down still unpaved roads leading to isolated farm houses,
it is interesting to try to conjure up images of what life was like not so long ago when people sat beside oil lamps in the evenings after a hard day of sod busting, plowing or cutting hay, talking to each other, playing musical instruments, telling stories, or just sitting quietly smoking a pipe, going to sleep early, and waking early, according to the natural rhythm of life on the farm. Then came radio, electric lights, etc and the world began to take on an un-natural glow, and everything began to change. I have always thought that the scene in the Wizard of Oz when the movie changed from the black and white of Kansas to the technicolor of Oz was a perfect metaphor for this transformation. What a magical experience to leave the tedium and isolation of farm life for a few hours, head into town and see a movie, buy shoes or a beer, and catch up with your neighbors. For some first hand, eye opening, eye witness accounts of the rigors of the pre- electric/pre -mechanized life on the prairies, read Willa Cather... O Pioneers and My Antonia.
Got me thinking about the irony of the computer age. Here we are, using high technology so mind boggling complex that we really know nothing about it, that can do the most extraordinary things that we can't even comprehend, in mini micro seconds beyond our capacity to fathom, using computer chips as thin as a hair and as small as your pinky nail carrying tens of thousands of circuits that can do millions of calculations in an instant, and it is still being powered by some electric wires strung across some wooden poles dug into the ground by some kids from the city once upon a time, a technology that haven't changed in 80 years or more.
Pablo
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