Adrian’s Blog

An Old Farmer Learns A New Trick

After my “no win” with the wind charger I ran tractors for a number of years for various farmers until the time when, about 1948, the R.E.A. (Rural Electrical Association) came into our area. My friend Ewald was helping neighboring farmers switch from home electricity generation to R.E.A. He had broken his foot and could not climb poles. Since I wasn’t working at the time I offered to help.

The first day on the job Ewald strapped a pair of climbing spikes and a safety belt onto me and sent me up the pole. Ewald perched himself on a barrel in the yard and called instructions up to me.

“See that black wire there?”

“Yeah”

“See that other black wire there?”

“Yeah”

“O.K. Put them together. Now, see that white wire there?”

“Yeah”

“See that other white wire there?”

“Yeah”

“O.K. Put them together.”

Thus, I became involved in the electrical trade.

One farmer had built an addition on his house. When we had finished wiring the addition and turned on the power, strange things began to happen. By activating a switch, the incorrect light would come on. Some receptacles would work, and some would not. My friend Ewald and the farmer stood and discussed what could be wrong. While they occupied themselves with their discussion I walked through the rooms and looked at the j-boxes in the ceiling where we had made our splices.

Finally, I got to one j-box, and something didn’t look correct from my vantage point at floor level.  I called them over and said, “Should not that (color) wire be connected to that (color) wire, and not to that (color) wire?” Ewald brought a ladder over, climbed up to the j-box and looked into it. He said; “You may be right.” He changed the connection, and everything worked perfectly.

So, I learned circuiting.