Growing up on a farm in North Dakota, we had the best water in the country from our well.  My father had dug into an underground stream.  You could follow the stream by tasting the water on the various farms.  In fact when the home town needed a new well for the town water, they dug into the same stream.  It was one of the few places where it was not necessary to treat or filter the water.

Most farmers had either iron or alkali in their water.  My sister’s place in Montana had so much alkali in the water, it tasted like carbonated water.  In fact when it was pumped out of the well it spit and crackled as it entered the container.  If you made coffee with it you had to drink it while it was hot.  After it cooled it was terrible.  However it did make wonderful cool aid.

In our area there has been considerable controversy over fluoridation for drinking water.  Here in Washington and Idaho we have good tasting water, but the cities treat it.

One place I remember distinctly.  It was an old time café.  The man who ran it was a WWII veteran.  He had come back from the war and started running the place for his mother.  It was a very popular café for sportsmen, hunters, and fishermen.

The owner was always cautioning his customers about the quantity of water they used, as he had to purchase it.  When he took over the café from his mother they were using well water.  It tasted O.K. but had a strong odor.

One of his regular customers advised him to send a sample of the water to Washington State University.  The idea was that the University would be able to assist him in treating the water, or even just telling him if it was a health concern.

It is said that the results of the testing was a one sentence caution;

“Sir, if you don’t get your horse treated by a veterinarian soon, it will die.”

I have noticed that through the ages of man, power has been derived from various sources.

First we walked, lifted, and pulled with our own muscles.  Then came the age of beast power.  In my younger days, there was an often used expression “Shanks Mare.”  It meant traveling by foot.  Then came the machine age and with it wind power.  After that we started using electricity and then nuclear power.  Now we are into electronics and solar power.

Notice how all of the uses of power overlap.  We never really get rid of any of them; we just adapt new ways of using them.  Today we progress very quickly from what we are using to the newest gadget or power source.  Where before – centuries would pass using the existing means of power, today – if a certain way of using power lasts 10 years we think of it as very old.

Today we use all of these means of energy.  In my time I have used all them.  The use of electricity started less than 100 years before I was born.  I still have a difficult time understanding how some electronics can be used in one part of a building and not affect the electronics in another part of the same building.

For example when we first started wiring garages for electronic door openers, all an electrician had to do was supply power for the opener.  The installer did the rest.

One of the first ones we installed was on a home on a high traffic street.  The home owner called us back to the job saying the opener was not operating correctly.  We were in the garage checking our wiring when for no discernible reason the door opened.  A laundry truck had just passed by on the street.

When the delivery truck came back down the street, the door closed.

We called the company that had installed the door and the electronic controls.  They said; “Yes, it is possible for the door to open and close in response to traffic.  The ignition coil in a Ford has a strong signal.”

They came and changed the signal strength on the door opener and it eliminated the problem.

I have seen the same sort of thing happen with microphone and amp systems.  For awhile you could pick up CB talk on a sound system some distance away from traffic.

Today with electronic equipment everywhere, in every household, it is amazing that the signals are kept separate.

Who knows what the future will hold.

The original pin setters in bowling alleys were hand operated by a paid work force.  Usually the workforce was male and they would be at the end of each ally to clear the pins and reset them.

I often wondered how safe it was since sometimes the bowling pins could really fly.  The pin setters also had to send the bowling ball back to the head of the alley.

I set up the electrical work for the first automatic bowling alley pin setter in Havre, Montana (way back when).  It saved the bowling alley money as they no longer had to hire pin setters.  That bowling alley was all the rage in Havre.  Of course for a long time, it was the only bowling alley in Havre.

Then one day we were called back because the bowling alley was getting all new pin setting machines.  They set the old machines outside in the sun, rain and snow.  I asked the proprietor if the setters shouldn’t be protected from the weather.  He told me it was the machine owner’s responsibility.

Thereafter I got the whole story.

The proprietor had signed a contract with the machine manufacturing company.  They would supply the machines, install them and maintain them.  The proprietor would pay a monthly fee.  However, half of the time the machines were broken down.

Finally the bowling alley proprietor told the pin setting Machine Company that he was going to take them out and install a different brand.  He told them he was going to sit the old machines outside for them to pick up.

Apparently the new machines worked much better because in the thirteen years I lived and worked in Havre I never heard of any more trouble.

Other technology that has intrigued me includes bicycles.  The first bicycles were made entirely out of wood.  And they had no brakes.  The pedals were fastened directly to the driving wheel.

The first motorcycle was built by fastening a motor onto a bicycle.

That must have been a lot of fun.