ANOTHER TIME KILLER
Wow, I have not watched a Hallmark movie all day. I do hope they all are living happily ever after and missing me. I regress....got carried away researching on Google and consulting with Jeannette Granberg to verify my memory as much as possible. So, here we go with another Aims story.
This morning my son Ben asked me how long the power lines that cross the Bull Run Road near the old schoolhouse have been there. That started my head working and so I started the research - I really do try to be as accurate as possible when all I have is my memories and no one to verify them. So will get on with when and how it transpired.

Bonneville Dam was dedicated in September 1937 by President Franklin Roosevelt as best I can determine. I know that both my brothers were in high school and got to watch the motorcade with the President and officials go up the highway. That sets the general time and I do believe that the line I am referring to was one of the very first to be constructed. There are several reasons it was a memorable time for me. The first is because the supervisor for the project as it progressed through our area boarded with us for the time they were working.

I remember him coming to the door and asking if he could rent a room and my Mom was totally horrified with the idea. We had just redone our house and it was barely livable she thought. However he convinced her it would be fine and thus he rented a bedroom for the weeks it took. He was a very congenial gentleman and ate his meals with us and my Mom packed him a lunch. One very humiliating time for her but funny for all the rest of us had to do with a lemon pie.
I digress from the story to explain the pie. Before lovely packages of pudding mix (just add water and milk and cook) or even instant types that only need beating there were cans of a do-it-yourself kind. We got those from the Watkins or Raleigh salesmen. They were only the thickening part of the pudding or pie mix. With it you measured so many tablespoons, so much sugar, and milk or water as need be and then cook. Well, being in a rush, or whatever, could cause one to lose count as obviously happened in this case. When the filling in the pie was cooled and the meringue added it looked lovely. However when she started to cut it to serve the error of too much mix was evident. The filling all came out like a piece of cement. Needless to say it created much laughter for all but my Mom and our boarder got a bang out of it too.

So, at school we also watched the lines being constructed and grumbled about the fact that we were going to have all that power over our heads and we were still in the dark. Of course that happened in other areas too so we just watched the power go streaming by and kept on hoping until 1944 when we finally got electricity. Oh Happy Day that was!

That was for sure one of the first, if not the very first line ever used to distribute power from Bonneville. The second line that goes close just west of our house was built in the early fifties. That information comes in consultation with Jeanette Granberg as her Mom was recipient of $700 plus dollars for the right of way to cross their property. Because she benefited from some of that money she can somewhat set a time. We believe it was in the early fifties because when she was a Junior or Senior in high school she got a NEW coat with some of the money her Mom got. She thinks the coat cost $50.00 and was the first brand new coat she ever owned. In addition it was later advertised in Seventeen magazine. That now was really something. Since we all grew up with home made clothes and even made out of flour sacks part of the time events like that were burned into our brains.

So, there is the story of what I remember about the power lines. May you all have a good memory to think about and know that years from now even the experiences we are having will become stories. Realize that is hard to imagine but it will be so. God Bless.