Thinking about doing without electricity

I’ve been thinking lately about developments which through the years have radically and rapidly changed the ways we live our daily lives. The world of computers and the Internet has become one of those big developments, and except for some of our dedicated holdouts, people both young and old have become major users of the technology. But before there could be computers and communication networks there had to come some more fundamental developments upon which the world of electronics would be able to build. I’m thinking about the development of electrical power generation on a major scale, and about the near universal availability of electricity in our communities and individual homes. Having electricity in almost every home was becoming a possibility in the late 1930s and early 1940s, during the Roosevelt Administration, when the REA (the Rural Electrification Administration) began making home and farm electricity available all over the United States. New hydro-electric dams were going in, new lakes forming — Hoover Dam in Colorado, Table Rock in Missouri, Greers Ferry, Norfork and others in Arkansas, including eventually our own Beaver Dam.

Today, for most of us, doing without electricity in our houses, schools, churches and businesses has become nearly unthinkable. Granted that occasionally we face temporary power outages, and have to “make do” without electricity for a few days, or possibly longer when a tornado or other natural disaster disrupts the electrical service system in a community. But, our way of life is fundamentally dependent on the readily available electric power that we count on to be there when we turn on the light switch or plug in the appliance or power on the computer. Realizing that electricity has become so basic to the way we live every day, it is sobering to me to remember that this readily available home electricity is a quite new thing in the history of humankind. The rural areas around Pea Ridge first got electricity in about 1945, about the time that World War II was coming to a close. That was less than 80 years ago. We have people still living who remember very well how life was lived before electricity. To me it is illuminating to go ahead and think of all the thousands of years before that, when people and families and great nations lived and carried on, evidently pretty well at times, all without electricity or any of the comforts and advantages and technologies that electricity offers.

I always remember a talk given by one of the older businessmen in Alma, Ark., about 1974. Mr. Starbird had operated a grocery business along the main street of Alma for many years. The occasion of his talk was an anniversary celebration for his church. He had been asked to recount his remembrances about the church and the community “back in the old days.” After his presentation at church, he was asked to make the same talk at the Lions Club meeting which I attended. The part of his talk I always recall was when he started telling about life in Alma along about 1905, when he was a boy.

He remarked that, “We thought we were getting along really well, back then, in 19-oh-5.” Then he paused, reflected, and exclaimed, “We WERE getting along real well, even if we didn’t have all the things we have now!!”

What he was talking about NOT HAVING was electricity, and hot and cold running water in the house, and indoor bathrooms, and TVs and telephones and central heat and air conditioning and such like! It is interesting to me to realize that even without those things which we today can hardly imagine living without, people lived healthy, happy, productive and fulfilling lives, raised fine families, enjoyed life and were grateful for the many blessings with which they were blessed.

So accustomed we are to watching television, keeping up with friends on smart phones and social media, driving here and there and wherever in our automobiles, watching movies and listening to recorded music, that if we could be translated back in time to “19-oh-5” we might think there’s nothing to do back here in these old days! No cars, no TVs, no music players (except for an old scratchy Edison), no phones, no selfies, no nothing!! Maybe someone of that time could explain to us some of the things that were interesting back then — like good meals to visit over, people to see and talk with, friends to tell stories and jokes and dreams and to discuss things with, and music to make and to sing and instruments to play, books to read and to write, houses to build and to live in, flowers to plant in the yard and garden, corn to cultivate in the field and cattle lowing out on the pastures, little calves to watch as they cavort and play, pets to have fun with, fish to catch in the creek, times to go swimming down at the bend. I feel sure that, like today, some people were always bored, with nothing interesting to do, whereas others always had so much to think about and to learn and to enjoy and to do that they had no time in their lives to be bored.

••• Editor’s note: Jerry Nichols may be contacted by email at joe369@centurytel.net or by phone at 479-621-1621.