I was always interested in electricity from the time I first knew it existed, possibly 1913.  The first electric service we had was at the brick house and I believe we moved into it in 1913.  We lived there for sometime without electricity.  The wiring had been roughed in when the house was built.  I believe we moved into it new.  I remember when we first got the service.  It was our first time for electric service  Prior to that I got a big 3 cell nickel plated brass flashlight that I really treasured.  When we got electricity, we didn't have any appliances.  We actually we had no appliances until Virgie and I were married.  The fact that we had electric lights was very gratifying. We had a basement there and I ran a pair of wires in the basement.  I attached some carbon rods which were from large dry batteries or street lights.  In this manner, I made an electric arc in the cellar and must have blown the fuse on the area transformer.  Someone must have called the service man who came out and restored service and determined the cause of the problem.  That was the end of that experiment.  I fixed up a shocking device which I connected to the telephone.  I had some fun with that too.  I don't know how much fun that caused the telephone company.  Prior to getting electric lights in that house we had always used Kerosene lamps as I mentioned before.

 

When I started with OG&E, I found it very helpful to run some science experiments with electricity down at the plant.  The old steam electric plant was down by the Rock Island track, at 2nd and Oklahoma Sts.  All of the electric department was down there at that time in one room attached to the power plant.  It was used for a combination meter room and a lineman's assembly room.  There was just one line crew and one truck.  When I started to work for OG&E it was an electric truck.  I used to drive it at times. It was in 1918 that I started with OG&E although I had made an application for a civil service job which I never did turn in.  While employed at the ice plant, I saw the line crew working near by.  I had previously bought a set of climbing tools from a former lineman who was working at the ice plant.  I went out and told the line foreman I wanted to work for the OG&E.  I wanted to be a lineman and had my tools already.  He said well "All right, come down  on (a specified) morning and we will put you to work".  I did so and that is the way I got started with the OG&E.  There wasn't any employment supervisor to interview, there wasn't an application blank to fill out, there was  nothing.  I just went to work and at the end of the week I got my pay check. It was several years later when the personal department was organized that I was asked to turn in an application for employment.  I turned it in with the employment date as 1919.  That is the way it stands to this day.

 

When I first went to work for OG&E, the first job I was in was digging pole holes in the yard of what was then called the Feeble Minded Institute.  It was quite an experience for me to be busy digging a hole there and have several of those feeble minded people standing around trying to see what I was doing.  I dug quite a few holes and got to be quite an expert at it.  Then it wasn't long though till they began to try me out as a lineman doing the simpler jobs.  At first not any primary high voltage stuff but just 115/230 volts.  Soon, I was testing meters & I tested meters in the shop.  Before long I carried the rotating standard and load box and started testing meters house to house in the residential district.  I had many experiences such as going into restaurants dirty kitchens and seeing how sloppy they were & all that sort of thing.  In those days they put the meters in the most unreasonable locations imaginable such as up stairs in the bedroom closet and in the kitchen of the restaurant.  It was just amazing where they put them. I had a quite a few experiences finding people stealing electricity.  Whenever I would find one stealing electricity, the procedure was to cut the meter lose, just snip off the wires at the terminals and take the meter out.  And that's what I usually did.  One time in a rooming house down near the Rock Island Depot, I found an electric sign connected ahead of the meter.  I proceeded to cut it loose and take it down.  I turned around and the fellow who ran the place had been watching me and decided that I wasn't going to do such a thing.  He went into a bedroom and got a pistol and brought it out and pointed it at me and told me to put the meter back.  So I did.  It sure made me nervous having him hold that pistol.  I later found he was a drug addict and he couldn't hold the pistol still.  I went away and came back with the line crew and the police and got my meter.