Posted July 10, 2009

I may love what I do every day, exploring, discovering, problem solving, inventing and deal making. But I still miss summer vacation, even the jobs that I had on summers during school seem like time off in retrospect. Who among us does not have sweet memories of summers past? 

            

Few sights surpass the magic of an open expanse of farm fields illuminated with a billion fireflies rising up like fairies in the darkness each July 4th weekend, like nature’s own fireworks display. 

            

I fondly remember working in the electrical switchyard of the Niagara hydroelectric plant, climbing the high steel towers, slipping and sliding, covered in paint as we cleaned and painted the towers, the goatheads, and the switches, amid high tension lines in the 110,000 volts, 220,000 volts, and 440,000 volt yards.

            

We were carefully maneuvering tall ladders, recoiling from the big static sparks that jumped when you reached out to touch the steel, hot and sweaty in the protective rubber suits we wore, and each time a switch opened or closed a miniature arc of lighthing would snap and sizzle between the open switch bars, three or four feet long at times. 

            

Memorable.

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