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Photo of century-old electric panel

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soldar:
In the late 1950s, in rural Spain, my family would spend the summer in a large agricultural farm where irrigation was from well water. The well was not a vertical shaft but a narrow spiral stairway dug down into the ground, maybe 10 or 15 m. The narrow, low ceiling, stairway down was damp and slippery and the walls were wet and dim light-bulbs lit the way down. Along the upper edge of the wall bare electric wires on porcelain holders and they powered the pumps at the bottom.

Outside, by the well, there was a very big water reservoir which we used as a swimming pool and went there almost daily.

Going down that stairway was dangerous and as a kid I had been warned repeatedly to never go down there. But I was just a kid and being told not to do something just fueled my curiosity. One day, I asked one of the workers or laborers if he would take me down and he did, obviously not knowing I had been told not to do it. I never would have dared to go on my own. We went down, I saw the electric cables which I had been told were extremely dangerous, diverse knife switches and fuses, the noise of the pumps, etc and then climbed back out alive and well.

I walked directly home and by some mystery that I have not deciphered to this day my mother already knew I had been down there and she viciously beat the crap out of me. Because in those days it was acceptable and because she was a very mean person. I never figured out how she found out. It could be that my sisters went home while I was down there and told her but I do not remember that part. Only that my mother was waiting for me.

That was my first experience with electricity. Very painful.

Funny how so many decades later I can remember it all with photographic precision.

I guess if I learned anything is that authorities can be more dangerous and painful than electricity. Beware of both.

harerod:

--- Quote from: soldar on May 24, 2024, 04:03:04 pm ---...
I walked directly home and by some mystery that I have not deciphered to this day my mother already knew I had been down there and she viciously beat the crap out of me. ...
--- End quote ---

Legendary. Slipper or wooden spoon?

soldar:

--- Quote from: harerod on May 24, 2024, 04:32:38 pm ---Legendary. Slipper or wooden spoon?
--- End quote ---
My mother used to ride horses and had at hand a leather crop with engraved motifs. She hit me so hard across the legs that the patterns were marked on my skin. (I was only wearing a swim trunk.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_(implement)

I just do not understand adults who think you can tell a 6 or 7 year old child "don't do that" and the child will know not to do it. A child that age lives in the present and needs to be constantly supervised, reminded, taught and over many years they will begin to understand responsibility, etc.

Getting back to the knife switches, which were common when I was a kid, I was fascinated by the ones with springs (to stop the arc) which would snap off suddenly.

It was a world before plastics (BP) and insulation materials were ceramic or stone... sometimes Bakelite. If something was not in touch directly with voltage then wood was good enough.

harerod:
What a precious memory.  :(
 I am about one generation younger than you. That kind of electrical installation was already being replaced in 1970's West Germany.
 
One item that I would love to see again are Bakelite based rotary switches. Those things engaged/disengaged twice per revolution, with a rather satisfactory "tchak". That was in my grandparents' home, built back in the late 1940's. Sadly, that property was sold a long time ago.

 Wow - there seems to be a market for that stuff:
https://www.thpg.de/en/switch-systems/surface-mounted-switches-high-humidity/ These are exactly what I had in mind...
 

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