The Facts of Life: A 1942 Edmonton memoir, by Harley Reid

Date: 9 July 1942

My 12th birthday, July 9, 1942 was the date my father attempted to introduce me to the facts of life. After supper and the dishes were done, and he was finished reading his daily paper, he got up and went out to the kitchen. Soon after that he called me to come out.

When I arrived he told me to shut the kitchen door and to come over to where he was standing. I approached him with caution, for sometimes this request was the beginning of swift discipline for my transgression of the day.

"You know what this fuse box is here for don't you? To protect us and the house." Yes, I had watched my Dad change a blown fuse. And when he took the old fuse out he had shown me how he tested for the 'juice' before replacing it. He dampened his thumb and forefinger of the same hand by licking them. Then he placed his thumb on the metal side of the fuse box and put his forefinger into the empty socket that would hold the fuse. He used this maneuver almost daily for he worked for the City of Edmonton Light and Power department. Tonight he was going to show me how to do that and I could take the fuse out. Hey. OK. I was relieved. I was going to learn some of my Dad¹s ways. He explained that electricity was lazy and when you performed the wet thumb/finger test it took the shortest route to ground through your finger/thumb and the metal box side. Well, I unscrewed the fuse and placed it on the kitchen counter below the fuse box. Then I followed Dad¹s instructions and licked my finger and thumb. Next I tackled the lazy electricity Dad was so at home with. I placed my damp thumb on the metal side with some bravado and plunged my finger into the empty socket. Well, I must have got hold of some energetic electricity, not the lazy stuff Dad mentioned. It took in my thumb/finger bridge and then very quickly toured the rest of my surprised body. I stepped back rather quickly, jerking my hand away from the source.

"That's OK," Dad said. "You did OK. With a little practice you won¹t even feel it. Now we will put the fuse back in. I want you to call the fuse the male and the socket will be the female."

Sounds OK to me. It must be what the light and power guys call things. At the time I had no idea this was a lesson.
"Take the male in your hand and put it into the female. You twist it to your right until it is solid. Try it." What I didn¹t realize was after the first electrical attack when my finger/thumb bridge let me down, I had started to sweat and my hands were wet. Picking up the male, I held it by the glass top and placed it into the female. When I changed grip to twist the male to the right my damp fingers slipped down and once more I made contact with the 'lazy electricity'.

This retreat from the source was more spectacular. When my reflexes took over I was still holding the 'male' and I flung it up as I widened the gap between the box and me. It flew up and hit the ceiling light, breaking the bulb and things went semi-dark.

At that point my mother opened the kitchen door to suggest it was time for birthday cake and ice cream. She screamed for she thought Dad had hit me because I was backing away from him and she heard the sound of the kitchen light popping. But Dad was sitting on the floor under the fuse box and tears were streaming down his face. He was laughing so hard he had collapsed and couldn't talk. Mother was beside herself. She then thought I had struck my father, which got me laughing with some relief. Maybe this wasn't my fault.

My sister Helen came in the back door surprised to see the three of us sitting on the floor with the light out. In another room my baby brother Calvin was crying, frightened by all the laughter.

We had double servings of ice cream and cake, and never again was the subject brought up, or any attempt made by my folks to educate me on the facts of life. I had to wait until a couple of school friends told how things happened.

I will always remember my father, the fuse box and the facts of life. I was glad later on in life when I owned my own home that the screw-in fuse box had disappeared and breakers replaced it.