How'd You Do That???

After spending over 8 years in the tree trimming dept. at the electric co.
I decided that I didn't want to spend the rest of my life dragging brush up
hill out of a right-of-way. I transfered over to the line section. Best move
I ever made, but that's another story.

I'd been in the dept. about a month. I was scheduled with an old man that
did street light maint., bulbs, fixtures, etc. At our company all linemen do it all.
Ohd, urd.,trans., all of it.

One day the trouble man was getting behind on calls and dispatch called
us to see if we could handle a single part-power call. Me being eager to
learn I asked my old partner if he would let me try to find the problem.
'Why not' he said.

We arrived at the house and we went to the door to ask exactly what the
problem was. The lady asked my pardner and me into her house to show
us the problem. She went to the kitchen and turned on a burner of her
electric range. At that time a radio plugged into an outlet in another room
began playing. She turned off the range and the radio quit.
on-on...off-off...range, radio. I was dumbfounded. You old timers know
exactly what was going on...but where.

My pardner just grinned and said we should go out to the meter and start at
the basics. We did and started troubleshooting until we found the problem.
A squeeze-on connecter at the pole for the service to that house.For you
novices, the radio was on the leg that was burnt off and it came on as a
result of back feed through the 240v. range from the leg that was still hot.

That was 20 yrs. ago and I love telling that story to the young guys that
come and think they know a lot more than they do.....just like me...
I wouldn't trade this job for anything. Even the 4 ft. of snow in
Cleveland, the ice storm in New York state, the hurricanes in the
Carolinas, the heat, the cold, the irate customers...you can't beat this
work...and we get paid to do it. What a crime.