How does it come about that being retired means we get busier than we were when working full time?  Seems like everyone I meet who is retired has the same problem.  Someone recently pointed out that we naturally don't have as much energy and probably don't move as quickly now that we're old enough to retire, so that has to be considered in the equation; but I don't think I've slowed down THAT much!  Some days I'm impressed with how much I've accomplished.  It's kind of like when I had only one child, I seemed to be really busy; then I had a second and a third and wondered what I did with all the spare time I must have had with just one.  

There's one thing about being retired that wasn't so when we were working - we get to do such a variety of things, no two days are alike and sometimes there's nothing even vaguely resembling a "schedule."  I used to keep one of those nifty day planners when we were working.  Now we mark the big calendar hanging on the inside of one of the kitchen cupboard doors.  It gets pretty filled up sometimes, but mostly our "engagements" happen unexpectedly.  A neighbor calls with a request or someone e-mails and I spend time researching to answer a question or Fred cranks up his computer to post something on the website.

Some time ago Diane Rossi sent me a picture of "chair skiers" on the pond.  She wasn't sure who it was, but snapped a picture for me to post on the blog.  We were at Bill and Diane's on Sunday, watching their neighbors water skiing, and Diane reminded me of that picture.  I realized I'd neglected to post it.  Must have been one of those busy days at the Brown's house.  

It might surprise you to know that I have files with all the pictures Joe's Ponders have sent over the years, so it was no problem going to the Rossi file and finding the picture in question.

On Saturday my cousin Marilyn and her husband, Dave, stopped by the historical society building, and he was asking when rural areas of Cabot were "electrified."  He thought it might have been around 1931, but I thought our farm, at least, had electricity before that.  We searched in the oral history book about Cabot, and I found that the Merritt School on the So. Walden Road didn't get electricity until 1940; then it closed in 1944.  I didn't recall seeing much evidence of kerosene lamps at my grandparent's home or in ours, except there were some stored on the top shelves of cupboards for use when the power was off in a storm.  

So today I got out some diaries that belonged to my Grandfather Bolton and started in 1929, going backwards, looking for clues.  There were regular payments noted to "the electric company." and one notation about purchasing "five light bulbs," in 1926.  Finally, in February of 1921, I found a notation where my grandfather had paid Ed Badger to "wire the house for electricity."  Something in my memory clicked and I recalled there was a story behind the Bolton farm getting electricity sooner than other nearby farms.  Apparently the power company contacted my grandfather for permission to put their lines through his pastures and fields to connect from a line along Route 2 over the hill towards Cabot.  The only way he would agree to it was that they would run power to the farm buildings, a short distance from their main line.  There was some resistance, but the power company - I believe it was called New England Electric Company at that time - was anxious to proceed to get more lines installed and more towns signed on to their grid, so they finally agreed.  It probably was another four or five years before some of our neighbors had power.

There was a favorite story in our family about a neighbor, Dean Macy, who came with a pail one day asking to "borrow some of that electricity juice" so he could run the brand new electric clippers he'd just bought to sheer his sheep. 

When electricity was new, it was not uncommon that it was misunderstood.  One woman called the company to come to level her kitchen range because she thought the "juice" was all on one side.

Just about every town wanted street lights, and soon there were bright neon signs and lighted store fronts and barber poles, and lights twinkling on the hillsides as power spread from the towns to the surrounding farms.    Electricity changed the way many farm chores were done.  There were electric cream separators, water pumps, heaters, power tools, and electric appliances in every kitchen within a few years. Electricity lengthened the day so people didn't go to bed when it "got dark under the table;" they could read or listen to the newfangled radio, or even do extra work. Then somebody got the idea that leaving lights on in the hen house would produce more eggs, so even the hens had to work overtime.

If we didn't have electricity, "retirement" would be a whole different ballgame.  I don't think I'd want to go back to those days.  I probably would have even less time on my hands than I do now - and I'd work a lot harder, too.