The Invention of LSD

LSD was invented in 1943 by Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann - more or less by accident. You can read about it here:

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/04/dayintech_0416

Interesting tidbits I gleaned from this, in case you are too lazy to go and read it for yourself:

• The inventor of LSD turned 100 in 2006.
• The first acid trip was taken (accidentally by it's inventor) 32 years to the day before my youngest brother Tyler was born. I'm assuming no OTHER relationships exist between Tyler and LSD, however.
  
• The inventor believes LSD is a misunderstood but useful tool that gets a bad rap in general.
  
• He is critical of the casual underground use that sprouted up in the 60's, however.
  

What would Timothy Leary or The Beatles have to say I wonder?

The Legend of Ernie Kilowatt

I spent the day with the folks today (Easter Sunday) and it was a pretty good, fairly mellow one as Easter Sundays go. Mom made us a very fine afternoon meal of Ham Balls, Yams, Broccoli, Rolls and Deviled Eggs, which we all ate just a little bit too much of, after which we took a leftover plate and our dessert (apple crisp) over to Grandma Falk's apartment, where we played about 5 rounds of Mexican Train before coming back to Mom & Dad's to clean up the dishes and play a couple rounds of Rummi-Cube.

That evening, while playing Rummi-Cube, we still weren't all that hungry, so we were snacking on this and that. And as I was washing it down with a can of Dr Pepper, I noticed the part of the recently updated label that proclaims Dr Pepper is a blend of 23 different flavors. That reminded Dad of this guy from Onaga they called Ernie Kilowatt, and the ensuing story contained a whole bunch of "remember how things USED to be"-type details, which I will now try to recall and capture here for posterity and, frankly, just because I thought it was interesting.

Some Ernie Related Errata

Ernie's REAL last name was Frezieres, but people called him Ernie Kilowatt because he built the first electrical plant there in Onaga.

It used to be that all the streetlights in Onaga were wired in series. This is the same way that a lot of Christmas Tree lights tend to be wired. With Christmas Tree lights wired in series, you know what happens if one light goes out: the circuit is broken and NONE of the lights goes on (and then you get to try and figure out WHICH of the 5000 bulbs in that string is the burnt out one). So to prevent the entire town from going dark whenever a street light bulb burnt out, the street lights in Onaga had an ingenious system built into them. When one of the lights went out, that would cause a metal disc inserted into the light fixture to close the circuit and bypass the burnt out bulb. This kept the other lights lit and useful. But it also sent a higher electrical load to the rest of the lights, making them more likely to burn out. Consequently, someone had to get any burnt out lights replaced quickly to avoid a cascade of burnt out streetlights caused by the power overload going to every light on the circuit.

At some point, Ernie opened up an all-night gas station (is that right, Dad?) near the Co-op elevator at the bottom of the hill on the main street (Leonard) in Onaga, not far from the railroad tracks, where you could get pop and candy and refrigerated and even frozen items in addition to fuel for your ride. This was at a time when refrigeration was often powered by natural gas or kerosene (which sounds strange today because we mainly use these fuels for heating now) rather than by electricity. Ernie's gas station - which was really just his house with a gas pump outside - was painted a kind of odd yellowish pink color according to Dad, and Mom simply described it as "not quite orange". Who knows where he got such funky paint or how he chose the strange color.

The gas pump at Ernie's gas station-home was the old hand cranked variety that had a glass chamber at the top with gallon markings on it. You would crank the hand crank until you had pumped the volume of gas you wanted to purchase into the chamber atop the pump, and then just let gravity do the rest - draining the chamber into your gas tank through the hose and nozzle. Apparently, high school kids weren't always that nice to Ernie, and some of them took advantage of him by exploiting the pump's method of measuring out and dispensing gas. What they would do is, while Ernie was draining some volume of already measured gasoline from the the pump chamber into their cars, they would sneak behind him and crank some extra gas into the chamber while he wasn't looking. Basically stealing gas from poor Ernie.

Is This a Story with, like, a Point?

At this point, you should be saying something to yourself like, "Self - that's all real interesting - but from a story telling standpoint, I'm not seeing how all this ties together. Is there a point and do you suppose Todd is going to get to it sometime soon?" That's where reading all the way to this particular paragraph really pays off for you, the dedicated reader. You see - although Ernie sold many different kinds of soda pop at his gas station, he was a big supporter of what he believed to be the beneficial (perhaps even medicinal) properties of Dr Pepper. So when you wanted a bottle of Mountain Dew or an Orange Crush or Coca-Cola, Ernie would sell it to you, but not without reminding you how much better it would be for you to drink Dr Pepper instead. This is what my comment about the 23 flavors on the Dr Pepper can reminded Dad of - and that was the impetus for this entire foray into yesteryear.

And that is the legend of Ernie Kilowatt...