Part I
I Can't Let You Go
It's one of my very earliest distinct memories, which goes to show that B.F. Skinner may have been on to something. I was visiting my uncle's farm and the grown-ups were standing around on the gravel driveway talking about the things that grown-ups always seemed to talk about: The weather, their relatives and their chronic ailments, how expensive things were getting to be these days -- just idly passing the time and not paying terribly close attention to what sort of trouble the kid was getting himself into. Out in the yard I could see farm animals roaming around and, as I didn't see these on a regular basis in the city, I moved as any child does, towards objects of interest and away from adults and their endless boring talk. At the edge of the driveway an obstacle presented itself in the form of a narrow silver wire about face-high to a six-year-old. No problem, I thought, I'll just duck under that and step out into the yard and then I'll be free to go get a closer look at those fascinating sheep. I grabbed the wire with both hands with the intention of lifting it over my head and stepping under. It was at this moment that my plans hit an unfortunate snag.
I remember my panicked confusion as I looked down at where my two hands tightly clutched the wire and I tried to work out why I couldn't seem to make them open their grip and let it go. This had never happened to me before. I felt startled and confused, perhaps a little betrayed. Then large hands were pulling me free from the electric fence, hustling me away from there to safety. I'm not sure how much time I spent with the current running through my tiny body; it felt like an eternity but realistically it was probably no more than a few seconds. Then followed a lecture wherein the concept of electric fences, their uses and their placement, and most importantly how they might be avoided in the future was explained to me in detail, although at that point telling me to avoid them was somewhat redundant as the experience had left me terrified to go anywhere near the things. I suppose that it quite literally burned a healthy respect for them into my still-forming brain, as evidenced by the fact that to this day I have never once unintentionally grabbed onto one.
I have heard the claim made that once the livestock in a given yard have become accustomed to the presence of an electrified fence they also won't willingly go anywhere near it and a thrifty farmer can save money on his electric bills by just turning it off. The empty threat of a shock will work just as well to a properly conditioned animal. Some memories stay with you forever.
There's a competing theory that says the animals can smell when the fence is off (supposedly due to the creation of ozone or somesuch when the fence is on and current is running through the wire), and so you have to leave the fence on ALL THE TIME, otherwise they'll get hip and try to make a break for it.
Also, when I was in my early teens, my next youngest brother and I used to torture his next youngest brother by creating increasingly implausible reasons why it was okay for him to touch the electric fence at our little farm near Mt. St. Helens; all of which he fell for, either from sheer stupidity, misplaced trust, or because he actually developed a liking for the low amperage current coursing through his body.
Today, he lives in the desert, drinks to stupefaction, and will steal anything that isn't already pre-set in concrete, so draw your own conclusions.
Posted by: COMTE at April 23, 2007 02:30 PMi'm definitely eagerly awaiting to find out how the hell this ties into the title question.
for me, led zeppelin (the albums, specifically, with their fantastic covers and insides, smelling of mildew; the hiss of them playing on the record player in the late 1970s....) is one of my earliest memories.
i never had the electric fence experience myself, as i knew what they were, but i observed others being subjected to it.
finally, the empty threat of shock is what our government uses to keep us paying the DoD bills.
John Galt and I once spent a fun-filled evening zapping each other with an electric stun-gun. And sadly, that's not the first time I'd done something like that. I was at a county fair in a very redneck part of Washington once and one of the games at the fair was "the fastest thumb in the west". The way it worked was, you had a joystick with a thumb trigger. You sat on a car seat with an electric fence wire strung across the seat. A standard red-yellow-green light would tell you when the thumb trigger was live. Whoever hit the trigger second got juiced.
I spent all fucking day at that booth, losing consistently.
Posted by: Joshua at May 4, 2007 03:57 PMI was riding a dirt bike in a pasture in Olalla when I was a kid of about 12 or 13 and was hauling ass toward one of those fences (being a suburban kid I'd never seen one either). As I slowed to turn around and head back, the rear tire slipped out from under me having been lubricated by a pretty fresh puddle of bovine scat. I had doffed my T-shirt before hopping on the bike in a lame attempt to impress the farmer's daughter, and after I "dismounted," tumbling through cow shit, I found myself, or I should say, felt myself, between the lower two strands of the fence, and my screaming attempt to extricate my filthy self was a source of great mirth for the family. I remember an initial burning sensation, but embarrasment soon made me forget it.
Posted by: Lizard King at May 5, 2007 10:16 PMLizard King, if this blog gave out some sort of prize (the Golden Banjo, perhaps?) your story would be the proud recipient. I doff my hat to you, sir.
Posted by: flamingbanjo at May 6, 2007 10:29 AM