Life before electrification isn’t some dorm room hypothetical about the good old days of kerosene and character. It’s something my grandfather actually lived through. He spoke glowingly about the Rural Electrification Administration. In the 1930s and 40s, the REA brought power for production, radios for news, and watts for refrigeration and heat to rural South Dakota. In other words, REA lit this corner of the world. Fast forward several decades, and I was a kid growing up on that same pa...
