Monday, January 25, 2010
Powerland
When I was little, the electric company had a history program on the radio called "Pacific Powerland" I went home from lunch every day and settled at the kitchen table, with a melted Velveeta Cheese sandwich and a bowl of Campbell's soup, and listened. I was far too young to understand the irony at work, listening only for the sonorous tones in the voice of Nelson Olmsted. I cherished the corny jokes, the dramas in his stories of the old Northwest, which seemed so far away and gone.
--From Stepping Westward by Sallie Tisdale.
When I read this about 13 or so years ago, I got pretty excited. I thought I was the only one who had a strong memory of these broadcasts. I remember them from the backseat of my parent's Impala on those nights when we would pick my father up from work or otherwise all be in the car together in the early evening. I think we paid special attention to them because My Dad's friend Clint Gruber, who was also the director of OMSI would introduce Nelson Olmstead and give the commercial plug for Pacific Power and Light.
I've been contemplating why I've always felt a kind of kinship for hydro electric power and lately enjoy photographing and studying the aesthetics of transmission towers and substations. Somehow part of that seems to be tied into these old radio shows. Here is a sample of one of these from a guy whose selling them at a website called otrcat.com.
OtrcatPacificPowerlandSample
And also, here is an embed from archive.org where you can listen to ten of these broadcasts.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:48 PM
Comments:
Hi Robert ,
Just did find this article about Radio .
Clint Gruber has become a friend of me , the reason is he was a war prisoner at the same barack as James mcGahee . And this mcGahee , did survive the plane crash at my village , Opeinde .
So really nice to hear his voice on a commercial. I allready did get a taped programma of KOIN radio .
Warm regards from , Johan kuiper , the Netherlands.
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Just did find this article about Radio .
Clint Gruber has become a friend of me , the reason is he was a war prisoner at the same barack as James mcGahee . And this mcGahee , did survive the plane crash at my village , Opeinde .
So really nice to hear his voice on a commercial. I allready did get a taped programma of KOIN radio .
Warm regards from , Johan kuiper , the Netherlands.
