Beneath the Wraps

On 8 January 1981, prisoners on a work assignment burning trash and debris at the Utah State Prison in Draper, Utah , accidentally caused a major power failure when something they were burning exploded, causing a fireball that shorted out transmission lines above them. 1.5 million people lost power, in almost all of Utah, as well as parts of southeastern Idaho and southwestern Wyoming* and I believe parts of Nevada as well.      I was listening to a radio station from another county when the power first started to flicker.   The DJ had made some comment about the power going off.   “Wow.   Ours just went off, too” I thought, never imagining that the outage was created by the same source.    I remember finding a transistor radio looking for something that would give us some kind of indication as to why the power went off.   We were on a different transformer or power unit than our neighbors across the street.   U...

          Paul Cardall must have been 15 at the time he had worked at the ice cream store. They didn’t hire younger than high school.   But he seemed to have such a junior high awkwardness about him.   But he may have lacked in social skills because of his heart and hospitalization and being in and out of the doctors all of the time.   But I don’t know.   I didn’t really have a whole lot of interaction with him.   I’m sure our difference in age and maturity contributed to that.           Whenever Paul had been assigned to dishes and was able to listen to music – his music – some wholesome music even – the twerpy kid would disappear and he would actually turn into a regular human being.           Corey said he had had some nice conversations with Paul regarding music.   I would have never dreamed that he would ...

These are not my words - but there is certainly power and I wanted to share with any who may be following: I wish that we would all apply this to our lives.