AUTHOR’S NOTE

THE REA (Rural Electrification Administration) does not make or transmit electricity. It is a government agency that provides financing programs and develops standards for cooperatives providing electricity to millions of Americans.

But to those who remember the adventure of electricity in rural America, it was, and is, the REA. The REA is synonymous with all that is real about electricity—lines, poles, transformers, meters, lights, etc. For this reason, and because the setting of this book is 1947, I have used “REA” as an expression, as a forceful and meaningful inclusion of the American speech habit.

This book is fiction—if incident is the standard of fiction. Few things occurred as I have written them. But if mood is a consideration, then this book is, I hope, the biography of millions. It has been the mood that has most interested me, and I have earnestly attempted to remain faithful to those sensations of awe and innocence that visited our imaginations—the year the lights came on.