Shocking

First of all, let me say that I'm sure my mother loved us, even more than life itself.  She would have done anything for us, and actually spent her life doing just that.  But she was afraid of a few things:  one was thunderstorms and another was electricity.  Her fear of the latter may have derived from the mystery of it, having never lived in a house wired for electric power until she was well into her thirties.  When a fuse blew out, as was quite common then, she would send one of us kids out to the attached store, where the fuse boxes were located, to install a new fuse.  I was glad to do so, and became so adept at it that Sara would ask me to replace the fuses in her box also, when they burned out.  I had no fear and it was simple: open the fusebox, take out the old fuse, and put in the new fuse.  Easy enough, even for a child of 9 or 10 years of age, but there was one step I didn't perform.  I never pulled the switch to turn off the power to the box before removing and inserting the fuses.  I didn't know there was such a switch: no one ever told me, so I assume it wasn't common knowledge at the time.  I am also assuming that my mother also asked the other kids to do that job, not just me.