Was I dreaming? Things were slow at Public Utilities Fortnightly. I needed to supplement my Editor-in-Chief pay.
I applied and, for some reason, was hired as the night watchman at the Newseum. That's the popular interactive museum near the U.S. Capitol on the history of the news and press freedom.
What happened next is hard to explain. That first night, the Newseum came alive.
East Germans yearning for freedom climbed the Berlin Wall exhibit. The day's Front Pages shouted their headlines in dozens of languages. President Harry Truman appeared, gleefully holding up the 1948 Chicago Tribune, with "Dewey Defeats Truman" in bold type.
Morning couldn't come soon enough. With the day, and the flow of tourists, the exhibits were once again inanimate.
I stayed at the Newseum for hours, still shaken by the strange goings-on of the night. Walking aimlessly through the exhibition halls, I came upon a gathering. Rather serious folks, they were talking about change in, what? About change in the electric industry.
Again, was I dreaming? Why would electricity change?
Speaker after speaker at this meet-up of the Institute for Electric Innovation claimed that electricity was changing, by a lot. And that some of them were the change agents. I took a chair, hungry for some sense to be restored to my reality.
They wrote a book, and were giving it out. "Thought Leaders Speak Out: Trends Driving Change in the Electric Power Industry." No better place to speak out, I supposed, than at the museum dedicated to freedom of speech.
So, it wasn't a dream. Yesterday's meeting of the Institute for Electric Innovation, at the Newseum, was for real. As is all this talk of electricity changing.
I took a copy of the book, leaving the Newseum after a night and day of revelations.
From the institution for unshackled commentary, opinion and debate on utility regulation and policy since 1928, Public Utilities Fortnightly.
