I have numerous great memories as a kid. One of them is what we called "The Gas Line". This is a major transmission pipeline owned by East Ohio Gas. If I recall correctly, it starts in Texas or Louisiana and transports natural gas though Ohio. I don't know where it terminates, probably somewhere in Canada. The main transmission pipeline runs through our farmland. In fact, there are 2 lines. One is a 24 inches line that I believe was constructed 1943, and the other is a 36 inches line that was constructed in the mid 1950's.  Sidetrack... You may have noticed that describing the size, I used the plural "inches" and not "inch". I will explain the rationale as to why I use the plural rather than the singular in a following story, if I remember).

 

As previously mentioned, I will now focus on the 36 inches gas line that was constructed in the mid 1950's. Tim and I were about 6 or 7 years old during construction. Naturally, young boys like us were fascinated with all the large equipment digging in our fields. We would spend hours watching the workers and no doubt becoming general nuisances, as we were anywhere we were present. General "nuisancy" was just an immutable part of our natures. Some say it still is, but I defer to the subject at hand. After the construction workers left the project for the day, Tim and I would go out to the pile of pyramidal stacked steel pipe sections and crawl through them. I can't recall the length of each section. My educated guess at present is that they were 20 feet long, although from our "kid prospective, they seemed much longer. Most of the time we played tag. The outside of the pipes were coated with tar to inhibit rusting while in the ground. Of course, our clothes were covered with tar much to the vexation of our eternally longsuffering mother. Even at that young tender age, I subconsciously worried about the workers suddenly showing up and picking up the section of pipe I was crawling in, and suddenly put it in the trench and cover it up. However, all the fun trumped the fear.

 

When we were kids, there were other cool things of interest for the gas line. Every now and then, a guy would walk the gas line route. If we saw him, we would go out, chat with him, and ask him a long litany of unanswerable questions that kids always engage in. I remember he always wore black rubber buckle boots. In those days, there were short wooden red ladders in each fencerow for him to climb over the fences. Later on, the gas company used a piper cub plane to fly the gas line route. We always figured they were looking for gas line leaks and could spot one by all of the dead vegetation around the leak. I later found out that they were checking for any private construction along the gas line right of way. The plane was white with an orange line along the mid fuselage. Since the plane flew at a relatively low altitude, we would always wave at the pilot since he could clearly see us. We were always thrilled when we waved, the pilot would always tip the wings back and forth, hence acknowledging us. I wonder now, if the pilot had known how much of a nuisance were during construction, he would probably have "buzzed" and strafed us if he would have had machine guns mounted on the wings.  I haven't noticed any gas line walkers or patrol planes for years. Either they still fly it and I haven't noticed, which is unlikely, or they have some electronic means to patrol it. They probably use a satellite to observe it now.

 

One of rumors we heard when we were kids was that since the gas line went through our property we could "tap into" it and have all the free gas we wanted. That was very unlikely because the line under very high pressure and they certainly would never shut down a section of line for us to "tap into" it. Incidentally, it just occurred to me that to my knowledge the gas company has never paid us for using our land for their line. I would have assumed that they would have executed a lease agreement to use our land. Hmmmm, I'm going to have to do some investigation on this subject. WOW! Just think if they have never paid us for a yearly lease, we could become very wealthy, in deed. Let me see, 2 gas lines installed in 1943... CHA CHING!!!! We three kids would become rich!!! I must check into this at once! However, now that I think of it, more than likely, the gas company has never paid us for a lease is due to all the aggravation Tim and I caused them in the mid 1950's while they were constructing the pipeline. Well, recalling how we were when we were kids, I will have to admit, that is a fair and equitable settlement.