I was born in February, 1847, in the busy port of Milan, Ohio. Moving with my family to Michigan seven years later, I was constantly yelled at by my over-worked teacher, who accused me of having a disruptive and self-centered attitude because of the endless questions I asked. I had a rather large forehead, which helped the school's case in diagnosing me with retardation. Mom, however, saw my physical differences as a sign of higher intelligence, and she quickly took me out of school and started teaching me at home. By the time I was eleven, it was all my parents could do to keep up with my growing thirst for knowledge. They found certain areas of my interest difficult to provide answers for, particularly the sciences, and finally resigned to teaching me how to use the public library's resources. I soon realized my passion for self-instruction; by the age of twelve, I had completed the World Dictionary of Science, the Sears' History of the World, and many of the Practical Chemistry volumes.

I promoted Abe Lincoln feverishly during his presidential debates in 1860, and many of his supporters humoured me by letting me silently roam around press rooms. I started printing the main "scoops" in a small newspaper of my own with help from printers who were impressed by my ambition, which I sold in train cars with great success. I used the spare money to construct a modest chemical lab in my parent's basement. I had to keep some of the chemicals in a train locker when Mom started complaining of strange odors, and one day when the train lurched on a bad section of track, a stick of phosphorous fell out of my bag and ignited the train car. The conductor was furious, and struck me hard in the head, the consequences of which I would come to pay for later in life. He also banned me from selling my paper on the train, and I was confined to peddling on station platforms.

I was on one of these platforms when the stationmaster's son wandered in front of an on-coming box-car one day. I managed to save him with a running dive that injured us both but prevented his certain death. This turned out to be arguably the most significant event of my life. The stationmaster rewarded my heroism by teaching me how to master Morse code, an admired and respected skill in that age of telegraphy. Mom's mind began failing her shortly after I completed my tutoring, and Dad hastily quit his job at the bank and was faced with foreclosing the homestead if things didn't improve. I worked twelve-hour days for six days a week for Western Union, but devoted all of my spare time to the ideas that swarmed like bees in my head. Six months later, I applied for and received my first patent. It was for a stylish "electric vote-recording" machine, but was fiercely rejected by the Massachusett's Legislature, who felt it would compromise the hopes of those that used the days spent manually counting votes to continue rallying thier causes. I moved to New York shortly after, arriving dejected and near starvation.

Once again, I was blessed one day with being at the right place at the right time. I approached a frantic stockbroker in the city's financial district only minutes after begging for enough change to buy a coffee, and learned his critical "stock-ticker" had just broken. As luck would have it, I had been sleeping in the very same basement of the man's office building, and had done some snooping around. I stepped forward from the growing crowd, and in a few seconds had worked a loose spring back into place. I was hired by the office manager on the spot at a salary of $300 per month, twice the wage of the highest-paid electrician in the entire city. Within a few months, I was paid $40,000 for the patent to a more advanced stock-ticker constructed in my free time.

A lot happened in the coming years. I set up a complete testing and development lab in New Jersey with profits from patent sales, the first such facility of its kind in the world. I was disappointed when Bell submitted his patent for the telephone in 1879 after being so close myself, but offset the defeat by inventing the first commercially-practical electric light bulb. Though considered a great accomplishment, I viewed it as only a stepping-stone for the grand and complex idea I would devote the coming years of my life to.

I like to think the challenges I was forced to overcome earlier in life in some ways contributed to the successes that followed them. The greatest obstacle appeared in my early teens and followed me like a shadow until my death. I fell ill with scarlet fever when I was fourteen, and was left with some permanent hearing loss after the disease was beaten. Doctors concluded that the blow dealt by the conductor's angry hand had aggravated the condition, which slowly got worse until I was completely deaf in my left ear and 80% deaf in my right. I missed the sounds of birds, and gradually added to an aviary that peaked with over 5,000 feathered friends that I would imagine singing to me as I worked. Other than that, I wasn't sorry that to me the world was a muffled whisper; in fact, I was offered a surgical option in my later years that would have likely restored most of the loss, but chose not to. I feared learning to think in a noisy world after so many years spent in silence.

Alone with my thoughts, the ideas seemed to come rapidly once I had the financial freedom needed to bring them to life. In 1890, I worked night and day on what I called the Vitascope, which eventually led to the production of the first silent movies. Two years later, my company merged with another major firm and became the industry giant General Electric Corporation. As the new century rolled around, I retained patents for the dictaphone, mimeograph, and storage battery. In 1903, I introduced the first "talking picture" called "The Great Train Robbery", a ten-minute movie blending separate audio and moving images that began a wave of investments in the entertainment business. In the coming years I found many enhancements for the use of concrete, rubber, and ethanol, and aided the U.S. government by providing several important defensive devices. Of all my 1093 inventions, however, the one I am most proud of came in the Fall of 1882.

The many uses of electricity were becoming obvious early in the 1880's, but scientists and developers around the world failed to improve on the current standards, many of which I had introduced in past years. The power-producing plants that were pain-stakingly constructed were unable to transmit a reasonable amount of electricity any further than 2,000 feet, meaning that many people could never access it. On October 2nd, 1883, I stunned the few scientists who truly appreciated the magnitude of my accomplishment. As night fell, the tiny shoe-making town of Brockton, Mass. became dimly lit, every street receiving the miracle that had obsessed me for years. Although the total amount of generated electricity would not have powered a single household in your modern world, it was still the first power grid capable of distributing large amounts of electric light and power without being confined by distance. The cities of the world quickly embraced this enhanced grid, and it is still the foundation for power grids used in the 21st century. This system of inventions that combined to provide the mass delivery of calibrated electricty was a source of pride I can't express in words.

In today's world, there is an obvious need to upgrade the increasing demands of power consumption. As many found this past week, electricity is a commodity that is not easily lived without these days. It prepares the food we eat, heats the homes we live in, and commands virtually every social function in which we engage. Perhaps the future will see buried super-cables replace the aging poles and towers; or small independant power plants may one day come standard in the basement of your home; maybe the winds and sunlight could provide the much-needed relief as the Earth's mined resources become harder to reach. Your life-time, however, will more than likely remain dependant on a grid-based system as the source of your power. In the event that this system should temporarily fail, and you find youself gathered around a woodstove...filling the silence with words instead of electronic companions; helping neighbours that are cold and hungry get warm and fed; going to bed early so you'll have time in the morning to do Electricity's regular chores...well, when the lights come back on, take a minute to remember me.

I died in October, 1931, at the age of 84. If there were any doubts as to whether my life was well lived, they were laid to rest the very same day my body was laid to rest. That night, after my New Jersey funeral, communities and corporations around the world recognized my achievements by dimming their lights, some turning off their power altogether until the next day. And in my final place of darkness, I glowed with satisfaction.

My name is Thomas Edison, and I didn't invent power...I just shed a little light on it.