Jul 21st, 2006
Blackout
Today is Friday.
On Tuesday evening, right before Sylvia was about to go for her bath, a huge summer storm came through our area. It had all the big effects: thunder, lightning, pouring rain, and hurricane-force winds. Our power went out for about six hours, which was mildly inconvenient but not too traumatic. We thought about skipping Sylvia’s bath that night, but it’s an important part of her bedtime ritual. Plus she loves baths. So we set up lots of candles in the bathroom.
I didn’t realize how lucky we were until the next morning, when I went grocery shopping and found myself in a nearly deserted store. Nearly all of the other customers I saw were buying ice and jugs of water, because their power was still out. There were downed trees and fallen limbs on all the roads, and many traffic lights weren’t working yet.
This morning Sylvia and I made a quick trip to a nearby grocery store (not the huge one we went to earlier in the week) to pick up a few things we’d forgotten on Wednesday. The refrigerator and freezer shelves were practically empty, though I saw lots of employees busily restocking them. Turns out that store didn’t get power back until last night–they were out for two whole days. They had to throw away all of their perishable items. The scope of that waste just boggles the mind. But they had no choice: all of that stuff went bad.
We definitely take for granted a life with electricity. It wasn’t all that long ago, though, that people didn’t have power: no television, no electric lights, no cordless telephones, no refrigerators, no microwave ovens, no washing machines. (And of course there are still people who live in parts of the world where electric power is either scarce or nonexistent.) They managed, though–partly, I think, by adjusting their schedules and patterns to be more in tune with natural processes. Cooking, cleaning, crafting, reading, working–it was all done by sunlight or firelight or not at all.
People often have a romantic idealization of “the good old days,” and although I do enjoy camping and hiking and roughing it from time to time, I am definitely grateful for electric lights and central air conditioning. During the blackout, I tried knitting by candlelight for a while, but it was too difficult to see what I was doing (and this was with worsted-weight yarn, which isn’t all that tiny!). After a few minutes, I gave up and went to sleep early–which was surely better for my eyes.
Very nice post Marsha. I was thinking how much we take for granted as well. And also…you’ve been tagged!
Tagged? Whuh? Huh?
*scurries over to Katie’s blog to see what’s going on*