Monday, August 14, 2006

In the Dark

Where were you in the great blackout of 2003? That is, if you lived in the northeastern United States during that time? I remember I was at a friend's house in the afternoon, and the lights started experiencing "brownout," growing dimmer intermittently. Before we left to go home, the real blackout had started. It took about twice as long to get home, since there were no traffic lights working anywhere. Although it was a hot day, our home stayed relatively cool inside for a few hours, and by the time we had to open the windows, it was night and the temperature outside had grown comparatively cooler. I spent the evening lying on the family room floor to get optimal air movement and listening to the battery powered radio.

It is true that the blackout illustrated how much we use electricity for things. However, while I do think one should prepare for disasters, natural or otherwise, I don't really want to eschew modern conveniences if I can avoid it! Maybe that's my "old Adam" trying to avoid discomfort and extra work! But even in Laura Ingalls Wilder's The Long Winter, the blizzard "whiteouts" of 1880-81 nearly caused a small town to starve to death by blocking the trains that delivered food and coal. Of course, seven months without regular supplies coming in, and no way to grow anything, go fishing, or even hunt effectively would be hard on any family!

But hey, as a dear pastor once said to me, "Eat, drink and be merry: you're Lutheran!" So light a candle, open a cold one of Blackout Stout, and enjoy God's gifts!


As a quick aside, I'd like to give thanks for another of God's gifts, books, and give a hat tip to The Laughing Frog for alerting me to Keven Stilley of Righteous Judgement, who not only tabulated lots of people's answers in the book meme that's been making the rounds (even Martin Luther joined in!), but alerts us to the guy who started the whole thing, so if you want revenge on the guy, now you know where to look! (JOKE!!! Barb the Evil Genius does not endorse, condone, or recommend anyone using violence except when coerced by her in her secret plan to take over the planet!)

6 comments:

Admin said...

I was trapped in Manhattan during the blackout of August 2006, on the 15th floor of 770 Broadway, in Greenwich Village. After walking down the fire stairwell, it took me eight hours to get home via walking, ferry, and bus, but I made it.

My next door neighbor said the power here only went out for five minutes, but it was out for days further east. I've blogged about it--giving a couple of strangers from my town rides back to their cars after the bus dropped us off at my train station, where I was parked, etc. I never saw them again, but I made sure they got home okay. Both were recent transplants from Texas, so I'm sure they were not expecting that in NJ.

I was also there for 9/11 in Lower Manhattan. That day, it took me nine hours to get home. I was working in Midtown during the WTC bombing of 1993, so I was a bit removed from that particular incident.

KrazyinBrooklyn said...

Theo, Theodore and I were on our way back from Indiana, we dropped the girls off so the girls could spend the night with Uncle Nick. That was when Theodore was Deans age. Wow!!! That was along time ago I'm getting old. But anyway we ended up stayin at the my in laws place. Theo didn't want to stay in Lakewood(that's were we lived at the time) there was to many Arabic's for his liking, and we felt safer at my in laws.

Marie N. said...

The kids and I were home. I remember being thankful when the Quipper came home (crazy drivers and all the traffic lights out). I also remember cooking out on the charcoal grill, listening to the radio and getting through the day with no vacuum, dishwahser, PC or TV.

Rick said...

I remember Pronk hitting for the cycle during an afternoon game, and no one reporting it.

I don't think he will ever hit a triple again, unless it's in Comerica Park. :-)

Scott said...

I was on my way home from work. I noticed several traffic signals out, but WMMS was still playing. Then they stopped. Then they started again. I put two and two together when MMS went down for good, since I had made it just about all the way through Cleveland with no lights, and every freeway ramp was dark.

We cooked on the grill, enjoyed the quiet, and as night fell, I loaded a few more magazines.

I slept on the patio that night. Too hot in the house.

Re: The enjoyment of modern conveniences, it's not more holy to be with or without them. Enjoy them!

Kelly said...

Barb, I had moved to Illinois the summer of 2003 so I just missed out on the blackout. My folks called and told me all about it though and sent me newspaper clippings.

Thanks for visiting my blog! I have been going to Gen Con for a long time, but I think next year we might go to Columbus and do Origons. We are hard core board gamers and we use to be hard core collectable card gamers (Decipher's collectable card games). What is your hubby into? Did he work for Wiz or just volunteering to get free stuff?