This morning a little after 2am our power went out. Not just our house, but the entire town went pitch black. Eventually it was found out that somebody hit a power pole north of town and that put about 6000 people in the dark. Power was not fully restored until after 9am this morning, which meant that school and my wife's daycare and many other places were closed today. I went up to the bus barn not knowing school had been cancelled yet, but quickly came home and went back to bed. I was tired.
Before I left, though, I decided to go on my routine morning walk. The sky was clear and cold, and the near-toal blackness around me meant that I saw the stars a lot better than I've seen in a long time. A few car lights and some solar outdoor fictures kept things from being totally dark (as well as the fact that the first glimmers of light were less than an hour away), but it was tremendous. I walked about a block before realizing that my black jacket and hoodie probably meant that I looked like a burglar on the prowl and so I came back, but it was still a sight to behold.
Of course, people on the community page on Facebook went nuts...why won't the city fix it now? Um, it takes time to fix these things. Why does school have to close? No heat. No ability for kitchens to operate. You really want 2000 unruly kids in the dark without power? The stupid jerk who hit the pole caused me problems! Fortunately, he was not seriously injured, but hey, sorry that you were running a bit late and couldn't stop by to get your coffee. Really, that's almost terrible as almost dying.
Being without power for 7 hours reminded me of two things: 1)That if something truly terrible ever happens, half of us will be dead in 24 hours because some people will go crazy. I'm guessing the Trumpites are prepared to purge the rest of us, but I'm OK with that. I don't really want to keep living in a post-apocalyptic world. The preppers can have it, I have a better home awaiting. 2)We should be so thankful for all our blessings. It got all the way down to 63 degrees in my house last night! We were slightly chilly, as were other families...but what did people do before central heat and electricity? Somehow they survived. Not having wi-fi meant that my kids (who went back to bed and stayed asleep through most of it) didn't get up and immediately turn to YouTube or videogames. That's a good thing, right? Electricity and modern conveniences we take for granted, and they can often be good...but not living without them for a whole seven hours meant that we can see how unnecessary some of them are. I saw a beautiful starry sky. No blinking LED lights were there to obscure the darkness. No ability to turn on a blinding light for eight seconds to find my fitbit meant that I had to reach for it, using other senses.
The chaos of 4/12/19 is now in the past, and we survived.
