Electricity is one of those things we Americans totally take for granted.
While there are many places on Earth where people don’t have access to much or any of it, we plug in, turn on and illuminate without giving a second thought to the rather amazing act we’re performing. In fact, our lives are so built around the use of electric power, not having it causes a pretty major adjustment.
So obviously, that makes lengthy power outages an interesting test of human nature, and such was the case last Saturday evening when a large portion of Houston (Mo.) went without electricity for a good five hours or so.
Of course, since my wife Wendy and I now live within the city limits, we had the pleasure of experiencing the outage. I think the “official” word might differ, but the power went out at about 5:40 p.m. and returned sometime after 10:15. I know because I was watching a Seattle Sounders Major League Soccer game on ESPN that had started at 4 and was well into the second half when everything went dead (plus I looked at the clock – always a good way to get an idea of a time frame), and I was awakened by lights and sound after going to bed after 10 in a still powerless home.
Anyway, what took place during the outage was actually quite refreshing.
Not having a “smartphone,” I had no communicative technology to bury my face in for five hours, as I’m sure lots of people did (not that there’s anything wrong with that, as Jerry Seinfeld would say).
Instead, Wendy, Gertie (the Permapup) and I began the unexpected period by going for a walk in the cool early evening air (I know that’s a foreign term for many people these days, but “a walk” is when you get outside and move your body forward by putting one foot in front of another, usually at a steady pace). We soon noticed we weren’t the only people in our neighborhood who had opted for the same outbreak of activity, because we came across several on our way and even engaged in conversation with some.
After Gertie had heard how cute she is multiple times, we ultimately returned to where our walk had begun (an aspect of the activity that is usually easy to control). That was about an hour into the powerless situation.
We then nabbed a cool beverage or two and occupied some of the comfortable outdoor furniture on our covered porch. The sun was down by then, so I set up an oil lantern for a little artificial light and used a flashlight to read the latest copy of the Missouri Department of Conservation’s monthly magazine and then study a road atlas to contemplate our upcoming road trip to visit one of Wendy’s brothers and his family in South Carolina.
Meanwhile, Wendy did some reading, too, and spent some time deleting some of the photos stored on her laptop, as the Permapup snoozed on the porch’s cement surface. I’d say that all lasted well over an hour, and then we decided to go for a drive to see who else didn’t have lights.
As we discovered, the outage was widespread – from south of town on U.S. 63 past Sonic, to Highway 17 and many points west of there. It was fun observing where people might have had generators, as little islands of light would appear within vast oceans of darkness (that was especially true in the neighborhoods just north of Highway 17 and west of U.S. 63).
But it was at very least kind of surreal to see all so much powerless territory, with no light emanating from normally bright places like Casey’s and Corner Express.
After that, we sat in candlelight for a while and then went to bed. I woke up after a fairly short while, when lights and sound filled the house in typical end-of-the-outage fashion.
A few things I learned while the power was out:
•It’s possible to live without electricity.
•It’s kind of a pain to live without electricity.
•Electricity is cool and I’d rather have it around.
One thing’s for sure, though: There’s no downside to being kicked in the face now and then with a reminder of how good we have it on a regular basis. Maybe I’ll schedule five-hour periods every so often when the power is shut off at our house.
Or maybe not.