SLOGGING THROUGH WINTER... Good & bad (Part 169u)

SLOGGING THROUGH WINTER… Good & bad (Part 169u)

Then she started asking questions about him that told me she wasn’t too ‘sold’ on turning a key over to a stranger. That puzzled me because the house was empty and there was nothing at risk. Vowing not to let myself involved any more that I already was I suggested that it would be best if she or a member of the family come and take a look. The tone of her voice changed almost immediately and I won’t go so far as to say she was pleading with me but… However, I wanted to call the bank to see how they’d made out for the day so repeated my suggestion of having a member of the family come and make the decision on just what to do.

The call to the bank was interesting, to say the least. To start with they hadn’t lost electric power and they had opened on time. Even though the bank was only ten miles West of where I lived they hadn’t had all that much icing and Trish’s boyfriend, Chaz, had come in early and spread rock salt on the parking lot so that wasn’t a problem. I talked with Bret, who lived within walking distance, who told me he’d fallen while on his way in but was OK. Almost all the tellers had made it to work including Mae who lived about 20 plus miles to the West. That told me the storm had been centered to the Northeast and probably wreaked havoc in New England. When I told him we were without electricity and had been for over 24 hours he was surprised.

By the time it was dark my mother was insisting that we come and stay with them. It wasn’t a problem for the kids as Elle’s mother had a supply of their things at her house. The problem was Elle. Knowing that she’d have the use of a toilet because of my parents having a generator, hadn’t brought any ‘supplies’ when we left our house. Both my mother and Elle’s mother no longer had to worry about having a ‘period’ so that meant there were no sanitary pads for her to use. She was sure that there were some of her ‘ratty’ Carter’s cotton Spanky Pants in her old dresser over at her parents house but what was also missing to make up a ‘package’ were the plastic panties. As this was unfolding Elle’s father showed up. I was hoping he had some information regarding progress at the sub-station but he had nothing. We ended up having soup for our meal as my father had a separate freezer and each Fall would cook up large batches of Manhattan clam chowder and his own concoction of chili con-carne. The kids wanted no part of that so soup it was. I was hoping for the lights to miraculously come on but they didn’t so I told Elle I’d make a trip home to get the necessary things for her night time ‘package’. In leaving, Elle’s father said the roads were clear which was good to hear.

As I pulled up to the stop sign by the Catholic Church I saw lights start to flicker on and off at the house right across the main road. I remember sitting there for a bit, waiting for the lights to stay on. There was literally no moving traffic so I just sat there and finally I saw the lights remain on. I decided to turn around and head back to my parents house. I didn’t get far before I didn’t see house lights any more. I was puzzled at first and didn’t know what to do. Then, I remembered that the substation problem wasn't only one. Fallen trees, tree limbs and branches was the other… and the electric company wouldn’t know where they were until they had had the first part fixed. I surmised that the area where my parents lived had a tree limb problem so turned around again and got home to find all the houses on our street with their lights shining. Once inside I wasn’t expecting the house to be that cold. I could tell the oil burner wasn’t running and remembered that after a power outage I’d have to manually reset everything to get it started. That only took a minute or so and as I was climbing the stairs it came to me that it would take quite a while for the temperature in the house to reach a relatively comfortable level. That’s when I called my father and explained why I hadn’t come back and told him it would probably be best for the kids to stay with them for the night but I told him I wanted to come back to my own house. He agreed and I headed back to get Elle. Elle’s parents had accepted the invitation to stay with my parents so with Elle and I heading back to our house it meant everybody had a bed to sleep in.

It was only a few degrees above 50 inside the house when Elle and I got home. The oil burner was running and the radiators were hot. However, touching anything, walls, counters, furniture were downright cold. Neither of us drank coffee or tea so the only thing we could think of to make was hot chocolate. I don’t think I’d ever drunk that much hot chocolate in such a short period of time. When we finally headed upstairs the temperature had risen into the higher fifties. We decided to leave our clothes on but Elle needed to put on her “package”. After doing that and putting her clothes back on she climbed into bed. We held on to each other and that helped make us warmer. Then we finally fell asleep.. We forgot to set the alarm for Elle’s first bathroom visit and it was my hand feeling her ‘bottom’ that woke me up. It was too late and she and she was wet. She didn’t want to get up and decided to stay as she was. I, myself, was actually too warm so shed my flannel shirt and climbed back in. Before falling back asleep I cussed myself for not checking what the temperature was.

All that hot chocolate had to go somewhere… and a fair amount ended up in our bed. It was enough to wake me up and insist Elle get up, washed and changed. After we stripped and remade the bed we both decided it would be useless to go back. It was about 5am. I had checked the indoor temperatures and it was almost 70 degrees but everything we touched was still cold. There was nothing we could do to clean up the yard until daylight so we decided to read. It had been quite a while since I’d had the time to read. Most of the books I’d been reading were about naval battles in WWII but, for some unknown reason I grabbed a book called “The Last Days of the Late Great State of California” that my mother thought I might like. When I had asked her why she chose it she couldn’t give me an answer. But, that was my mother.

By daylight I’d made it through four chapters, enough to get me ‘hooked’. But seeing the mess in the yard I really couldn’t ignore it. I had to plead for Elle to help me. In one of the strange traits of nature, the outside temperature had risen during the night to the point that most of the ice that had been on the trees had melted and was now on the ground. I don’t remember what the temperature was but without wind it was fairly comfortable. My goal was to get the driveway clear and to at least get the small and medium size limbs into a pile. We were about to take a break when we heard a voice from over by the hedge that separated our house from the one next door. I looked in that direction and saw a woman dressed in a long overcoat and an oversized fur hat. I headed in that direction and heard her call out… “I’m Matty! What’s your name?”

To be continued…