Wandering Again

Whoever this age lives in a house this age must have a plumber on call. A plumber, a roofer, a lawn company, an electrician, a carpenter, a general contractor, a tree trimmer. We do have, and they arrive, if not within minutes, faithfully soon upon being called. During a tropical storm or hurricane a few years ago we had a power outage that lasted many inconvenient and uncomfortable hours. When it was over and the electric restored, my mother insisted we call the electrician and have a generator installed. 

It’s minimal. Powered by natural gas, it has a single-cylinder engine that looks like a small automobile engine. The sound of it reminds me of the one-cylinder gasoline engines that powered the Japanese fishing boats in Yokohama when we lived there nearly half a century ago. Besides coming on automatically once a week to exercise itself for a minute or two, it starts within a couple seconds of the power going off. It provides electricity only to the kitchen, an HVAC unit, and the igniter to the tankless hot water heater. Thus life goes on and so do refrigerator and freezer. 

When T. S. Lee treated us to a power outage of maybe six hours yesterday afternoon and evening, the generator came on faithfully. Lights in the kitchen only. Last night, sitting at the kitchen table reading and computing (no wi-fi), stirred a memory of Abraham Lincoln reading and educating himself by candlelight. 

A great president, President Lincoln was no hero in my childhood. He had upset our southern way of life. Insult to injury, his troops had arrested my great-grandfather for hiding Confederate soldiers in the basement of the Episcopal church where he was rector. Not Abraham Lincoln then, our hero was General Robert E. Lee, no relation to T. S. Lee. 

When the power goes out, the mind becomes its own person and wanders where it will. T. S. Lee also has wandered where he will, leaving us with 68 degrees F. and a cool, pleasant morning.

TW+