We were all snuggled up together under blankets on the front porch, admiring the freshly minted snow piling up around our house. Suddenly, four explosions filled the air, blue sparks raining down like some mid-winter fireworks show. And just like that, we were taken back 117 or so years, when our house was built. The street was silent, hushed by banks of white. No one dared to be driving or even walking yet. I could imagine horse-drawn buggies coming down the road, ample dresses shushing by to lay out the fires. As we came to our senses, we shuffled back into the house to make a plan. There was no plan. The five ancient fireplaces lay dormant, unblinking. They haven't been used in decades, besides, they're designed to burn coal, not wood. Only an idiot would risk using them now. But they sure are pretty. We lit candles, shut off parts of the house, then eventually crawled into our beds, doubled up with socks and layers of clothes. There's a lot to be said for having a heater box for a husband in these circumstances.
When I woke in the morning, snug and warm under the covers but with a frighteningly cold nose, I thought of all the things we take for granted. We line up at the Redbox, to watch movies about the Apocalypse, viruses decimating the population and MadMax, but an actual few hours of power outage and we're about to lose our minds. We still had our phones, thus also able to see all the cussing going on about how the schools messed up again by opening on Friday. And how the weather man missed it big-time, so nobody could raid the stores for bread and milk before the big Event to keep from starving. We have at least one of these every year in the South. Schools let out, cars get abandoned, people miss work. We don't have snowplows and salt trucks like they do up North. Besides, down here it melts then freezes again. You can't ski on that, much less drive. It probably does us good to get our lives interrupted, occasionally, to remind us of how good we have it.
I remember one of these Events, back in the winter of 1982. My sister and I were both engaged to be married. We were living at home with our parents when a massive ice storm hit Atlanta. The whole family eventually made their way home from jobs and school, taking many hours. My sister's fiance decided to aim for our house, since it was closer than his, so they curled up on the couch, canoodling. Everyone hunkered down in the living room with a roaring fire and hot cocoa. I was thankful to have made it home, but feeling sorry for myself because my beau was an hour away, in Smyrna. We had only weeks to go before our wedding. I didn't imagine I would see him for several days with all that ice locking us down. Suddenly, there was a knock at the back door. I walked into the kitchen to see a cowboy hat and a grin in the window. That crazy man had left a perfectly warm, safe house to drive through hours of snow and ice, wind and weather, to get to me.
All these 36 years later, I still remember that feeling. I'm from a wacky and wonderful family. I knew he was going to fit right in. But I especially knew then that he loved me.
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