Got electricity?

New Hampshire lost power on Thursday. Some of us haven’t got it back yet. Ours returned Sunday or was it Saturday? A bit of a blur really. I think I inhaled too much smoke from scented candles. On the plus side, we pulled out an old Boggle game and rediscovered its challenges. Playing Boggle at 9 a.m. on Saturday morning — that smacks of desperation, doesn’t it?

Which reminds me of the story of Manfred, a bit of a hermit. When the cabin resort in town went under and sold off its assets at auction, locals got a lot of good deals. Toasters were selling for a quarter a piece. Manfred bought one. He was pleased.

A friend standing nearby said, “Manfred, you bought a toaster but it’s got no cord.”

“That’s OK,” Manfred said. “I got no electricity.”

Comments

[Katherine Prudhomme O'Brien]

This has nothing to do with being out of power but somehow this story made me think of you and I wanted to share it. I don't know if it's good writing or bad writing but I'm pretty sure it's really weird writing about a weird thing that happened round these parts years ago that lots of us forgot but will also remember.
It started as a Facebook response to a friend who I later learned was writing about the upcoming Alice in Wonderland movie..whoopsie!

"fantasy action/violence, scary images and situations and smoking catepillars..' This movie you speak of can be only be about one thing-it's a docu-horror-drama-mentary about the terrible gypsy moth invasion that hit New England in the dark summer of 1982. I'll never forget it.Or was it the summer of 81? Whatever, all I know is that we barely survived.
I recall riding my brown ten speed bike, a dorky over sized men's model, down the mean dirt streets o' my hometown, desperately weaving around the buttered aluminum necklaced trees. It was a feeble and clumsy attempt to avoid the constant pop, pop sound accompanied by a gentle but determined spray. Determined, that is, to make me ill. The sound was not a sound of sticks nor of stones. It came from them.
They said their sickening goodbyes to me by the thousands that summer.
Otherwise lackadasical neighborhood men set alight and asmoke every triangular tented gypsy moth nursery they could reach. Now, at night when it's real quiet, my mind is still haunted by that sound. And the mass munching.. it will never go away..
They say, they say a lot of things but...I'm not special. I'm certainly not a "hero". It was a my job,no-it was my duty and just another day in the life of a deep woods paper girl. The plagues of catarpillars raining down upon us like a vigorous seasoning of God's hatred, all part of the job. We all knew that going in. Ok, maybe that part's not true, but so what?! Did that mean The Lawrence Eagle Tribune didn't have to get through? No, it did not. I had 60 customers depending on me and I couldn't let them down. Why? because if I did about 40 of them would call my house and tell my mother on me, that's why! Now that would be a fate worse than.you know, a really, really vigorous sprinkling of God's hatred raining down upon me!!

[Rebecca Rule]

Katherine Prudhomme O'Brien!

This brought back some sticky memories for me. Every 7 years, they say, the gypsy moths return. Just when you forget how yucky they are -- and how much damage they do -- here they come again.

I admire your pluck!

Becky