Albury: Power to the people

After arriving in Vermont, I bought a house out in the country. I remember the first time the power went out for an extended period of time. I had just retired to the den for my Sunday afternoon ritual of watching the New York Giants get pummeled by another team. My three young sons were all playing nicely upstairs in the living room. As soon as I plopped onto the sofa, the TV turned off. It was so simultaneous, I thought I had accidently sat on the remote. Attempts to restart the appliance failed, and before long, I determined there was no power in the entire house. This was a foreign concept to me. During my entire life to this point, when I turned a switch, electricity would flow.

I made the decision to assume a positive attitude. Instead of wasting three hours watching a hapless football team find a new way to lose, I would embrace living without the luxury of electricity. Heck, if the early settlers could do it, so could I.

I got up to turn on the stereo, so I’d have music to get some chores done. Silly me; can’t do that.

It was getting a little cold, so I turned up the thermostat. Oh yeah, the furnace needs electricity.

I went to the refrigerator to grab a snack. Wait, I should keep the door closed and save the cold air.

A trip to the basement to put in a load of dirty laundry? Pointless. No washing machine.

Roughing it was turning out to be more difficult than I thought it would be. The boys seemed oblivious to the situation. Convinced that everything would work out fine, I decided to take a shower and relax. When I realized even this activity was not available to me, I reacted as any sane, rational person would react. I went to bed, pulled the covers over my head, and balled up in the fetal position to wait until the power came back on.

As it turned out, the outage was due to a bad ice storm, and my house would be offline for several days.

Eventually, I emerged from the bedroom, put on my game face for my sons, and got into survival mode. We burned candles for light, brought in wood and had a fire in the fireplace for heat, and put snow in the toilet so we could flush it. We dressed in all of the clothes we owned to maintain body heat, scavenged for food in the cabinets, and did our best not to cause each other bodily harm.

I recalled having a conversation once with a friend who was willing to sell his spare generator. It was an 1800-watt gas generator that could run my refrigerator, TV and a few lights. I was a little strapped for cash, and I admit for a brief moment I considered the possibility of trading one of my kids for the appliance. Of course, I knew in my heart I could never part with one of my beloved offspring for anything less than a 3500-watt device that could also run the well pump, furnace and stove.

After three days, provisions were running out. We looked and smelled like goats, and morale was low. Suddenly, the entire house came to life. Music blared, the TV was on, and every light in the house beamed. The electricity had been restored, and we had survived.

I would learn while in this home that anything could cause an outage — a slight breeze, cloud cover, even the mere thought of the power going out. Outages became so random and unpredictable, I was convinced that some guy with big feet at the electric company kept tripping over a cord labeled “Albury” and pulling it out of the wall.

Years later, I bought a house closer to the village with a different source of electricity. The power never goes out here, but just in case, I have a “go bag” ready in the front closet. As soon as I see the lights flicker, I will be headed to a local hotel for the endurance of an outage. You can’t put a price on a nice meal and a hot shower.

Mark S. Albury lives in Northfield Falls.