Woodsmoke in Early Morning

The power went out about 6:45 yesterday morning, just as I was getting ready to post my blog.  For a moment I couldn’t think what had happened.  Everything went dark and quiet as it always does during an outage, but my computer was still going. I had a very disoriented few seconds until I realized that my laptop had gone to battery power.  Duh.  Even then, it took a beat or two for it to sink in that I couldn’t get online with the blog anyway.  Double Duh!

As it grew light, I went outside and looked up and down the street to see if I could discern any signs of light at the neighbors.  None.  But, there was the comforting scent of wood smoke in the air.  People were lighting their fireplaces and potbellied stoves, always a familiar ritual here in Oysterville when the power goes out.

There was something about the early morning silence and seeing the smoke coming from the neighbors’ chimneys that put me in touch with a couple of Oysterville flashbacks – both totally opposite, in a way, from yesterday’s experience.  One was of Eddie Freshley driving his truck through town at about five miles per hour the morning after a humdinger of a storm.  He was checking out the village – seeing what trees had blown down and whose shingles had been swept away.  It was one of the most reassuring encounters I can remember and always stands out in my mind as exemplary of what living in a small village should be – neighbors looking after neighbors.

Heckes Inn c, 1930s

The other thought that came to mind didn’t have to do with storms or power outages at all.  Just the opposite, in fact.  Before the Hampsons built their house to the north of us, there were clear sight lines between the Heckes place and our house.  I remember one dark winter night when I was visiting my folks, one of us had left an upstairs light on.  Early the next morning Helen Heckes called.  “Is everything all right over there?”  The light had been unusual and when she happened to see it during the wee hours she worried that someone was sick.

We had an early appointment over in Astoria for our 5,000 (actually, 5,237) mile maintenance on the Prius so we decided to just leave right away and have breakfast at the 42^nd Street Café in Seaview on the way.  As we drove, we realized that the outage was widespread and by the time we got to the restaurant it was no surprise to find it closed.  Several cars waited hopefully outside but the chef soon came to the door and said the trouble was regional – something wrong at Bonneville – and they wouldn’t be opening until noon at least.

As it turned out, the power came on about 2:30 in the afternoon.  In the meantime, we returned from Astoria and went for our mail knowing that, in our little non-automated post office, Steve wouldn’t have missed a beat.  Everything would be sorted and waiting in our boxes.  No electricity needed! We then nipped into the store to huddle around Greg’s woodstove for a few moments.   At his insistence, I sat in one of his comfy chairs in the south-facing window behind his desk.  The sun did its solar heating thing and I basked happily, talking to neighbor April while Nyel did a little business with Greg.  All-in-all, it was a lovely Oysterville Day!