Silence nice, but happy to be back in hum

You forget how quiet a house can be until the electricity goes off.

It was a fairly regular occurrence when I was a kid, but we’re far more likely to have a quick blink or two these days, and even those are few and far between.

(I hope I have not jinxed myself into a summer of interrupted service by committing those words to print.)

When those tornadic winds ripped through Roosevelt County on Sunday evening, they took out a lot of power poles. Plenty of folks faced significant blackouts.

We got off lucky at our place — we only had about four hours of darkness.

That’s just about right.

It’s not long enough to allow the freezers to start thawing, or the milk to sour.

Our electrically pumped water was almost gone, but we still had a trickle.

We dusted off the oil lamps and found they still worked — the Miller moths danced with joy.

But four hours was long enough to remember again what a privilege it is to have electricity in our homes, and how fortunate we are to have crews who are ready to drive into the teeth of the storm to start patching things back together almost before we have time to pick up the telephone to call them.

It’s no wonder that a lot of us rural-dwellers still refer to our electric cooperatives as the “REA,” the acronym that stands for the Rural Electrification Act passed by Congress 83 years ago this month.

In one of its best moves ever, the government established low-cost federal loans to stretch power lines down roads like mine where few people lived.

The morning following our darkness was a good time to acknowledge again how that act changed our lives.

After a few hours of silence and darkness, I felt nothing but gratitude as I flipped a switch and a light bulb came on.

I had renewed appreciation for the rituals I take for granted and their associated sounds: the burble of coffee brewing, the whoosh of the dishwasher, the rhythmic clinking of a zippered sweater tumbling in the dryer, the whir of the computer, the reassuring hum of a refrigerator motor.

Plenty of people on this planet have no electricity whatsoever, and many of those who do have nothing even close to as reliable as what we take for granted here.

My morning cup of hot coffee was extra-satisfying on Monday and, glory be, I had enough water to flush toilets and start a load of laundry.

I enjoyed the silence — I really did — but I’m happy to be back to the hum.

Betty Williamson is a grateful consumer of electricity. Reach her at:

[email protected]