Prudence Mackintosh

Excerpt from chapter “The Ice Cometh, Man” THUNDERING SNEAKERS

William and I were downstairs in the kitchen when it all began. For once I was glad that Willie, who is now two years old, is still a six o’clock riser. Otherwise, I might not have had the coffee made. Sausage was popping in the skillet, and I even had a load of laundry in the dryer. Its heat was fogging up the windows that overlook the back yard, but I still saw the aurora borealis when half the hackberry fell across the neighbor’s garage and snapped our power line. The line writhed briefly, hissing and sparking before it came to rest on the icy ground just outside our back door. The sneakers stopped thundering in the dryer, and the little red light on the electric range went out. The rest of the coffee would be cold by the time my husband got out of bed. The steaming cup I had in my hand suddenly seemed very precious. The sausage, less than half cooked, would soon congeal in its grease.

My personal experience with natural disasters is minimal. I grew up too far inland to get out of school for hurricanes. I’ve never seen a tornado, and I’ve always stayed clear of mobile homes in electrical storms. Once I was in the Texas hill country when the roads washed out, but I missed the big floods of l978. I have been in a blinding dust storm in Amarillo, but no one there seemed to think much about it.

In spite of recent snowy winters in this part of Texas, Dallas is still remarkably unprepared for serious weather. None of my children has ever owned a snowsuit. Inclement weather here usually means it is raining hard enough that I have to transport or retrieve a child from school. Even our rain gear is sparse. We somehow have always survived Dallas winters with assorted synthetic down jackets, windbreakers, soggy sneakers with plastic bags for the snow, mateless wool mittens, and a series of handsome black umbrellas that all eventually get left at the courthouse by my husband. In this comfortable, thermostatically controlled suburb, the weather is so seldom a factor to reckon with that we will be telling stories about our days without power for years to come.

There is something romantic and cozy about a power failure - at first. Feeling like a stalwart pioneer woman up before the rest of the family stoking her wood stove, I lit the upstairs bathroom gas wall heater, our only remaining source of heat. An eight-branch candelabrum illuminated our kitchen. A box of Christmas decorations had never made it to the attic, so I retrieved red candles and the Styrofoam frame of the Advent wreath. I also located at least a dozen other assorted candlesticks and half used candles. Although it was only seven-thirty in the morning, I was already looking forward to night, when I could light all the candles on the mantel in the upstairs bedroom. The mirror above the mantel would double their light, and in that glow we would read aloud.

While my imagination soared, the kitchen went dim again. William, whose eyes had danced at the lighting of the candles, had climbed up on his step stool and blown out the entire menorah. “Happy!” he squealed. “Pwesants, pwesants for Willie!” He figured it was another birthday party. I relit the candles with some difficulty. He could blow them out faster than I could light them. Trailing wax on the kitchen floor, I finally situated them safely out of his reach on top of the refrigerator. The romance of candles was beginning to fade.

Breakfast was cold cereal and sweet rolls warmed slightly on top of the water heater. The older boys, certain that the ice storm would prevent their going to church, dressed quicker than I’ve ever observed on a Sunday morning.

"Golleeeee! Looks like somebody dropped bombs on us last night," Drew said, surveying the huge broken limbs blocking all the driveways and sidewalks we could see from our front windows. The wind continued to whip the ice-laden trees and more limbs fell with enough force to smash a chain-link fence in our back yard. Oblivious of the danger, Jack and Drew were almost giddy with delight that limbs they had despaired of ever being tall enough to climb had now bowed for them and were begging to be explored.

Family togetherness had no appeal for the boys. My candles were interesting to them only if they could strike the matches. The driveway had become an ice rink. The boys jumped back and forth from one foot to the other in the kitchen. “Please, please, let us go out.” John and I eyed the power line warily. In the area of general science neither of us progressed beyond making an electromagnet with a dry-cell battery, and we operate on the premise that electricity comes from a switch plate. Would ice conduct electricity like water?

Our neighbors were beginning to come out onto their porches and into their yards to assess the damage. My neighbors, for the most part, are not easily daunted. For some of these success-oriented folk, the ice storm was regarded as a gauntlet tossed. Men whose skills I thought were limited to operating Dictaphones or stethoscopes now dressed as lumberjacks, dragged ladders from their garages, and attacked their devastated trees with chain saws. A neighbor across the street was confidently beating his ice-encrusted live oak with a rubber hose. Our next door neighbor’s car was blocked in the drive by our fallen tree, and he was puzzling over how to get it out without breaking the sprinker heads in his lawn. We stood at our window and wondered guiltily if we should be doing something.

The house was getting a little cool by noon, so we piled into the only car that would start and went in search of a hot meal. A lot of people apparently had the same idea. The line at Lucas B&B was far too long for a hungry two year old. We ended up at the takeout window of a hamburger joint on Lemmon Avenue. On our way home with the lukewarm picnic, we toured surrounding streets. Whole trees were uprooted everywhere.

Driving past our former address, we saw an old friend who had planned a New Year’s Day open house. Jogging in her snow gear up to our car, she said, “Stopping by for cold Raisin Bran tomorrow, aren’t you?” We had forgotten that it was New Year’s Eve.

We cancelled our New Year’s Eve plans, even though our hosts had heat. How could we ask a sitter to stay in a cold, candlelit house? My own plans for a Little House on the Prairie New Year’s Eve never quite got off the ground. By 6 P.M. the temperature in the house was 55 degrees. By my romantic candlelight, Jack tripped and fell down the stairs, landing on his head. My children are not noted for stoic behavior when they get hurt, so it is difficult to determine the extent of injury by asking them. By flashlight I reread Dr. Spock’s remarks on brain concussion. How could I possibly determine if the child’s eyes were dilated? All of our eyes were dilated in the darkening house. I also suspected that Jack had read up on concussions. He took to his bed complaining dramatically that his head felt like it had antennae and he was receiving from alien planets.

For New Year’s Eve dinner, we huddled around the single heater in the upstairs bathroom and ate franchise pepperoni and mushroom pizza. Drew angled the flashlight so he could carefully pick the mushrooms off his portion. I found the mushrooms days later, clinging like dried snails to the sides of the bathroom wastebasket.

Everyone was irritable after dinner. The candles by that time had dripped all over everything. John diagnosed his cold as bronchitis and said that the whole scene was beginning to remind him of his basic training at Fort Leonard Wood. In sleeping bags, several pairs of pajamas, and socks, the entire family was bedded down by nine o’clock.

The next day our friend who had offered Raisin Bran called to say that her power had been restored and we should plan to bring the whole family for a hot lunch. With our thermostat registering 45 degrees, we began to load our car with sleeping bags, pillows, crib mattresses, Teddy bears, extra blankets, and snack food. We were strange urban nomads in search of a house with something more than a bathroom heater.