Fifteen years ago this week

It was fifteen years ago that we were living in Bangor, and got hit with one of them Storms of the Century we've been getting every year or so lately. It was five days of ice, with the result that lots of trees lost very big branches, which thus fell on power lines, which thus put all of Bangor in the dark for several days.

Note big branches hanging on the electric wires. Also note big pile of branches already carted to the street. The brown house was ours, by the way.

Not to mention, driving wasn't very easy. Beff tried to go to work by walking downtown and taking the bus to school, but she slipped three times crossing our own street.

Also, we had a wood stove in the kitchen (a Jotul!) and we didn't have a manual. Thus we went to an Agway and got some coal, and burned it, and it kinda fouled our lungs. So we burned wood in it.

We tried sleeping in front of the fireplace one night, and woke up with giant coughs. Thus did we continue to sleep in our own bed, under seven layers.

After three days of no power, the electric company had to come house to house with portable circular saws to free all the wires of hanging branches, and to check all the connections to houses. The guy that fixed us up was a real pro, riding and adjusting his bucket really fast. 30 minutes after he finished with our branches, the power came back on. And there was rejoiceness.

During all that, I wrote my sixteenth étude, mostly by candlelight, and named it after the storm.