In the previous episode of "My Peculiar Summer" I might have mentioned that the fair city where your narrator resides was recently battered by a couple of storms. As I write this thousands of citizens still wail in the dark wilderness for the gift of electricity, like Frankenstein's monster on some distant hilltop, screeching at the black clouds to unleash their fiery whips of light at him.
The difference is that the city isn't asking for electrical power via the heavens, but through the orderly maze of poles and lines that silently enmesh the countless blocks here. Silent they are, and silent they will remain until the the forest of trees that have fallen on them are cleared. The air around me is filled with the buzzing of chainsaws. My power is back on and I have a vague sense of shaudenfreude mixed with the guilt of pondering "Why was I spared?" and other idiotic thoughts that occur when the temperature in one's home goes from 86 to 72 degrees in half a day (Gloria in Excelsis Deo!).
Some comments are being made here in St. Louis about how hard it must have been for our ancestors to tolerate summers that undoubtedly included days like last week. Others remark how hardy they must have been to do the day's work in such sweltering heat. Baloney, I say - they were likely just as miserable then as we are now. Don't tell me people have changed that much in a hundred years.
I could have made a fortune selling air conditioners back then and you know it. Here's hoping the coolers all come back on soon.
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Yes, the Post-Dispatch is saying over 300,000 are still without power. My power went out Wednesday around 7:00 pm and came on around seven hours later. My family and I are lucky. Everytime I go out I come across people without power. Ameren has really dropped the ball on this one...
My son in Iraq tells me that after a while you just get used to the heat. He says that 90 degrees feels like airconditioning. I guess it's possible, but personally I still relish the cool air.