What happens when you’ve got a power outage on top of a pandemic on top of marching in the streets, cancel culture, a crazy election and a boiling August when everyone seems ready to jump out of their skin — and down your throat?
Some unexpected joy.
When Tropical Storm Isaias toppled trees across the Northeast a little more than a week ago, plunging 1.7 million people into a blackout (including yours truly), the chaos provided a surprising balm for the soul. Sharing candles, ice and hurry-before-the-meat-goes-bad barbecues gave us all an excuse to work together and make things better. It’s a feeling we’d been longing for.
“It reminded me of medical school in the Dominican Republic,” said Joe Chiarella, a doctor in Queens, N.Y., referring to all the extension cords he had strung between his home and his neighbors’ homes. He had a working generator and was more than willing to share power.
As for the giant tree limb that fell, blocking their quiet, suburban street? “All the men on the block — like six of us — pushed and pulled,” said Chiarella. (And then they figured out to use rope and a pickup truck.) Result? Street cleared.
And when neighbors needed to buy food because the stuff in the fridge smelled funny? Chiarella gave them rides to the grocery.
Unlike COVID-19, an implacable foe that just keeps on going, here was a natural disaster we could do something about, and no one was stopping us.
For Michelle Lobb Horoho, a pre-K teacher and mom of four outside of Philadelphia, the blackout was a time of connecting. She and her husband invited their new neighbors — people they hadn’t gotten to know yet — over for a patio supper, “and we had this wonderful night with this new couple.”
In Bergen County, N.J., camp administrator Peter Goldberg and his daughter, 21, were without power for four days. But his daughter invited friends over to sit in the backyard, socially distancing, to play games and shoot the breeze. “It was nice to see them connecting with each other.”
But beyond just the joy of being social again, the blackout gave us something else. “Everybody just feels so helpless right now,” says Horoho. “To be able to help each other out was like satisfying that need. Anyone who could do anything to help was offering to do it.”
This is exactly the kind of responsibility revolution Philip Howard has been arguing for. He’s chairman of the Campaign for Common Good and author, most recently, of “Try Common Sense: Replacing the Failed Ideologies of Right and Left.” To innovate, to work hard, to feel good about ourselves and our country, “We need to believe that we can make a difference,” says Howard.
But that feeling has been slipping away since the 1960s, he says, when bureaucracy began growing like sourdough left to rise. The theory was that if government officials meticulously detailed the procedures for doing anything and everything, no underling would ever make a bad call or dumb mistake. Perfection would be the result.
Instead, the result was 1,000-page rule books, frustration and stagnation. These were all on display when the coronavirus first hit America and red tape trumped research. Meanwhile, the virus stopped us in our tracks. But then, along came the power outage, allowing us to rediscover our resourcefulness, becoming more human and happy in the process.
My husband went and bought ice for our neighbors. Other neighbors with a generator placed power strips outside their home so that anyone could come by and charge their electronics. I saw folks sharing hot dogs, rolling out a Slip ‘N Slide, running to the store.
As Howard says, “Powerlessness corrupts.” When people have the chance to do something — to help one another — they can do great things.
“I’m a real believer in humanity,” says Horoho, the pre-K teacher. Being plunged into darkness allowed that humanity to shine.
Lenore Skenazy is president of Let Grow, founder of Free-Range Kids and author of “Has the World Gone Skenazy?” To learn more about Lenore Skenazy (Lskenazy@yahoo.com) and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
"light" - Google News
August 17, 2020 at 12:27PM
https://ift.tt/2Y4CIhi
When a blackout provides light - Sentinel & Enterprise
"light" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2Wm8QLw
https://ift.tt/2Stbv5k
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "When a blackout provides light - Sentinel & Enterprise"
Post a Comment