IN THE DARK OF WINTER TIME WHEN ALL AROUND IS STILL: IMAGINATION TAKES OVER
alan skeoch
December 22, 2024
UN-ELECTRICITY TIME
There was a time when there was no electricity and when night fell on moonless nights total
dark descended like a shroud. With darkness came fear.
Why not test that statement. Turn off the lights tonight…all of them. In the dark your furnace will
no longer pump warm air and your house heat will fade away. Your house will take you
on a trip back in time. How far back will depend upon your imagination.
SUCH A TRIP…IMAGINATION
My next episode will take you on such a trip. Back to 1945 were an aged couple, Edward and
Louisa Freeman, are spending a Christmas night in near darkness in a gothic red brick
farm house on the fifth line of Wellington County. A house with no electricity, no indoor plumbing,
no central heating, no telephone. Not much heat as the cast iron wood stove cools.
Some light perhaps from the flickering light of a candle or a coal oil finger lamp
lantern.
Bed time. Two little boys are visiting. City boys 6 and 7 year old. Grandma has advanced Parkinsons’
disease which makes her hands tremble and shadows move across the dark rooms enforcing the
sense of terror. So grandma sings an old song. “Too tired to climb the stairs just like you used to
do…but you’ve put away your fife and drum and now head for the land of nod”. Grandma knows
the fear that comes with nightfall. She knows that the icicles hanging inside the rooms could
easily turn to fire should her shaking hands fail her grip. But the boys need the security of light.
Mom follows and all three…2 boys and their mother…
roll into bed where grandma has placed hot bricks wrapped in newspaper
to warm the blankets. Mom’s body and the bricks make the feather bed a welcome living
space.
Grandma and the lamp move away. The shadows go with her. Downstairs she sleeps beside a pot bellied
stove. Grandma on one side grandpa on the other. The lamp is extinguished and her singing stops
replaced by new sounds not heard before. The wind outside whistles as it searches for nooks
and crannies in the old house. Along with the moaning a winter snowstorm’s
flakes of snow pile one upon the other on the window ledges. Inside the house
the moisture provided by the present of humans body heat is converted to water
and then to ice.
The year is 1945. People lived this way for most of human existence…for thousands of
years before electricity. Does the darkness scare you? What happens when you need
to go to the bathroom (i.e. the toilet…i.e. Number 1 or number two).? The back house
(i.e. the toilet) is outside the house.
Remember that before you turn off the lights.
I bet few of you can imagine living this way. But most of human existence has
been un-electric.
alan
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