Class of 61 Episode 11 - thankful for the chance to reconnect

A few more from Jack's collection since they seem to be uploading more quickly tonight.

Class of 61 Part 10

The gods in charge of up-loading pictures seem to like these auditorium shots from Jack's collection.  Let me know if you need to know who's who.... i remember...mostly

Alfred Days 3-6

Ok here's the deal...if you were here, you know how terrible the days of darkness were. If you weren't ...here are a few pictures taken  one week after the storm. It took workers from a professional tree removal service an entire day to clear the yard of the house in the 3rd picture. Guys with pick-ups glean any potential firewood and the rest of the branches are still waiting by the side of the road for the chipper to come.   Wasn't it a mighty storm!

Alfred Day 2 Sunday October 30th

 So here's what the uncandle's look like. We have them in 3 sizes and these appear to be the shortest.

Sunday began with Bob starting a fire so we could thaw before putting together breakfast. Once the sun is up the living room warms up a bit on its own and we were lucky that the overnight temperature didn't drop more than it did.  Later in the week when power had returned I had to ask Bob what we did on Sunday- we shoveled. We didn't get that much snow...maybe 6 inches, but it was wet and very heavy. Not the kind of snow easily handled by a snow blower. We shoveled. And oh yes, Bob practiced using his brand new snow rake. For those of you lucky enough to live where it's warm a snow rake is like a giant squeegee that is angled in such a way that you can use it to pull accumulated snow off the roof so that 1) it doesn't accumulate enough to cause the roof to cave in and 2) the melting and freezing snow doesn't overflow the gutters and back up into the house. There was lots of that going on last winter and you had to be in the right place at the right time to get one of the few rakes available.

 Later in the afternoon we took a ride to see if there were any restaurants or stores open.  Jim's around the corner had cars in the parking lot but when we went inside it was dark and we were told they were not taking any more orders as it would be dark soon. We continued on Rt 75 thinking that power might be restored there due to its proximity to the airport....nope.  We crossed over back to 159 and started south. We noticed that the traffic lights on the other side of the river appeared to be working....a very good sign.

Let me take a break here and write a bit about what  should happen when a traffic light is not working. THe intersection becomes a 4 way stop. Period. Well don't count on it.  I may have stopped at every one of the 23 traffic lights on my way to work.....LOTS of folks just blew right through.  There is a big intersection near the office park where 20 lanes come together ....Yikes.

Ok, back to Sunday's search for light. We crossed the river over to Warehouse Point and found the local Geisslers had just opened. We pulled in the lot while the rest of the traffic on Rt 140 backed up. We later found out the back-up was caused by the lines waiting to fill up at the one gas station in the area that had power and could pump. We bought a few supplies for our larder and returned home to prepare for another dark night.

Alfred Day 1

I took these pictures about 1:30 on Saturday the  29th about 1:30 pm. I was on-line posting some pictures to Facebook that I had taken at a BEHS reunion the night before. (Those pics will come in later posts)

Lisa had already posted a picture that showed quite a covering of snow by the time it started here.

At 4:10pm our power went out and we didn't get it back until Thursday November 3rd at 8:20pm.

It was still light out when the power went out so Bob was able to climb through a garage window to manually release the door so we could start moving some  firewood into the living room. He had been cutting logs to precise length and splitting and stacking a supply in the garage for just such an occasion. Thanks heavens for that ! As we were bringing the wood in, we could hear branches and trees splitting so loud and so frequently that it sounded like gunfire...lots of gunfire.

We had removed the last of the potentially hazardous trees from our property last winter and the state has had crews trimming branches along the avenue on a regular basis. Still we lost much of what remained of the the lilacs along the driveway and some branches from the honeysuckle. Our neighbor's front lawn, however, was covered with branches.  Before the storm started we had had some discussion about where to park the car. (WIth the mower, snow blower, wood, garden tools and cart there is no room in the garage) and we tried to guess where the dead tree would fall ....in the end I moved it nearer the street but not under the wires.

While Bob started the fire in the fireplace, I dug out the crank flashlights and radio and the "uncandles" that have served us well in so many other power outages.  I also dug out quits and afghans., (.something we have plenty of. ).  The uncandles are glass vase-like containers of various heights, you fill them mostly with water and then add a layer of whatever vegetable oil you have around the house. Then there is a plastic float into which you insert a wick. THey are convenient and safe to use. If they should get knocked over, you just have to clean up some oil and water. No danger of a fire spreading. 

We listened to Prairie Home Companion on the crank radio and with the fire in the fireplace, the temperature in the house only dropped to 66.