Sunday, September 21, 2008

Spam and Baked Beans


Lucy and I are living without electricity still, having a chance to use our emergency food rations. Tonight we enjoyed Spam and Baked Beans, a little like camping out only this time we’re cooking on a one burner butane stove and taking the meal over to the table where we have a couple of romantic candles to eat by.

I commented to Lucy how all we needed was a full moon hanging in the sky over some low lying brush with the Black Canyon of the Gunnison to make the clock turn back some. One night we were having our dinner with the park all to our selves when the park ranger came by to check on us. We offered him some of our food and he told us all about the geology and intrusive lava veins that can be easily seen throughout the canyon walls.

Many years ago, long before we had kids, we would take our vacations in the early Fall; one of the advantages to having low seniority in the police department. Those with more seniority would either go for the Summer and take their kids or wait until hunting season, a little later in the Fall. The national parks at the end of September and early October are almost empty since all the students are back in school so we had our pick of camp sites and got to enjoy the foliage change colors; pure magic to see nature that way.

So, tonight we had a chance to recall moments in time as if by blinking our eyes a quarter of a century was just yesterday. Lucy was standing there looking so good in her sweater and jeans; I can see the purple hues of evening after the sun went down leaving the moon there with a thin veil of upper level clouds to announce the night. It was so quite; not like tonight where the sound of all the generators in the neighborhood creeps past the open windows while we wait for the power to come back on.

While in church this afternoon we got to hear an interesting quote from one of the leaders, “You have all the power you need, you just don’t have electricity.”, close enough since I wasn’t writing it down at the time. He was referring to the marvelous efforts being put forth by members of our area to clean up our yards and those of our neighbors. I’d have to say how pleased I am with the way our friends and neighbors have helped to shoulder the burdens, doing what they could to make the load a little lighter and just following the Golden Rule.

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