The Night the Lights Went Out

It was a beautiful day yesterday. Sunny and 65F degrees. Early enough that there are no bugs. We had a productive day. A was working hard in the yard, cutting back the saplings and brambles that had grown along the stream. I went out and raked a few beds, and pruned the pear and apple trees. A then noticed that the power had gone out. It isn't uncommon to have a power outage this time of year. A's pager went off. Medical call. 81 year old having a heart attack, Charlie level call. A few minutes later we hear the ambulance. Little did we know that this was but a taste of things to come... We continued working for a while, then went inside to get a drink and to relax. We decided that we would go out to dinner since we had no power. So off we went to Greenville and the Panda Wok. Surprisingly good food, for such a pitty little town. We had just driven past the fire department a few moments before A's pager went off. "That's you," I said. Sure enough it was. So he screeched on the brakes, whipped a 180, turned on his lights and off we flew to the fire house. There were a couple of guy's in the parking lot. "Where's the fire?", one of them asked snarkastically. "Applewood Lane," I casually replied. Since the power was out the family decided to cook dinner on their wood stove. Pizza to be exact. Problem is they didn't remove the cardboard from underneath the pizza before putting it on the scorching hot stove. voila- Fire! Easy out. So an hour later we tried for dinner again. It was almost 8:00 but we were hungry! We got down to Greenville, and about 80% of the way through dinner when we again heard the familiar Bee-Bee-Bee-Bee-Beep of A's pager. Chimney fire. So we got the bill asap, and flew out of there. On went the lights. I just ducked down and held on knowing I was in for the ride of my life. Our guys are pretty good. They generally leave the station within 5 to 10 minutes of the initial call. That is impressive for an all volunteer crew. Knowing that driving normally we were almost 10 minutes out, A was going to make time! It is amazing how some people just don't pull over for emergency lights, don't think it's important, or think that it's not for safety. Most people were pretty good last night. They pulled right over to let us through. A few coming the other direction thought the lights didn't apply to them. I just shut my eyes and flashbacks of the time A and I went from some friends house in Pueblo all the way to Denver in about an hour and a half in the Porsche. Usually a two plus hour drive! A has amazing vision, and drives really well luckily. Unfortunately, we were in the Avalanche which doesn't corner like a car on the narrow winding roads... We made it there in less than five minutes! The chimney fire was right up behind the station. As I was driving home I saw the Chief arrive on scene. Whew! Did well. About an hour and a half later I went back to get A. A few minutes before we left the power came back on. We came home, unwound, and peacefully went to bed.