Saturday night, about 8:45 or nine P.M. on January 23, 2000 our house went dark. All vestiges of electricity came to a stand-still. No lights, no heat, no computer and none of the hi-tech systems we have become accustomed to.

Sunday morning came wintery-cold, freezing rain had saturated the whole landscape and it was not long before we could hear the popping, cracking and falling of limbs from trees. On further investigation later in the day, we saw massive breakage of and uprooting of some trees. It had been nearly 27 years since we had had a massive ice storm at our place. I remember my Mother recounting the days before electricity and modern heating devices how it was if a gargantuan behemoth taking strident steps through the woodland crunching, crashing its way in the wee hours of the cold nights. She told of snow in July!

I am thankful that my wife and I had some semblance of "what to do." The photograph shows how we managed breakfast on Sunday morning. Fortunately, we had a good supply of wood cut for the fireplace. It was just a matter of traipsing in the freezing rain to gather the wood and place it in the dry on the porch. Thank God for porches--8-ft wide and full length. No, the heat from the fireplace did not keep us a warm as with "central heat," but it was sufficient with winter clothing to keep us mite-nigh comfortable through the siege.

During the 60 hours which we were without electricity--we knew we could make it. No TV, no refrigeration and no running water. These are things which we have become accustomed to in this modern age. Are they necessary? We have come to think they are. Survival is the name of the game in situations like these.

We missed church Sunday. Too much devastation across North Alabama and Georgia. It was another Sunday before we could make it to church with a semblance of ice still hanging from the trees.

I remember when Daddy was building our house back in the 1930's. He had left a cutout in the East wall of the living room for a fireplace. I remember sitting in that opening with my legs hanging off and on occasion hearing radio messages from a battery-powered radio as when Wiley Post crashed his airplane in Alaska killing him and Will Rogers (1935) and of the loss of Amelia Earhart (1937?) somewhere in the Pacific. I remember the crisp frost creeping across the hills as Daddy worked feverishly, on Sunday it was when Grandma (Aunt Lizzy) Beaty came up and scolded him for laboring on Sunday. The fires Daddy built in that long since removed fireplace was the security I could feel as my parental love for us children. It is a wonder that he did not burn the house down--fires burning so hot to sound like a "blow-torch" and we would go outside to see the "fireworks" gushing from the stone chimney Daddy had built.

I remember Mother raking coals of fire onto the hearth and placing a "Dutch Oven" over the coals and filling the lid with coals to cook bread. Basics, yes they knew and understood what "basics" were, they were survivors! I can see her now as she sat in front of the old fireplace and punched the hickory logs with a poker. Sometimes in the darkness of "coal-oil" lamps, the hickory logs would come alive and we would have our own private fireworks show with sparks-a-flying. You see, not having running water on the "Beaty Hills," is nothing new as we did our "watering" from a spring in the "holler" and a windlass at the well. My Mother, and us kids, have strung clothes on the line when they were stiff as a board by the time the frozen wind caught them. 

I remember arising in the chill of the morning from many-layered blankets to build fires in the cook-stove and in the fireplace. Yes, there was the "iced" water bucket that had to be broken up and poured out and refilled with fresh water. There was chickens and pigs to feed. In the winter-time there was not need to go to the spring--milk and butter simply survived in the cool chill of the kitchen. Springtime would be cause to take the well-beaten path down to where we kept milk and butter and sometimes, simply draw up several buckets of water from the well, dump it into a large laundry tub to keep the milk and butter cool. Ah, them were the days!

Sometimes I am inclined to think about what this old world would be like if each of us had to return to the "basics" and just being a survivor. There are too many memories to fill this place. And as Betty and I made coffee over the burning coals in the fireplace and contemplated the era of long ago and far away. All the while viewing the crunch and sparkling fire, while an old fashioned churn stood a silent vigil to these eras of times past.

Hot biscuit anyone?

Drag up a chair and set a spell.

God bless you everyone--especially the survivors!

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