Our power was out for a little while yesterday afternoon. It was in the 40s with rain and WIND. (What happened to spring?!?) After reading, revising, cleaning, and watching my husband bounce around bored, I suggested we leash up Thistle and go investigate the outage.
This was a foreign idea to my husband. But for a girl who grew up in West Virginia, it’s just what you do. If you see an ambulance or a fire truck, you don’t just hope everything’s okay. You jump in the car and go see who’s in trouble. Might be you can help.
If there’s been a storm and trees are down, you put the chainsaw and a come along in the back of the truck and go see what you can do to clear the roads and help the neighbors.
If someone is broken down on the side of the road, you pull over and see what you can do. Change a tire, drive them to the nearest gas station, poke around under the hood, shoot the breeze–there’s probably something.
Now, this is NOT rubbernecking. Slowing down to watch someone else’s trouble is rude. This is about trying to find the problem so you can see if you can help. It’s neighborly. It’s friendly. It’s taking care of one another.
Thistle and I did find the source of the problem. A tree was down in a neighbor’s driveway and the power company had the bucket truck out cutting it away. Volunteer firemen were directing traffic. Turns out there wasn’t much we could do to help. Although it never hurts to say, “thank you,” to the guys out in the rain on a Sunday afternoon. So we did.