{"id":9925,"date":"2023-11-23T00:23:44","date_gmt":"2023-11-23T00:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/?p=9925"},"modified":"2023-11-23T00:24:08","modified_gmt":"2023-11-23T00:24:08","slug":"things-aint-dandy-after-sandy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/2023\/11\/23\/things-aint-dandy-after-sandy\/","title":{"rendered":"Things Ain’t Dandy After Sandy:"},"content":{"rendered":"

Letter from America<\/h1>\n

Living A Temporary “Plain” Life.
\n<\/span><\/h1>\n

It is Day 13 of life without power after Hurricane Sandy whipped her way through and damaged \u2013 no, ravaged \u2013 a good portion of my hometown of Manhasset, Long Island, New York.\u00a0 Spoiled by years of heat in winter, cool central air conditioning in summer, running hot water, and (in all seasons) immediate access to electricity to activate the technological devices at my disposal, I am not finding it easy to acclimate to \u201cplain\u201d living, even for a short period of time.\u00a0 To assist me in this endeavor, I called upon Ira Wagler, best-selling author of\u00a0Growing Up Amish<\/u>\u00a0(Chicago, Illinois:\u00a0 Tyndale House Publishing, 2011).\u00a0 If my friends in Ireland have not yet been infected by the recent American fascination for all aspects of Amish culture, you\u00a0will be<\/span>after you read Ira\u2019s memoir of his Amish boyhood and young adulthood.\u00a0 But I digress.<\/p>\n

In the middle of Post-Sandy Night 11, I was, upon entering my darkened bathroom, still reaching, as if on auto-pilot, for the light switch.\u00a0Oh, right<\/span>, I reminded myself,\u00a0power\u2019s out<\/span>.\u00a0No big deal; I\u2019ve been doing this for decades now.\u00a0 I think I can manage in the dark<\/span>.\u00a0 What was truly a shock to my system, however, was that exquisitely painful moment when butt met freezing-cold toilet seat.\u00a0 People, I am here to assure you that this is most decidedly\u00a0not<\/span>a pleasant experience and, I dare say, is not something to which I could\u00a0ever<\/span>grow accustomed.<\/p>\n

After slapping my hand across my mouth to muffle a completely involuntary squeal of a pitch in the human vocal register hitherto unheard, I reminded myself that there are thousands of people far worse off than we are in my household.\u00a0 We have a small generator to power up a couple of lamps in one room, but gasoline for it (and for cars, for that matter) is in extremely short supply, so we limit its use to evenings.\u00a0 The nor\u2019easter that dumped close to a foot of snow on the ground one week after Sandy came and went caused further outages; many residents of locales in \u00a0which power had been restored\u00a0after<\/span>Sandy were again made aware of the wrath of Mother Nature when they lost power for the second time in a week.\u00a0 Moreover, many thousands of folks are completely homeless and will be for some time.\u00a0 I am one of the fortunate; fallen tree disposal will cost plenty but, inside my home, the sentimental treasures of five generations remain intact.<\/p>\n

The lighting of candles at night has become a somewhat comforting ritual, thanks to my conversation with\u00a0Ira Wagler<\/b>.\u00a0 In our telephone call, he mentioned that the lighting of kerosene lamps in the evening was a chore assigned to children old enough to strike a match.\u00a0 As a prelude to a tasty dinner cooked by a mother on gas- or a wood-burning stove in the typical, whitewashed Amish frame house, I can imagine that lamp-lighting was a chore quickly and cheerfully accomplished by those Amish kids.\u00a0 (After all, Amish cuisine is considered delicious; furthermore, Amish women like to cook bountifully, serving up generous portions for their larger-than-average families at every meal.)\u00a0 I told Ira that I\u2019d try to think of a good meal as I placed flame to wick after wick after wick on the dozens of candles that now illuminate my kitchen with a rather romantic collective glow.\u00a0 Sadly, though, aside from a couple of delightful dinners out with friends to warm restaurants with working kitchens, our home fare since Sandy has consisted of take-out meals and sandwiches slapped together.\u00a0 And, heck, I am not Amish!\u00a0 I do not choose to live the plain life.\u00a0 It has been forced upon me, and I want out!<\/p>\n

As a new correspondent to this column, I can only entreat you to keep the sentences above pertaining to my middle-of-the-night bathroom expedition to yourselves.\u00a0 I do want to be able to call Ira Wagler again in the future, should his expertise be required for another assignment.\u00a0 He might not be Amish anymore, but he\u00a0is<\/span>an absolutely delightful Mennonite.\u00a0 Now, I don\u2019t know as much about Mennonites as I do about the Amish, but I\u2019m pretty sure they frown upon uttering (much less writing) the word \u201cbutt.\u201d\u00a0 (I\u2019m not even certain that they would use the word \u201ctoilet\u201d in polite society.)\u00a0 But because I would dearly love to get a signed copy of Ira\u2019s next book, I simply ask that you don\u2019t go forwarding this piece to him.<\/p>\n

DO, though, go and get a copy of his current book! It\u2019s available on Amazon.com\u00a0Amazon.com<\/a>, including a Kindle edition.\u00a0 (If my Kindle didn\u2019t require a recharge right now, I\u2019d get that version myself for a re-read.) \u00a0Whatever version of\u00a0Growing Up Amish<\/u>\u00a0you\u00a0do<\/span>acquire, I promise you that you\u2019ll enjoy it!<\/p>\n

\n

<\/h2>\n

Short Bio of Cara Sheridan O\u2019Donnell<\/h2>\n

Cara is a former book editor for a major US publisher, mother of four, grandmother of two, and now a freelance writer and editor.<\/p>\n

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.<\/span>” mce_’ + path + ‘\\” + prefix + ‘:’ + addy19605 + ‘\\’>’+addy_text19605+'<\\\/a>’; \/\/–><\/p>\n

\n

Copyright \u00a9 2012, DPNLIVE \u2013 All Rights Reserved<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Letter from America Living A Temporary “Plain” Life. It is Day 13 of life without power after Hurricane Sandy whipped<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9839,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-and-style","category-living-in-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9925"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9926,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9925\/revisions\/9926"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}