Not A Normal Night

This appeared July 23, 2006

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

I was reminded of that sentence, the opening of George Orwell's "1984," on Wednesday as I strolled the streets of West Chester surveying damage from the evening's storm and power outage.

Not because of any notion that Big Brother was watching, but rather because as I walked, my watch read 8:30 and the chimes on the clock on top of the Chester County Courthouse were cheerily pealing out the count of 10.

That's the way things were in Chester County the past few days - not quite in order, sometimes way off the mark.

It began with the heat, was punctuated by a swift thunderstorm that wiped out the power grid and ended with a shared experience that gave us something to talk about with family, friends and strangers. The whole experience was not unlike those snow days we have in winter, when the normal rules of social engagement don't seem to apply.

Except, of course, that the mercury in the thermometer was flirting with 100 degrees Tuesday.

It is well documented, not only in these pages but in hundreds of comments and missives that I've made and sent to people I know, that I am not a hot weather person. I've made it known that I would sell my not inconsiderable influence in the editorial department of the Daily Local News to anyone who would build a public swimming pool within easy walking distance of my home on South Church Street.

So, I was not feeling happy that evening, trying to erase the heat with an ice bath, when the lights went out, the fans went dead, the air conditioner stopped running, and everything got a little quiet.

That's what I noticed most, as the lightless evening faded into moonless night: It was quiet.

Usually, we've got the university kids to contend with - those jolly folk who need an excuse as trivial as coming to a complete stop at three stop signs in a row to declare party time and begin howling at the moon. But they're away this time of year and so I had only the whoosh of a passing car or the thumping of a free-spirited jogger going by to break the quiet as I sat on the stoop.

I was drawn outside, too, because frankly it was cooler out there. The air doesn't move well in my second floor unit without some heavyweight industrial circulation machinery to help it, so I stayed outdoors past midnight - again, a time I am rarely awake to see.

Later, drifting off to sweaty sleep, I quite expected that any moment I'd be woken by the sound of appliances coming back on as the power was restored. But, by the time the birds started announcing that it was a new day and time for them to start feeding, nothing had changed: no lights, no air.

I decided to take a walk around the neighborhood to see who the electric company gods had smiled on. That's the way it is when the power goes out in West Chester. Nothing comes back on all at once; each block has it's own time, and we all go crazy wondering why the folks across the street got their power back and we didn't. It's a jealousy thing.

Along an alleyway off Dean Street, I saw something that said it all for me about the long powerless night: A fellow curled up contentedly asleep on a couch on his porch.

Perfect, I thought. When normal life goes out the window, the best thing to do is change course and adapt. And if the clock strikes 10 o'clock at 8:30, adjust your watch accordingly.