Alone In The Dark

Does anyone get excited anymore when there is a blackout; you know, lose electricity in your neighborhood for period of time. Well, when I was younger and our neighborhood would lose electricity we, the children, thought it was a celebration. We would grab our flashlights and run outside to see what was going on all the while praying the lights would never come back on. It didn't matter how hot it was outside since most of them happened in the summer. We would just be glad we got to stay up late and hang out with our friends plus we had an excuse to eat all the ice cream in the freezer before it melted and spoiled.

Maybe it's me, maybe it was just a Staten Island or Brooklyn thing but when I moved to New Jersey and we had our first blackout I got a flashback. I'll admit, being much older now I still got a little excited. It brought me back to my yout. "What's a yout?" I'm sorry, youth. So there I was grabbing my flashlight again, running outside to check out what happened and figured this is going to be great, my first blackout in NJ. I ran out into the street only to find out no one budged. I was the only one all alone in the street, me and my flashlight. Then, one of my neighbors came out, I was relieved. I said to myself, "Oh it probably took him a while to put his sneakers on", and thought people will start to come out now. I walked over to him and said, as he was looking up at one of the lampposts, "What do you think happened?" He said, "Not sure but it could be the generator". He then turned around and went back in his house. There I was, flashlight in hand saying to myself "Where is everybody?" I can’t believe how different things are when you cross a bridge.