Hill Country Living
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Hill Country Living
By Coulter Fussell
What in Lord’s Creation kind of snow was that? I feel tricked. I realize we’re supposed to be very grateful for any kind of snow at all, but this was the ol’ bait-n-switch. We were told snow. That was not snow. That was “snain” – which is a brand-new thing that was invented just for us, apparently. I discovered snain when I let my cat out early Sunday morning and saw that it was simultaneously raining and snowing. Like, both at once. No, not sleet. This was different. There was rain and also there was snow, coming from the same cruel sky.
Eventually real snow did come down and it was lovely but not before the snain had set the stage for a Sludge Day. Instead of making snowmen I stayed inside all day out of spite. I crocheted, ate soup and watched westerns in preparation for old age as the snainy weather had robbed me of any youthful Snow Day joy I may have had left in me.
One thing I was very grateful for was that we had electricity during Sludge Day! Man, Water Valley has been on a wild ride a long time when it comes to having or not having electricity. I’m glad we currently have it. I hope it will stay that way for years to come.
I’m also glad that the electricity got up and running days before the projected 72 hours that many of us had heard via grapevine. The outage confused my house heater so my family wound up being cold for a few extra days but at least we had lights! The thought of people without other options spending 72 hours without heat in 20-something degree January nights was scary and highly concerning, and it was heartening to see how quickly people in town came together to offer food and warming stations.
The flashing, high-speed emergency parade bringing in the massive equipment from Kentucky was impressive. Several of my first cousins are linemen and every time there’s a tornado, hurricane, big winter storm or earthquake and everyone else is rightly fleeing the scene, my cousins are on big trucks doing exactly the opposite: heading straight into it in a flashing, high-speed emergency parade.
A couple of them lived in Haiti and slept on cots for a couple months a few years ago after a natural disaster. Those dudes do a big, dangerous and important job that you wish they never had to do in the first place. So, whatever it takes to keep them from having to do that again, we should do that.
I’ll tell you who enjoyed it, though – both the power outage and the Sludge Day – the Water Valley children. Between Omicron and the power outage these kids are never going back to school, it seems. I think our kids have been in school two days since the beginning of Christmas break. I know a few moms who are about to lose it. But, even though moms are losing it and school doesn’t seem to be in the cards for 2022, we’re all surely thankful that electricity is back on the table.
