This week we were reminded that for all our mastery of the elements and our impressive ,at least to us, technology we all live only with the forbearance of nature.
It is not a nice thing to ponder that an earth quake here or a tsunami there we might be the victims in someone else’s news report. It is humbling to realize we are so fragile.
Despite our fragility there are men among us who when the weather turns lethal gird their loins and go out and do battle to restore a semblance of civilization.
These are of course the linemen, the road crews, the cops, the techs. The people we rely on and mostly only notice when things go wrong and we are in the dark, without connection or cold and freezing stuck on some forsaken stretch of road hoping against hope that somehow we will be rescued.
And the miracle happens, we are rescued, saved, back on line and connected. The lights work again. The phone works again. And all the frantic panic seems somehow silly and so far away.
With the lights on and the heat blasting the television screeching and the keyboards cliquey clacking it is easy to forgot mere moments before we were contemplating a return to the stone age and we did not give ourselves very good odds on making it through the night.
This month Wells Rural Electric has its “Thank a Lineman” campaign. And we whole heartedly agree and we go out of way to thank linemen. They are however extremely camera shy. And we are too old and slow to catch them anymore.
But we do thank them. Them and all their brothers who are the defenders of our civilization.