Starting with a bang

The Baby Sister’s text pretty much said it: “Your new year is starting off with a bang.”

She was speaking metaphorically, but it was true, literally. And she wasn’t talking about fireworks, although it was an actual bang. A loud one.

I heard it as a transformer blew at about 8 o’clock Saturday morning.

Immediately everything went dark and that unmistakable “the power’s off” silence descended. I’m sure everyone has heard this silence. It’s the silence when all the little electric sounds stop – HVAC, refrigerator, tiny noises from electronic doo-dads – the noises you’re so used to that you don’t even realize they’re there. That is, you don’t realize they’re there until they stop. Then you definitely notice they aren’t there. As the saying goes, the silence can be deafening.

We actually live in a pretty noisy world. If you don’t believe me, go up in a hot air balloon sometime and discover some real silence when the burner is turned off.

But back to my plight. I called the power company, and after dealing with a robotic answering whatchamacallit that seemed to have trouble understanding me even though it wanted me to make verbal replies (I am a clear speaker, doggone it), I made contact with a real human. This human, bless her heart, was extremely courteous and helpful.

The company even texted me with several updates, even to tell me there was a guy in front of my house. He said he’d get the transformer fixed in a jiffy. And sure enough, he took off to wherever transformers hide, and did just that. Luckily, it was apparently fairly localized.

This came as a tremendous relief. I can remember twice in years past, when there were general power outages, and I had to throw away a refrigerator and freezer full of food. It was a great relief not to have to do that. And while no one likes to have a power outage, I was glad it wasn’t one of those kinds of outages, like those others, affecting the whole town, and I was pleased at how promptly it was fixed.

Maybe 2021 isn’t starting off so bad, after all.

•••••

Taking down the Christmas tree is one of the more onerous tasks one faces this time of year. It’s like the last vestige of the holidays, hanging around like the Ghost of Christmas Past. But it is something that has to be done, sooner or later.

Our long-established tradition is that as the tree goes up the Saturday after Thanksgiving (not my favorite thing to do, either, but folks who know me already know that), it comes down on the Saturday after New Year’s.

I had to take the tree down by myself this year, because Alice had to be away, and couldn’t be here to take care of the ornaments (the lights are my job). But I got it done.

I even got the job mostly finished before the lights came back on. I was using light coming in through the windows, which was sufficient even though it was cloudy.

So I guess I should feel terribly useful. To be honest, I would have rather had the help.

•••••

I had a New Year’s Day dinner at a friend’s house. We had pork, black eyed peas, greens, and other stuff. We got into quite a discussion about what they all mean.

As it turns out, according to my friends, the traditional stuff can symbolize good luck in the new year, or money, or good health, and all manner of stuff. And different foods can mean different things to different people, I guess.

Personally, I eat all these foods because I happen to like pork, and black eyed peas, and some kinds of greens, and corn, and if there had been cornbread I would have eaten some. We had rolls, which may or may not have a significance in some circles.

We also had a Boston cream pie, which may not be on anyone’s superstitious list but tasted great. And I have never heard anything about deviled eggs promising anything in the coming year – except maybe the hope for more deviled eggs in the future, not a bad thing for which to hope.

My famous fudge (well, in some circles it’s at least well known if not actually famous) was also there, a confection which as far as I know has never been proclaimed as a predictor of anything – except possibly weight gain.

However, in a way, the fudge was important on this particular occasion. Thanks to the dad-gum pandemic, I had missed making fudge for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I was beginning to worry that I might be forgetting how to do it. Nope. As it turned out, I’ve still got it, fudge-wise.

That was a relief to me, and possibly also to those who say they look forward to my fudge.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: David Nichol is a freelance writer who retired from the Times-Herald. He can be contacted at nicholdb@cablelynx.com.)