Harry Bulkeley: Swept along in a raging current of modern gizmos
Crack!
Nope, that’s not it.
Kee-RASH!!!!!. That still doesn’t come close to the sound of a bolt of lightning striking a walnut tree 20 feet outside your bedroom window. Add the flash of white light so bright that it blinds you even with your eyes closed and you get some idea of what happened at our house last week at 12:30 a.m.
The walnut tree is probably 60 years old and stands a hundred feet tall so it was a tempting target for Zeus’ bolt. Roused from a sound sleep, we stumbled through the house to make sure everything was in tact and not on fire. Outside the window through the driving rain we could see huge white chunks of the tree scattered all over the back yard. Since there was nothing to do until morning, we went back to bed — but not to sleep.
In the morning, you could see the two gashes that the strike had exploded out of the tree. Eight foot pieces of bark and stark white wood lay all over the neighborhood. Armed with a limb saw and a lopper, I managed to get most of the shrapnel to the curb.
Oddly, the electricity on the house didn’t go off so we thought perhaps we’d been spared any damage. Then, in an ominous foreshadowing, I pushed the button to open the garage door. The tree was between the house and the garage and the doors didn’t move. “Oh, well, “ I thought, “there is an access door — if I can find the key.” Unfortunately, when I unlocked the door, I remembered we hadn’t used it for several years but instead had stacked junk against it. Eventually I shoved it open and pushed up the doors manually. I flicked the switches I could find but nothing worked so I called our electrician.
Meanwhile inside we discovered that the televisions didn’t work. Neither did the internet. Neither did our landline phone. A few years ago, losing access to the web wouldn’t have been a big deal but I quickly realized how much we’ve come to rely on it for contact to the outside (or at least the online) world. We couldn’t check email or Facebook (yes, we old folks still look at Facebook). Periodically I found myself absently going over to the computer to check a batting average or a phone number before remembering I couldn’t do that.
It soon became apparent what creatures of habit we are. Every morning after visiting some websites, I’d turn on television to watch the morning news. Nope. I’ve been a TV junkie for a lot longer than I have been addicted to the web so not being able to stare blankly at the Boob Tube was very difficult.
In a strange Catch 22, it was hard to contact the phone or computer people because we didn’t have a phone or a computer. Luckily, my wife has joined the 21st century so she used her smart phone to get some repairs scheduled. If you’ve ever called a company for “service”, you know that while “your call is very important to them” you are probably going to be on hold for hours. Sure enough, one of them told us we were 36th in line and there we sat until we hung up an hour later and tried again.
Slowly the repairs were made. First the computer, then the television. A repairman told us our landline phones were shot. That made us consider whether we wanted to keep our old phone number. By old, I mean we have had that number for almost 50 years. These days it’s used primarily by people who are worried about our car warranty but it also is the number for almost everything we’ve done in the last half century like the bank and the government and most official stuff. The thought of having to change the Old Girl was too much so we bought some new phones so the Robocallers can still find us.
This whole rip in our technological continuum made me realize just how immersed and dependent we are on the modern world. My grandfather was 11 when he first saw a car and 25 before he saw an airplane. He lived to see men land on the moon. If the power went off in their house, he and Grandmother would have been perfectly fine getting some candles out of the drawer and putting a couple of extra blankets on the bed even if it took the power company a week to get to them.
Take away our Google for an hour and we have a panic attack. People kid me about my flip phone, but it did stay on through our crisis. It feels like we’re all being swept helplessly along in a raging current of modern gizmos. I don’t have an answer, just a queasy feeling.
P.S. Sometimes my tens of loyal readers ask how I get my ideas for writing this column. In this case, I can truly say my inspiration was — wait for it — a bolt out of the blue.
Harry Bulkeley is a retired Knox County judge and a local historian.
This article originally appeared on Galesburg Register-Mail: Harry Bulkeley: Swept along in a raging current of modern gizmos
