My wife and I were married in 1977. I bought our little beach cabin just before we were married. We both grew up in Seattle. During our first winter, as newlyweds, I came down with pneumonia, mono, asthma and bronchitis all at the same time. While at home sick, I had the privilege of watching one of the MOST incredible storm fronts come in. The temperature dropped 15 degrees and a black wall of weather came at us. It was black except for the water which was white with whitecaps. It was the classic calm before the storm. When it hit, I thought our old little cabin was going to blow over. Before it was done, we had 8-10 foot snow drifts on the north side and in sheltered areas 30+ inches of snow.
This is a long intro to the original question... We were without power for 10 days. At that time our area was VERY rural. Of course my new wife was wondering what the @#^% she just got into. Our only source of heat was a leaky heatilator fireplace that filled the house with smoke. It burned your front side and your back side was freezing. Of course I was no help at all because of the pneumonia. I still have the visual of my wife trying to move a wheelbarrow down a narrow path in the snow, filled with firewood.... so we could survive. Ahhh.... what great memories.
What did we do to survive? Well obviously the activity that most newlyweds partake of in times like this was out, because of my "germs". I was probably game, but she has always been the responsible one. As I remember, we talked and talked and talked. That is my fondest memory of power outages. We did not have all the modern distractions. We were "forced" to be with each other and talk. Now we have a good generator, transfer switch and UPS's on all critical electronic devices in the house. Two weeks ago the power went out and my wife... yes the same one 31 years later.... didn't even know the power went out while she was watching our big screen TV. The TV didn't even flicker. I had time to go out, start the generator, come back in and flip a couple of switches and we are back in business. Most importantly, my website never missed an update!
So, while I enjoy all the modern conveniences of today and definitely would not be without them.... I still have very fond memories of the creative moments we had years ago....
Greg