Evacuation is only for one night, right?

Dear Friends,

Jack and I were two of many res­i­dents who were evac­u­ated from their homes when the gas line rup­tured. It was an expe­ri­ence we could live through again but let us hope it will never be necessary.

Many times as we have watched the evening news, prayers are said for peo­ple who have lost their homes to tor­na­dos, floods, or fires. For all the incon­ve­niences we endured we were ale to return to our homes with every­thing intact.

We gave a house key to the Welling­ton Fire Depart­ment so the EPA and Sunoco could come into the house to do air checks. There was no evi­dence of any dis­rup­tions; every­thing was like we had gone to the store and came back an hour later. One prob­lem though…it was much more than an hour.

Late that Fri­day night, I saw flash­ing lights out on the street. Jack went out­side to inves­ti­gate, or be nosey, how­ever you want to look at it. When he came back in, he said, “Patty, they are evac­u­at­ing Mrs. McConnell’s side of the street. If they are doing that, give them a few min­utes and our side is next.”

He said there was a slight smell and leak from some­where. Then a few min­utes later it was our turn to move out. Both of us fig­ured we would be back in the morning.

Since we were not sure where to go at mid­night we thought we bet­ter head up to Town Hall for infor­ma­tion. Quickly I thought of Dan and Erin because Dan might still be up at this hour. Thank­fully they were both up and wel­comed us to spend the night.

In the morn­ing Jack and I came into town to find out we were not allowed to go back home. Now I was feel­ing a bit pan­icked because I did not pack clothes or other neces­si­ties. Who could have ever imag­ined the scope of what happened?

We went to Town Hall to see what every­one else was doing to find all our neigh­bors had been dis­persed. We were then directed to the fire department.

Arriv­ing there we saw our neigh­bors, the Grays, there, too. We learned it was pos­si­ble to return home for our med­ica­tions, clothes, com­put­ers, and what­ever else we needed but we had to go with a fire­fighter escort.

No prob­lem.

After being told we might be dis­placed for many days, we made arrange­ments to stay with Dave and Megan. It worked out pretty good because we became live-in nan­nies for TJ. Get­ting ready for bed on Sun­day night I real­ized I for­got my med­ica­tion that needs to be refrig­er­ated. I started to feel pan­icked once again.

On Mon­day morn­ing I went to the drug store to see if they could give me an early refill explain­ing my pre­scrip­tion was locked in our home.

The drug store was more than will­ing to help but the insur­ance com­pany was not. (Big surprise.)

So back to the fire depart­ment and with another escort we claimed my med­ica­tion from the refrig­er­a­tor. Thank you so much, Welling­ton Fire Department.

This is the first half of our ordeal, and it was the most unsettling.

Know­ing things will sure improve, Patty.

Dear Friends,

Once again I am try­ing to come into the 21st cen­tury. For Christ­mas, Dan and Erin sur­prised me with a Kin­dle Touch. Those two are tak­ing me into the future, kick­ing and scream­ing; oh, and complaining.

The idea is lovely and so mod­ern, as I see folks using the read­ing tablets every time I go out and about.

My expe­ri­ence is not so lovely, only because I am not com­puter, cell phone, or tablet inclined. I am not the type of per­son to sit and fid­dle with elec­tronic con­trap­tions. When I opened the gifted KIn­dle I was happy to receive it because I really wanted to make the most of what it can offer. It offers books at your fin­ger­tips and I love noth­ing but to read and read some more.

I had it in my mind­set to read the direc­tions and learn all the ins and outs of own­ing a Kin­dle. The joke was on me, there was no direc­tion book­let in the box because the direc­tions are inside the Kin­dle. What a dumb idea that is.

I need to have the direc­tions in one hand and the con­trap­tion in the other. To help me out, Jack decided to pull up instruc­tions on his com­puter. That was most help­ful because I like Jack telling me what to do!

Any­way, Jack and I went up to Her­rick Memo­r­ial Library to reg­is­ter my Kin­dle with their sys­tem so in the com­fort of my own home I can search for a Kin­dle book to read. The librar­ian hooked me up with a Christ­mas story so I was set to begin.

That night I bring up the book and start the story. Within 20 Min­utes I am read­ing gib­ber­ish because the story jumped ahead four or five chap­ters. I was not a happy reader.

On my way going back all those chap­ters, the dic­tio­nary jumps in to con­fuse me some more. I am try­ing to be patient and enjoy the lux­ury that was bestowed upon me.

A week later, Jack and I went to Med­ina so I could get a library card ion their sys­tem and hook up with CleveNet so I can search for many more books to read.

I have the world of Kin­dle library books at my fingertips.

My mother received a big box of hard­cover books for Christ­mas from my sis­ter. No Kin­dle for that lady; mod­ern tech­nol­ogy for her, never.

I love my mom; she is let­ting me read those books from the Christ­mas box. For all the con­ve­niences of the won­der­ful Kin­dle, it is nice to hold a book in your hands and use a pretty book­mark to mark your page. There is noth­ing wrong with being old fashioned.

Book lover and Kin­dle user, Patty

Posted by Kathleen Willbond on Feb 16 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.