It's electric. (boogie woogie woogie)

It’s electric. (boogie woogie woogie)

Despite the fact that I’ve been charging my hotspot and laptop every chance I get, I have a newfound respect for the generations of humans that lived without electricity. I mean — they had completely different skill sets than humans today — and they had traditions as well as tried & true strategies for entertaining themselves when the sun dropped below the horizon.

Imagine the market for candles and oil lamps. Imagine the job: lamplighter — someone had to go around and light all the street lamps as the sun was setting. Did he have to put the lamps out as well?

Ice delivery — I don’t even know how they made ice in the time before refrigeration — did they import it? In the tropics was it a luxury?

We definitely take electricity for granted. And I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not having the easiest time with no heat, no hot water, no microwave, no tv, etc. We hardly recognize how privileged we are to have such amenities.

I’m both envious and flabbergasted by the lifestyles people used to live before the dawn of the electric age.

Is anyone else out there still without power from Sandy?