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Front Porch: Windstorm reminds us how much we have to be thankful for

Never has a Thanksgiving column been easier to write or more difficult to file.

Because my columns run on Thursdays, over the years I’ve written a lot of Thanksgiving missives, and to be honest I wasn’t looking forward to trying to find a new take for this one.

The windstorm changed that.

Tuesday afternoon I headed home from a speaking engagement in Spokane Valley. The winds buffeted my Oldsmobile sedan as I traveled Interstate 90, and my phone buzzed with texts from friends and family warning me to “be careful.”

What does that even mean? I muttered to myself as a giant tumbleweed bounced off my windshield.

While Spokane County officials warned residents to stay put, I arrived home and loaded my car with more copies of “War Bonds.” I had a reading and a signing event scheduled at Fairchild Air Force Base in honor of Military Family Appreciation Month.

I quickly checked my email, but no cancellations appeared in my inbox, and just like the postal service, neither wind, snow, nor sleet keep an author from her appointed rounds.

However, by the time I arrived at the base the storm was in full force and businesses were closing rapidly, including the library where I was scheduled to speak.

A harrowing return journey to Spokane revealed darkened streets and inoperative signal lights. Clueless drivers proved scarier than the gale-force winds.

I arrived home to discover our lone remaining big tree had been torn asunder in the backyard.

Thankfully it missed my husband Derek’s Shed Mahal. The trunk dropped neatly between the shed and the fence, while the branches fell gracefully across our neighbor’s shop.

We hunkered down for the night, and while our lights flickered and dimmed, our power stayed on.

Of course, you all know what we woke up to Wednesday morning. Massive power outages, school closures, entire neighborhoods cold, dark and strewn with fallen trees.

All was well at Casa Hval until I tried to check my email. That’s when we discovered that our Internet connection went the way of the lights at thousands of area homes. It was gone. Poof! Just like that, we were disconnected.

Sam, 16, was most unhappy.

“Aaaagh! No school is great, but I have no Netflix, no YouTube, and no news from the outside world!” he moaned.

It was so bad; he informed me that since he couldn’t connect to the Internet on his Kindle, he had to “READ THE NEWSPAPER!”

Those who’ve been predicting the death of print journalism might want to take into consideration what happens when massive power outages afflict a region. I don’t know about you, but I was mighty glad to find a copy of this newspaper on my front steps on Wednesday morning.

As of this writing, we are still without Internet, which makes filing my column and news stories rather tricky.

Pony Express is out. So is carrier pigeon.

The fact that you’re reading this means I must have had to shuck my usual writing costume of fluffy pink bathrobe and bunny slippers and gone in search of connection to the outside world. Such a minor inconvenience in the scope of such major destruction and disruption.

The windstorm and its aftermath have provided a timely reminder of how much I have to be thankful for.

Things like lights that turn on with the flick of a switch. A warm home. Hot showers. Clean clothes. Ample food. Hardworking linemen toiling round the clock to restore power to people still without. A city filled with kind neighbors and volunteers looking out for the less fortunate and pitching in to clean up the mess. Friendships that don’t need Facebook to stay connected. And most of all the much loved family faces that will surround my table today.

A message posted on social media said it this way: Sometimes the best way to appreciate something is to be without it for awhile.

And everyone in Spokane County said, “Amen!”

Contact Cindy Hval at dchval@juno.com. She is the author of “War Bonds: Love Stories From the Greatest Generation.” Her previous columns are available online at spokesman.com/ columnists. Follow her on Twitter at @CindyHval.

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