You Can Be Cold Without Being Coldhearted

Yes, other stuff happened last week.

The trade deficit went to $11 billion.

Boeing signed a contract to sell 103 new jets to American Airlines.

Some dogs and cats played football down in Pullman.

So what? A 100 hours spent freezing in the dark after the Inland Northwest’s worst weather disaster in 50 years makes all that stuff seem about as significant as one more tree limb cracking beneath the weight of the ice.

When you are cold, in the dark and uncertain about tomorrow, the world narrows down.

It’s not the stock market you think about, but the stocking cap and whether it will stay on your head as you sleep.

On the first day in the office with stocking cap hair, everyone laughed and joked.

By day four, nobody was laughing at thousands of frozen workers who slept in their hats then straggled in to spend a few hours with heat, light, and a shot at warm food.

Day one without electricity began as a lark. Everybody just went out to dinner.

Then came day two: cold sandwiches and cereal.

Day three: cookies and crackers.

Day four: vending machine food.

When it appeared likely my family would endure days five, six, and seven without heat, lights, or power, my focus on work abruptly changed.

The tasks foremost in my mind didn’t appear on the daily planner.

I began to forget meetings, appointments, interviews.

One noon I suddenly jumped up from my desk and began driving from store to store looking for a generator or kerosene heater.

I tried the Honda dealer where my lawnmower is serviced.

Get a number, they said. Their two truckloads of gas-powered generators arriving Friday already were sold.

K-Mart, Target, Ted’s Tools in Hillyard.

Sorry. Sold out. Same story.

I missed all my afternoon appointments.

I canceled the meeting I chaired.

Instead of working late, I went home and huddled over a bowl of soup with my family and went to bed with my hat on.

The next day I visited Eagle Hardware & Garden early, hoping to beat the crowd to the heaters and kerosene.

Dressed in a white shirt, stocking cap hair and new shoes purchased for the winter, I rushed home to assemble my new heater.

The box didn’t contain a siphon. I could have returned it. But what if they were sold out?

I tried to pour in the kerosene. It spilled all over the new shoes.

All afternoon I smelled like a lamp burning in an 1890s saloon.

I didn’t care.

My hands were going to be warm.

At night, I paced around the house, giving orders to my kids, pretending to have control.

There was no control. Not with a guy with that kind of hair. This was finding a way to get by.

For just a moment I sniffed with self-pity and imagined I knew what it must be like for people in Rwanda and Zaire who don’t have a safe place to live.

Except mine was just a moment of discomfort, not a massacre or slaughter.

Still, the bare necessities of life, so often invisible in American middle class life, were as clear as the frosty breath I could see in the kitchen.

Before you can ponder politics, or polar bears, or popular art, you need a warm place to live.

For thousands of shivering citizens, I expect this week shed a new light on the importance of nurturing a community that cares for its citizens.

This notion of caring, of paying attention to those around you, matters.

It matters most to those who find themselves on the short, hard end of the stick.

One day, any one of us could end up on that end, as 100,000 households found out across the Inland Northwest in the last week.

Being a good neighbor in the good days builds up some interest in the neighborhood account when things get tough.

Had I been a good neighbor or were my neighbors just saints in hats and gloves?

My neighbors and friends helped clear the downed trees. They called. They visited. They made it possible to get through a tough few days.

Soon, the lights will come back.

The news will speed up.

We will get back to arguing and disagreeing and going our separate ways.

Let’s just remember what it means to be a community that cares.

It will help us the next time things go dark.

, DataTimes MEMO: Chris Peck is the Editor of The Spokesman-Review. His column appears each Sunday on Perspective.