Letters

Tom Clavin’s reminiscence on the 40th anniversary of Hurricane Gloria, and his travails in its aftermath [“Storm of the Century,” The Road Yet Taken, Opinion, September 25], brought back my own memories. The many trees I lost transformed my shady yard. New problem: Where to hang the hammock?

Most memorable were the nine days I spent without power. It was surreal to leave my darkened house and head to my three-day-a-week job in Manhattan, where everything was boisterously normal, then return home, pick up daughter Abby at her dad’s in Bridgehampton, where all was bright and blazing, and head to our deep, dark, silent house. We’d tiptoe in by flashlight (interesting how one’s snug home seems spooky by flashlight), strike matches to candles and oil lamps, pour ice into a cooler (no fridge), make dinner (let’s hear it for gas stoves!) and go to bed.

It didn’t take long for this to get old — the return from the buzzing city to Little House on the Prairie. I can report that showering by candlelight is not romantic, it’s scary. And Abby was not buying my pep talk about how she was a young Abe Lincoln doing her homework by firelight.

Why was mine the only house on Main Street without power? My neighbors’ houses were ablaze with light and the blue flickering of TVs. Never did find out why.

And the worst: coffee bean grinder down! (I still have the old-fashioned wooden hand-crank grinder I later bought for such emergencies — talk about locking the barn door after the horse runs off. I’ve never used it.)

Calling LILCO (yes, our phones worked) was useless. On-hold death. But an old man, a bedridden paraplegic in Montauk, somehow got through to a human. When he explained his predicament, the LILCO human answered his pleas for help. He said, “Tough patukas.”

When the dust settled and we again came home to lights and functioning TV, radio, fridge, washer, dryer, clocks, coffee grinder — then came LILCO’s monthly bill. With a rebate! The bill said, “Credit for 9 days without electric service, $1.36” (not a typo).

LILCO has since bit the dust, along with a succession of equally feckless power providers, our current one carrying on the tradition. The nation’s most expensive electricity.

To them I say, “Tough patukas.”

Judith Long

Sag Harbor