Today is the first day of Fall. I’m biting my tongue to keep from saying, “Now is the Winter of our Despair,” because it isn’t. We’re not despairing.
Anyway, I had the quote wrong, which I wondered about, so I googled. It’s the Winter of our “discontent”, not despair. And Google suggested a novel: Steinbeck’s “Now Is the Winter of our Discontent”.
“Published in 1961, this dark but important book condemns the increasing materialism and social acceptance of dirty business practices that Steinbeck saw infecting American society of the late ’50s and early ’60s, as it transitioned from a values-based to a materialist culture. In a 1959 letter, Steinbeck speaks to “… the enemy inside. Immorality is what is destroying us, public immorality. The failure of man toward men, the selfishness that puts making a buck more important than the commonweal.”
Steinbeck is one of my favorite authors but I have not read this book, was not even conscious of it, maybe because it was published in 1961, the year I graduated from college and came to Browning. I’ve ordered it now.
I’m so conscious of the metaphor of Winter because here it is a reality. Fall is often a season when Winter days get closer together until they are continuous and below zero. But then days of early Fall begin to appear in our Winter until abruptly and without prediction, it is Spring. This may continue to be relevant, I hope.
In reality at the moment I have neither heat nor hot water. Every tradesman is overwhelmed with work because of insurance payoffs that enabled roof repair and insulation. But the covert problem is that manufacturing has taken such a hit that what we order doesn’t always come. In theory, my new water heater should come on Friday. I’m out of money but should have enough credit.
My electrician, a humorous and experienced man, came to take a look and brought his sidekick, an enormous young man who claimed he had met me before. I had been hired at the high school to be his In-School-Suspension monitor for two days. I forget what the offense was and didn’t ask. I was never asked to do that job again because I was “too friendly.” I was supposed to be his jailor, not his buddy. But he was actually quite interesting. Still is.
This series of men at my house was begun by roofing over my gas vents. That snuffed the pilot lights on the furnace and water heater. After waking at 3AM to consider the possibility that gas that didn’t get burned might result in the explosion of my house, I called Northwestern Energy, which is no longer Montana Power because it was bought by South Dakota. Regional remote control with the goal of profit.
Next morning I searched through all the stuff they send me to find the emergency number. The phone was answered by a woman at home whose little boy was alongside playing with toy cars. She walked me through a questionnaire though I didn’t have good answers. “Can you smell gas?” “I have ten cats. All I can smell is their litter boxes.” Silence.
She said she would get a technician to me. I sent my best to her boy. This is the way it is now: Mom is on the job.
Yesterday Blake showed up in a crisp new uniform, looked at my ancient meter and proposed that the best answer was the installation of a new meter. I asked for it to be locked until the new gas heater came. It will vent through the wall, evading the problem of punching a hole in my new roof. I can’t do this until LIEAP decides whether to help me. They will tell me who will install it.
Blake did a 4-year course of study in Wyoming. He’s skilled, resourceful and equipped, but it was a beast of a job: old, fused, balky, a knuckle-breaker. He did not fool around.
But as he packed up we visited a bit about managing the pandemic while going house to house. He wears a Van Dyke beard and this gets complicated by the need to wear a mask, in the beginning being used by management to claim that he didn’t need a mask because anyway he wouldn’t be able to “get a seal” as one must for toxic gas. But his girl friend is a nurse who was pulled from a nursing home job to the hospital to deal with Covid-19 patients. They need 24/7 intensive skilled care, possibly for weeks. The suffering is nearly intolerable, even if it’s only emotional distress for helping people who die while being helped without really knowing what would be help.
She urged him to keep up the struggle for masks as the information kept exceeding the expertise and information of the gas company’s safety officer. Now he’s being told he MUST wear a mask. We don’t have many cases and he spends his day mostly working alone, but he is trained to recognize risk, systems, and direct action. Management evidently has regular team meetings and he has been persuasive.
So far the weather is not severe and portable electric heaters plus jackets are enough. My bed has an electric mattress which the cats love. Otherwise, they enjoy the incandescent lightbulb beside my computer.
The bottom line is “salvific” as we said in seminary. With no gas being burned, I realize that my head is clearing from a winter of mild hypoxia and toxic fumes. I thought I was just getting old. Or maybe it was a diabetes symptom. If I hadn’t slept with the window open, I might not have survived the season. Sometimes I was dopey, but my carbon monoxide alarm never began to scream. My recent blood test showed nothing.
I bought one of those little fingertip oxygen monitors. My pulse was a high number and my oxygen level was under 90 which is supposed to mean you should go to the hospital. Now I’m showing more like 95. Blake advised me to keep in touch with the gas company. They have a sensor that can pick up more than just carbon mono. Call Mom! (Oh, and according to the “sniffer”) my old meter WAS leaking gas.)
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This is a highly relevant story about working men in Russia.
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This is a highly relevant story about working men in Russia.
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