Gratitude in the aftermath

I'm feeling a little guilty.

All my friends and relatives seem to be without electric power.

The power company says it'll be the end of the week before the system is 95 percent restored.

It seems that electricity -- or the lack of it -- is the new conversation starter in Richmond. "Have you got power? We've been living in the dark since Saturday afternoon when Hurricane Irene hit."

I've stopped saying I'm fine, that I'm making coffee every morning, using my computer, watching TV at night, reading without a candle. Under the circumstances, it seems unkind to say I have power.

It's true that I paid my dues during the aftermath of Hurricane Isabel in 2003. I was without electricity for two weeks. It was miserable.

My yard man -- whom I inherited from my late mother -- came by this morning with his grandson and his chainsaw to clean up the big branches that fell from the maple in the back yard. Lucky me, they fell all around and over the shed but didn't do any damage. It took the yard man and his helper about three hours to saw the debris into manageable chunks and leave them out by the sidewalk for the city to pick up. The pile is almost as tall as I am. Who knows when the city will come by to pick it up, but that's what they say we should do.

Bless my yard man's heart for coming so soon and doing such a good job. (He and my mother's 1942 Good Housekeeping Cookbook are my favorite legacies from her. He's a treasure, and the cookbook has all of my favorite childhood recipes in it, and even has a section about wartime rationing substitutes.)

Life, for me if not for my friends and relatives, is getting back to normal.

For that, I'm grateful.

Paperless

At first it was frustrating.

Then I began to see the humor in it.

By the time I got back home, I had a smile on my face.

For the third time in the past eight days, the morning newspaper failed to appear on my front porch. Or on my sidewalk. Or anywhere in my yard. Or on the city's sidewalk in front of my house.

Okay. I don't read the newspaper in the morning anyway. I read it in the evening. (I used to subscribe to the News Leader, the afternoon paper. When it folded, I switched my subscription to the morning paper, but I still read it in the evening. Odd, perhaps. But old habits die hard. Especially when you're as old as I am.)

I called the newspaper and reported the problem. "We'll try" to get a copy to you, I was told.

My daily routine kicked in, although several places on my agenda were closed because of the power outage caused by Hurricane Irene, and I didn't follow up on the newspaper problem until late this afternoon. I looked on the front porch again. No paper.

I decided to run out and buy a copy. The first two places I went to were sold out. Frustrated, I decided to drive downtown to the newspaper's main office to buy a copy.

I got there at a few minutes past 5 p.m. There was a box out front, so I dropped in my four quarters and pulled the lever. It wouldn't open. I tried again with a different four quarters. Same result.

I walked up to the paper's front door. It was locked. A guard came to the door and told me the lobby was closed. I told him about my problem. He allowed as to how he didn't know anything about the boxes.

I stopped at the CVS at Boulevard and Broad on the way home. They had no papers.

When I got home, I decided to read the T-D online. That's when the banner headline registered: "Powerless."

That's just how I felt.

Irene means "peaceful"

1:24 p.m. Saturday, August 27

The wind is howling. Trees are down, blocking major roads in scattered areas. The lights are flickering at my house. And power is lost in the westernmost neighborhood in the Fan District.

And the worst is yet to come.

Irene means peace in ancient Greek, but Hurricane Irene is anything but.

I just got back from a foray out into the storm. I had a haircut appointment at 11:30, and I stopped at the grocery store, the drugstore and the office supply store on my way home.

Most of the streets I traveled were littered with small branches and green leaves, with an occasional trash can blowing and bouncing along. Traffic lights were swaying in the wind. Major gusts rocked my car. The tops of trees were whipping back and forth. Rain was pounding down here on the north side of Richmond and is ponding deep in my back yard.

And the last forecast I heard said Richmond would bear the brunt of tropical-storm winds tonight between 6 p.m. and midnight.

Cassie, never the bravest of cats, is hidden deep under the guest-room bed.

I'm happy to be indoors and back at home.

When I left the house this morning, rain was falling, there were occasional minor gusts of wind, and the streets were clear.

But as I headed home, traffic lights were out all along Robinson Street from Cary Street to Monument Avenue. A major tree had fallen across Grove Avenue, blocking all westbound traffic just east of Malvern Avenue, and a large limb had narrowed Malvern between Monument and Broad Street from four lanes to three.

I doubt that Irene will be the worst storm I've weathered in Richmond. There was Hurricane Agnes that knocked out power and the city's water supply in 1972. Agnes was quickly followed by the No-Name Storm that again flooded Shockoe Bottom. I remember watching dead cows from farms to the west floating down the James River under the Huguenot Bridge. Most recently, Isabel in 2003 felled thousands of trees and knocked out power to great swaths of the city -- I had no power at home for two weeks -- and there were several other hurricanes along the way.

The first hurricane I remember was a big one, Hazel, that hit Richmond in 1954 when I was 12. I remember my mother telling me to stay away from the windows. But I watched anyway as trash cans and lawn furniture sailed horizontally past our house. Hazel was a Category 4 storm that made landfall in the Carolinas and killed almost a hundred people in the U.S. before it petered out in Canada.

Irene will probably not do that much damage to Richmond, but we won't really know until after midnight when the storm passes further north.

Meanwhile, it's time to bring out the flashlights, the candles and the kerosene lamps and hunker down.

2:20 p.m. update

Seventy thousand people in Central Virginia are without power now. Winds downtown are gusting to 45 mph. A 4-inch diameter limb has cracked on the large maple in my back yard. It's dangling down blocking the door to the shed deep in the rear of the yard. So far the power is holding, as is Internet and TV service. Heavy rain is blowing horizontally on Northside. The howling of the wind is really disconcerting.


3:25 p.m. update

Earlier, the storm came in waves as bands of moisture far from the center raced through Richmond. Now the winds and rain are sustained as the eye moves up past Virginia Beach. The clouds are speeding across the sky like a bullet train. Wind gusts are up to 55 m.p.h.

Cassie has emerged from under the bed, but she's doing a lot of pacing as the winds continue to howl. She'll lie down in one place for only a few minutes before moving elsewhere. When the winds blow hard, her eyes widen.

The wind has blown the screen out of one of my back windows. I heard a thump as it fell down the exterior basement stairwell. It's below ground level, so I think I'll avoid getting soaking wet and let it stay right where it is. It's unlikely to become a flying object.

Right now we're about 90 minutes away from the beginning of the worst of it. Sustained winds are forecast to reach up to 60 m.p.h for several hours.

It might be time for a nap. It looks like it will be a long night tonight. More later if the power holds.

5:20 p.m. update

Took a brief nap. The wind was howling too much to really sleep, though. I woke up when the power went off, but by the time I was fully awake, the power came back on. TV is now showing trees down all over Richmond, especially to the east, closer to the eye of the storm. More than 100,000 customers have lost power in the Richmond area now. Three limbs from the big maple tree in the back yard have now fallen, snapped off at the main trunk. I just checked the basement, which usually -- like so many others on Northside -- gets wet whenever it rains. It's dry as a bone. That's primarily because the summer has been so dry and the ground is soaking up the rain like a sponge. That's good news: Since the ground is not yet saturated, trees are less likely to topple. But that might change within the next 6 hours, during which the storm is forecast to do its worst in Richmond.

Cassie has now decided its just too much to take and is hunkered down under the big desk in the living room. That's where she usually hides from loud noises during fireworks at The Diamond or during thunderstorms.

My friend John down on Longboat Key in Florida asked me via e-mail this afternoon if this was my "first time at the rodeo." Not hardly. But it's my first hurricane since I started my blog a few years ago.

6:14 p.m. update

Latest stats: Two thirds of the Richmond metro area is without power -- that's more than 250,000 homes and businesses. The strongest wind gusts are about 65 m.p.h. Rain so far totals almost 4 inches since noon, with about four more hours of heavy downpours to go.

I still have power, although it went out briefly a few minutes ago and then came right back on. I suspect I'll lose power later this evening. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and my flashlights, candles and kerosene lamps at the ready.

6:26 p.m. update

The howling wind sounds just like the storm in the beginning of the 1934 film version of "Great Expectations." If you've seen this black-and-white adaptation, you know exactly what I mean.

WTVR TV is starting to report power outages in the metro area in terms of how many people still have power. It's a far smaller number.

8:25 p.m. update

Surprisingly, I still have power. Most of the city doesn't. And this might be wishful thinking, but the wind seems to have died down a bit. We might be in a lull, but at least the annoying howling has stopped for the moment.

So who has company during a hurricane? I did. My friend Walter, whose house in Connecticut is in line for a direct hit from Irene. set out for Richmond this morning. He arrived at my front door about 90 minutes ago. He brought news with him: A large tree limb has fallen and blocked my street about a block east of me. I haven't been outside to check the neighborhood yet. I'll do that tomorrow morning.

The original plan was for Walter and I and a mutual friend to meet tonight, have dinner, and catch up on what's been going on with each of us. But Walter was, quite naturally, delayed by the storm, our friend had to work because of the storm and a shortage of personnel where she works, and very few restaurants are open here tonight because of the power outages. Our friend has no power at her house, so Walter is picking up some food and headed to see her. I elected to stay home since I have no desire to drive in this mess. Well get together for lunch tomorrow.

We're still having major wind gusts occasionally, and the local police are still warning people not to drive unless there's an emergency.

I might be jinxing myself by saying this,: I am amazed that I am one of the 25 percent of Richmonders who never lost power for more than a few minutes. But . . . the night is young, and there are still a few hours to go before the worst of the storm passes. I might still need the flashlights before this is all over.

8:48 p.m. update

Walter just called to tell me that he had to drive at least 7 miles toward our friend's house before he found places with power. None of them were restaurants. He finally found a convenience store that was open, so he stopped and picked up junk food to take to our friend's for dinner. They'll be dining on Snickers bars, bottled water and potato chips, along with whatever she might have in the refrigerator. She has no power tonight, and it'll probably be tomorrow morning before Dominion Power even starts to work on repairs.

10:31 p.m. update

Unlike the majority of Richmond, I still have power. More than a third of a million customers in the metro area are sitting in the dark tonight.

The worst of Hurricane Irene seems to have moved up the coast. We're still having momentary gusts that are quite capable of uprooting trees -- especially given that the ground is now so saturated -- but my stately maple in the back yard still stands (minus a few major branches) and my 70-year-old willow oak in the front yard survives undamaged.

It will be some time before Richmond recovers from Irene. One of Richmond's TV weathermen presented a complicated meteorological explanation of why the winds were so much stronger than expected in Richmond, in some cases as strong as the winds closer to the eye as it passed Virginia Beach. The reason has to do with areas of pressure difference between the eye and the eye-wall , some 100 miles away from us, and the pressure difference between the Richmond area and areas just to our west. If I understand correctly, the difference was greater here than along the coast. I don't pretend to really understand how and why this happened, but I do know that we took our lumps from about 2 p.m. until just an hour or so ago.

If the power -- and The Power -- stays with us in my neighborhood, I'll update the blog again tomorrow morning. If not, I'll take my netbook and go in search of free wifi somewhere.

Good night, and if you live further north up the East Coast, good luck.

Sunday, August 28, 9:30 a.m.

Chainsaws and cicadas.

That's the soundtrack of Richmond on the morning following a destructive hurricane that seems to have done as much damage in Richmond as it did along the East Coast of Virginia -- 100 miles away -- which took a direct hit from Irene yesterday and last night.

I'm still in the lucky 25 percent of Central Virginia residents who have power. Depending on whether you're hearing Dominion Power forecasts or word from state emergency management officials, it'll be either a few days or a few weeks before full power is restored.

Richmond's beauty was also its downfall.

The city has more than its share of stately trees. They've been a source of pride for generations. Tall, mature trees line both sides of Monument Avenue, one of the most beautiful boulevards in the country. Trees also line both sides of the broad median strip that runs the length of the avenue.

Many of them -- trees that have towered since before I was born and that have long formed a canopy of shade along the graceful thoroughfare -- were downed by Irene. The same is true throughout Central Virginia. Felled by Irene's high winds, they crushed houses and cars and now block major and minor roadways.

In my neighborhood, where many of the trees date back to the first quarter of the last century, neighbors with chainsaws are cutting through downed trees and limbs as the clean-up begins.

And almost drowning out the roar of the chainsaws is the noise of the cicadas, providing the everlasting summer soundtrack of the South.

The sun is out. The sky is blue. Birds are singing. It's warm, but not yet hot.

The city is beginning -- but no more than beginning -- to come back to life.

5.8

My niece sent me this photo taken in a grocery store in Louisa after today's earthquake. The epicenter was in the nearby small town of Mineral, about 40 miles northwest of Richmond.

I've heard from friends from as far away as Europe, California and Connecticut this afternoon.

They all wanted to know what the earthquake felt like.

Eerie. Weird. Confusing. Unsettling. Disconcerting.

But not particularly scary.

It happened at 1:51 p.m. I was sitting in the waiting room at the Nissan dealership on West Broad. It was time for my car's annual state inspection (it passed) when the second largest earthquake in Virginia's recorded history began. (The largest was in Blacksburg in 1897.)

At first I thought I was feeling vibrations from a low-flying helicopter. Then the building really started moving. There was no rumbling sound. Nobody panicked. We all stayed right where we were. We didn't speak. We didn't look at each other.

A few seconds passed, maybe 5, before I realized it really was an earthquake. By the time the building had been shaking for about 7 or 8 seconds, I knew it was stronger than any of the minor quakes I had felt before in Virginia.

I looked across the waiting room and past the showroom to the doors leading to Broad Street. Cars were moving along as usual. I looked up to see if the light fixtures were swaying. They weren't. Nothing had fallen from the walls or dropped off the shelves.

Nevertheless, I began to think it might be safer to be outside.

And then it was over.

The earth stopped moving under my chair.

I got up and went outside to look around. Everything seemed normal. When I came back in about 5 minutes later, the TV set in the waiting room had a bulletin from CNN: The sound was too low to hear, but the crawl at the bottom of the screen said an earthquake had struck 90 miles outside of Washington, D.C.

The service man came looking for me to tell me my car was ready. We chatted about the quake. He said cars up on lifts in the service bay had wobbled. All of the service techs had gone outside to wait it out.

I stopped at the grocery store on the way home. Clerks and customers alike all wanted to chat about the quake.

One clerk asked me if I had felt the quake. "Yeah, it was like an E-ticket ride at the State Fair," I told him.

On the drive home, I started to wonder how my cat, Cassie, was doing. When she hears thunder, she hides under the big desk for hours.

Cassie met me at the door looking none the worse for the experience.

"Mrroww?" she said.

In cat speak, that means "feed me."

A treasure hunt

Where is Long Don Silver's lost treasure?

That was the theme of a game last night for my great-niece and great-nephew, Milagros and Carlos, when they and their parents came for dinner.

When the kids walked out on the deck, there was an envelope marked "secret" with their names on it. Inside was an explanation of the game.

ARRRRGH!

Once upon a time, many years ago, Long Don Silver gave up the pirate life after many years of sailing under the skull and crossbones. He settled in Richmond, Virginia, right here in this house.

He knew that his mates would someday come looking for his treasure, so he hid it carefully where only a little boy and a little girl would find it one day!

But ... he left clues for them to follow.

Since you, Carlos, are a little boy, and you, Milagros, are a little girl, you fit the requirements!

Here's the first clue that Long Don Silver left just for you.

With his mother's help, Carlos puzzled out the words and meaning in the message and began the hunt. (At this stage of her young life, Milagros is content to follow along behind her big brother, whom she adores.)

The clues I wrote were not difficult. They led the kids all over the deck and the back yard -- to the tool shed, the watering can, the mat outside the back door, a pet's blue water-dish, and a large stone under the deck. (Note the dirty knees on both kids in the picture.)

After much thinking and exploring, laughter and puzzlement, they solved the last clue and found their treasure -- tucked under a large conch shell my father brought back from the South Pacific after World War II. With squeals of delight, they danced around on the deck holding up their bags of Long Don Silver's ancient treasure -- foil-wrapped chocolate "coins."

Their mom made them wait until after dinner -- hot dogs, barbecue, potato salad, corn on the cob and lemonade -- before they ate their treasure.

It's so much fun watching kids have a good time.

Twin spins

I came down hard on one-decade-wonder performers from the pre-Beatles years in my last post.

But there was one artist from the very early 1960s whose fame -- and talent -- has endured and who managed to morph his 1962 bubble-gum-rock song into a hit for a second time 14 years later as a beautiful ballad.

Same song. Same lyrics. Totally different style and delivery.

And there's more: he co-wrote the song.

Give up?

It was Neil Sedaka, pictured above, and the song was "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do."

(Only one other act -- actually, it was a group -- managed to have a hit twice with different versions of the same song. The Ventures broke into the top 10 twice with recordings of "Walk, Don't Run" in 1960 and 1964.)

Sedaka, a Brooklyn boy (born in 1939), first recorded his "down-do-be-do-down-down" version of "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" as an upbeat pop song in 1962. It shot to No. 1 on the U.S. hit charts.

Fourteen years later, he took that same song (he co-wrote it with Howard Greenfield) and made another success of it, this time as a slow, tender and touching ballad. It made it to No. 8 on the U.S. charts.

Unlike so many of those I mentioned in my last post, Sedaka has nurtured his career through both the successful and the lean years by changing, growing, and maturing. His fame is international. On September 11 of last year, he performed at the Hyde Park, London, venue of "Proms in the Park," which was broadcast to much acclaim by the BBC. The song that brought the loudest audience reaction was his 1976 arrangement of "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do."

And when Sedaka aims for a note, he hits it dead-on.

You can listen to both of Sedaka's versions of "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" on YouTube. (The song has also been recorded by many other singers). Click here for the 1962 version. And then click here to listen to the 1976 -- and in my opinion, far better - rendition, which begins with a few bars of the 1962 version and then becomes something totally different.

Shooting stars

Bobby Rydell takes a drag on his cigarette right before our filmed 1968 interview for AFTV Spangdahlem's Friday-night "Catch-22" series.

I watched the Malt Shop Memories Concert on PBS the other night, and I had two reactions: irritation and sadness.

Both emotions were caused by the same factor. There are performers who should stop performing when they can no longer get the job done.

The concert was taped April 1, 2011, at Caesars in Atlantic City, N.J. and featured performances by Frankie Avalon, Bobby Rydell, Fabian, The Drifters, Little Anthony & The Imperials, Lesley Gore, Brian Hyland, Chris Montez, The Angels, The Tymes, and Little Peggy March. (Click on the names in this paragraph and hear their 1960s hits on YouTube.)

If you were a teenager in the pre-Beatles 1960s, those people are familiar. They all had hit songs back in the day when rock and roll was a more innocent genre. Most of them were teenagers themselves then and are at least in their 60s now.

I can't think of a one of them who's had a hit since.

Most of them just shouldn't be singing any more. They just can't cut the mustard. That was sad to watch. But I was irritated with myself for once more succumbing to nostalgia's lure.

"Keep reaching for that elusive note, Frankie. Maybe you'll stumble across it eventually."

Little Anthony was an exception. He might be 45 years older, but he can still hit every note on the mark. So can Lesley Gore and Bobby Rydell.

Keep in mind that, even in their prime, most of these performers were blessed with more enthusiasm than talent. They looked good. They reflected their times. They had sex appeal.

But, to be truthful, their material wasn't very challenging. Add to that the fact that what we heard on the radio were the very best takes of what were probably lengthy recording sessions, backed up by talented studio musicians and equally talented recording engineers.

In live performances back in the day, it wasn't their musical ability that attracted audiences of screaming teenage girls. It was the fact that they were, momentarily, rock and roll "stars."

More like shooting stars, really. They shone brightly, and then faded and fell to earth.

PBS television taped the concert back in April for one of its endless series of fundraisers aimed at us old folks who used to be young in the 1960s and now have enough money to help support public television.

Most of those programs leave me feeling cheated. But idiot that I am, I TiVo-ed this one anyway, thinking it might be worth seeing. It was a two-hour program. By the time I skipped the pledge breaks and the parts that were just plain lame, it took me about 20 minutes to watch.

I interviewed Bobby Rydell back in 1968 when he was on a USO tour of Germany and appeared at the NCO Club at Spangdahlem Air Base. As we were setting up the camera and chatting with him, one of the crew asked him how he liked being a superstar.

"I'm just a guy from Philly who got lucky," he said. "Please don't call me a superstar."

He was right. And all these years later, I still respect him for saying it.

How to beat the heat

The weather here in Richmond this summer has been brutal -- not all of the time, but often enough.

The end is near -- the end of summer, I mean, not that other end.

The heat and humidity today prompted me to prowl around the Internets looking for suggestions on how to stay cool. I made a list, and threw in a few of my own suggestions, too.

Here's the list, in no particular order.

Store your underwear in the freezer. Wear only frozen underwear, nothing else at all, when you are home alone.

Keep your curtains and blinds closed. (In addition to keeping out the heat, this keeps the neighbors from seeing you in your frozen underwear.)

Place a shallow bowl of ice in front of a fan and enjoy the breeze.

Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Then drink lots of water.

Take a tip from my cat: Sit quietly and do nothing.

Open the fridge door. Stand in front of it.

Eat a cold watermelon.

Turn on the lawn sprinkler. Walk through the spray.

Cook with your microwave instead of your stove.

Read "White Fang" or watch "March of the Penguins."

Go to the park. Buy a Sno-Ball.

Move v-e-r-y slowly if at all.

Go to a movie theater.

Take a cold shower. Stay naked for a while afterwards.

Do not wear a tie.

Fill a plastic baby pool with fresh water. Put it under a shade tree. Lie down in it.

Tie a cold cloth around your neck.

Wet your hair.

Eat something spicy hot. It can cause an endorphin rush that is quite pleasant and might make you forget the heat.

Lie down on the floor. It's the coolest part of the house, unless you have a basement. If you do have a basement, spend some time down there.

Turn off the lights. The bulbs produce heat.

Slice a thin piece of cold cucumber (from the fridge) and stick it in the middle of your forehead.

Do not try to fan yourself. It just makes you hotter.

Do not drink coffee, tea or beer. They make you pee, which dehydrates you.

Sleep naked.

My 99-cent stick

It began life as a 99-cent stick that I found in a cardboard box at the grocery store about 10 years ago.

It didn't look like much, just a foot-long dry twig with bare roots. The hand-written sign on the box said "Crape Myrtles -- 99 cents."

I figured, what the heck. How wrong can I go for 99 cents?

So I added it to my cart.

My mother had always told me that the right time to buy any sort of flowering bush was when it was in bloom, so that I could see exactly what color it would be. (This was of prime importance to her because she had once bought an azalea, not in bloom, that was labeled "Hershey Red" to replace one that had died in a row of Hershey Red azaleas along the front of the house. It turned out to be the wrong shade of red. She never got over it.)

I had always followed her advice in this regard. But I took a chance on the crape myrtle stick.

I was surprised when it flourished. It grew about a foot the first year. Then it began to really shoot up, and by the third year it started producing blossoms.

I was surprised again. I had never seen a crape myrtle with blooms like this. Each tiny blossom was bright pink in the center and white at the edges. The effect was like the colors in a Christmas candy cane. Today, it's about 15 feet tall and produces a profusion of blossoms.

Crape myrtles are ubiquitous in Richmond. I have about a half-dozen mature crape myrtles in my yard -- lavender, pink, red and burgundy. (I despise white crape myrtles and azaleas; when the blooms begin to die they look like discarded Kleenex.)

I asked around among my friends. Nobody had ever seen a red and white crape myrtle. I began to pay close attention to crape myrtle trees in my summertime travels. Nope, no red and white crape myrtles. So far, I've never seen another one like mine.

Finally I Googled crape myrtle varieties. There on the Texas AgriLife Extension Service site, run by Texas A&M University, I found a picture of a crape myrtle like mine. Appropriately enough, it's called Peppermint Lace.

You can buy a Peppermint Lace crape myrtle on Amazon and other sites.

They cost about six times more than I paid for my bare-root stick.