It has been several months since my last article for The Tribune, but circumstances on Sunday, Dec. 12, compelled me to go to the keyboard again.

At approximately 10:20 a.m., the electricity went off.

After waiting for its return to service several hours, my wife called to assess the situation. She was told service would return around 1:30 p.m. At 2 p.m. she made a second call and was told service would resume at 2:30 p.m. A third call at 3 p.m. received a 3:30 p.m. return of electricity.

We ordered a pizza and ate in workout clothes with blankets on our laps. The temperature in our house had dropped from 72 to 64 degrees.

I was beginning to think of darkness, no electric, and the prospect of opening the taps on all my water lines in hope they would not freeze. This would have made for one huge January water bill.

At around 4:45 p.m., Gail made one last call to AEP. She was told service would resume around 7 p.m. She had no more than hung up the phone than lights in the dining room lit up, the furnace kicked on, and the darn answering machine clock began to blink on and off. What a relief!

And what a relief that while we were toughing it out inside the house with 64 degree temperatures, the employees of AEP were outside in the freezing cold, working to rectify the electric outage for six hours plus. It is often easy to forget what others, in this instance AEP, do to make life comfortable for the rest of us. A big thanks to AEP for getting the electric outage fixed and fixed correctly.

We should keep in mind what others, such as your water department, will be doing, when water lines break (and they will) due to extreme cold.

Working outside in freezing conditions is no picnic.

The employees for water departments, however, will brave frigid elements to put water back in service for those of us sitting in warm homes.

So also will other utilities such as gas and cable TV. Thanks to all of you.

As I concluded this article, I couldn’t help but wonder if power outages, rolling blackouts, or even complete shutdowns are in our near future.

Our elected congress continues to spend as if there is no tomorrow. We keep hearing from both sides that they have heard voters in recent elections and finally are getting it — quit borrowing and spending.

Yet, we always see an elected official on television with a D or R or even I after his or her name giving us the same old message: “We have to stop spending the USA into oblivion, but not with this bill, it is the exception.”

It seems to me that we have been living with these exceptions for longer than anyone cares for.

I hope we don’t wake up one morning soon to find that congress has over spent one time too often.

Mike Nourse is a retired educator. He lives in Coal Grove with his wife Clara Gail, also a retired educator.