THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 11, 1996 TAG: 9602090227
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Ronald L. Speer
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
In a generation, most Americans seem to have forgotten the basic rules of survival.
Last week's snowstorm and punishing temperatures showed just how wimpy and forgetful most of us have become, even the offspring of the hardy farmers and watermen who civilized northeastern North Carolina.
I have to admit that I'm one of the forgetful wimps, even though I grew up in the blizzard country of Nebraska where a foot of snow and 20-below temperatures don't draw much attention.
My folks would have laughed at our storm, and so would the parents of coastal Carolina residents.
They were accustomed to tough times and had enough smarts to prepare for winter storms. Dad and Mom laid in supplies that would last them for weeks. Nothing fancy, mind you, but potatoes and onions and sugar and flour and canned meats and canned vegetables and canned fruit.
The flour and sugar came from the store. The rest of the stuff was put up in Mason jars by Mom, when the garden and wild bushes produced vegetables and fruit, or when Dad and the neighbors butchered cattle and hogs and chickens, or when pheasants and grouse were plentiful. They gathered huge stores of corn cobs and cow chips and logs (and bought coal if they could afford it) so they could keep the stoves fired up for weeks.
Neighbors who had running water buried the pipes deep in the ground, or covered them with a couple of feet of manure, which generated heat as it decomposed and kept frost away in the coldest of nights.
The women heated water on stove tops and kept the dishes and the clothes clean. The men bundled up and milked the cows and fed the cattle and the horses.
And the young ones went to school in the worst of the storms, because nobody had telephones to notify teachers and pupils that it was too nasty to hold classes.
And they managed to entertain and get to Mass and raise barns and do chores for ailing neighbors no matter the weather. And on the coldest of days they chopped down hollow trees marked in the summer and stole half the honey from docile wild bees.
I'm sure the past generation of folks on the Albemarle used the same survival tactics.
But last week showed that our folks' kids don't seem to have inherited even the foggiest of ideas of how to stay alive and have fun in nasty weather.
We've got a fireplace in our house, but I didn't think to take any wood inside, and a couple of days of soaking in rain and snow made it terribly difficult to light.
I've long known that a lightbulb will provide enough heat to keep pipes from freezing in the immediate area, but I didn't think to set one up. My water pump froze, and we were without running water for two days until I hired somebody to fix the problem I created.
Our electricity went off for two hours, and we couldn't see much because I hadn't laid in a decent light. Reading in front of the fireplace may have worked for Abe Lincoln, but it didn't do much for me.
And most people just huddled inside at home during the worst of the weather, with a couple of exceptions.
Linemen for North Carolina Power worked round the clock in terrible weather to keep most of us warm and well-lighted. And paper carriers such as Corrinna Estridge on Roanoke Island had the news on our doorstep before dawn when nobody else ventured out.
They and law officers were the heroes in a storm that had few heroes, since most of us just huddled up indoors except for regular runs to the grocery store to keep from starving.
Our little storm made most of us realize that although the good old days weren't so hot, Dad and Mom were something special. by CNB