drama in suburbia

THE POWER PROBLEM
it all started about two weeks ago when we got a flyer in our mailbox announcing our neighborhood’s upcoming meeting with an xcel energy representative. the flyer went on to say that xcel expects each area to have no more than 3 power outages per year, while our neighborhood exceeds that limit by two to three dozen. the flyer stated that our situation was “unacceptable” and that it was very important that there be a representative from every household at the meeting.
ben, my dad, and i were all interested in how things would turn out, so all three of us went to the meeting. i guess you could say we represented our block; we have elderly neighbors on either side, none of which could attend the meeting. our family is used to outages. when we hear there’s a storm coming, we get the candles out. it’s routine. last year we bought a small generator to run the freezer and sump pump because our basement was flooding so often. but these sorts of things are bound to happen when you live on a swamp and your power lines run through bredesen park.
the meeting got off to a rocky start. they decided to begin by having an engineer explain how the power gets from xcel to our neighborhood. after two minutes, a woman in the back yelled, “sorry to be blunt, but….we don’t really care. tell us how you’re going to solve this problem.” many agreed, but someone said to let the man speak, so he continued. i really enjoyed the little lesson. i think it was necessary to understand how the power works to understand why it’s such a problem where we live. basically, we’re at the end of the line. the power goes all the way down tracy to vernon, down vernon to olinger, and from olinger up through the backyards to arbour. the family living across the street from us get their power right from tracy–they lose power once or twice a year, tops.
during the meeting, my brother, dad, and i realized that you can hardly compare our situation to anyone who lives on olinger circle. they lose power for three or four days at a time (as opposed to 20 hours or so for us). most of them have lost a great deal of time and money cleaning up flooded basements and throwing away spoiled food. i understand their frustration; still, i think some of their comments were a bit ridiculous. for example, one frustrated customer stated, “my goodness, it feels like we’re living in a third world country!”
i guess the reaction was what really got me. instead of snickering and eyes opening wide, almost everyone in the room nodded and made some sort of verbal agreement. three cell phones and much arguing later, the xcel energy representatives proposed their plan: to move up next year’s tree trimming to this month and put our neighborhood on a two or three year trimming cycle rather than the four year cycle we’re currently on. many customers left angry. a lot of them refused to believe that the trees were the problem and said they wouldn’t be satisfied until everything–the lines, poles, transformers, etc–were replaced with brand new ones. unlikely. others, when asked what should be done instead of trimming the trees, just yelled, “SOLVE THE PROBLEM!”
the tree trimming is scheduled to start july 28th. there will be a follow-up meeting sometime thereafter. it’s hard to capture the silliness of it all right now, but perhaps i’ll tape the next meeting….it was like an old school town hall meeting. i don’t know how else to describe it. senseless bickering. they do what they can.
THE MILK DILEMNA
our milkman went on strike. well, he did along with all the other meyer bros. dairy truck drivers. the company that recently bought meyer brothers renegotiated the drivers’ contracts, removing the retirement plan agreement and decreasing benefits and wages. our driver is a good friend of the family. he comes by every year before school starts to chat. we make him cookies and leave them by the fridge. he comes twice a week in the wee hours of the morning, so we don’t usually get to see him. when i was little he’d come at 7:30am, so we’d all get to fool around for awhile before school. i remember this one time he tried to stuff me in the mailbox and then pretended that he was going to take me with him in his truck. he’s fun. anyway….the drivers went around to their customers and asked them to stop buying meyer bros. milk until the regular drivers are back to put pressure on the company. we agreed….after all, johnnie had been delivering our milk for more than 10 years.
the decision had consequences. that night, ben, josie, and i went to two grocery stores to buy four different kinds of milk: kemps in a carton, kemps in a jug, land o lakes in a carton, and byerly’s “in the dark” (that means an opaque jug). when we got home, we had a taste test. we liked byerly’s the best, but none of them compared to meyer bros.–like i said, we’re serious about our milk.
johnnie called today to let us know that the strike is over. he’ll be back at our house tomorrow. my nanny kids, who have heard the story, wanted to throw a party. i laughed, then informed them that johnnie comes at 4 in the morning. instead, we made some bars and a welcome back sign.
such drama.
drama in suburbia.