10 Minute Pioneers

Our neighborhood had a little power outage the other day.  It lasted all day.  Actually, all night too.  And my guess would be that if you asked any of our kids or any of their friends who were at our house during the whole ordeal, they would probably not call 12 hours without power a "little" outage.

Long ago Mark and I used to live on a ranch way out of town and back in those days, the first snowfall often brought several feet of heavy snow and along with it, a power outage that would last days and sometimes an entire week.  So a half a day without power is hardly noticeable.  We quickly learned how to prepare for any power outage in grand style.

Now that we live right outside the city limits and power outages are rare, we're a bit out of practice but nonetheless prepared with all our old stuff.  No sooner does the power go out, everyone in the Skillman household quickly springs into action.  We head directly to the flashlight cupboard and take out a battery operated lantern.  With that, we then head to our pantry and set flame to our plethora of kerosene lanterns and then go out to the garage and get "The Box".  Within minutes you can hardly tell there's been an electrical interruption.  And soon neighbors begin to call wondering why our house is so full of lights and why our power isn't out like everyone else's.

During our latest outage, the boys got all excited and prepared to brave an evening without things that plug in.  This time, Connor's friend Severin was over and he couldn't have been more ecstatic.  He pronounced with giddy excitement that he loved power outages because he always wanted to be a pioneer.

They all began to make plans on how much fun they were about to have braving a black-out; read some books, pitch a tent indoors, cook on the BBQ...But after about ten minutes Severin is wondering if the phone works so he can call home and see if the power's out at his house too.  He's decided if it isn't, he just might want to go home, taking Connor with him, so they can resume gaming.

Mitchell checked the phones, then suddenly he gets an idea and heads strait for the garage to rummage more thoroughly through "The Box".  Soon, he comes back with a hand-crankable TV that could have only of come from some sort of Armageddon catalog.  Mitch winds the thing up and a smile spreads across the faces of all my stalwart pioneers.

Soon, the kids (including Mark) abandon their frontier fantasies and gather around the TV set...happy to be spared from an annoying lack of power.

Apparently, pioneering had lost its pizzaz...