They mumbled something about how breaker 55 was the weakest link, and that it most likely was causing the outage. Mind you, they weren’t there just to throw a switch and presto, power. Electricity is not a given. It comes from machines conceived, built and operated by man. The men had already been to my location once, and the solution was not readily obvious. These two unassuming men, their faces numb with cold, on a shift not measured in hours but in days, had to reason their way to a solution  and indeed they did.

I don’t know if it was breaker 55, or 57, or 155, but I know that when my heater kicked on in my house, and I put down my flashlight and unwound the scarf from around my neck, these two men on this day were not ordinary men  they were heroes.

Gosh, we seem to complain a lot about this and that, but really, we are such a fortunate lot. Here’s to man’s mind and all it has created, and cheers to these two nameless men, like the millions of men and women all over the world who spend a good portion of their day  and lives  just doing their job.

Michael Beers,

Lawrence