During Joe Biden’s disastrous four years as acting President, ruled by puppet masters, we witnessed massive airline transportation boondoggles; toxic train derailments, a curious string of facility-destroying fires at large-scale food processing plants, nationwide baby formula shortages, blatant crime sprees in all major Democrat-run cities, 10+ million illegal aliens flooding our borders, and free healthcare and relocation for such illegals.
We also witnessed major military bungles in Afghanistan and elsewhere, military wonkiness over defense preparedness, nuclear weapons brinkmanship, out-of-control funding for Ukraine, a major Middle East flare-up, a plethora of Chinese spy balloons traversing the U.S., intensified weaponization of the DOJ and the FBI, the persecution of political enemies, runaway inflation, and depletion of our strategic energy reserves, not to mention so much more that was totally undesirable.
As happened in über-progressive California, when an epic heat wave in the summer of 2022 nearly brought the state’s power grid perilously close to collapsing, it was only natural to contemplate, among endless ‘progressive’ blunders, when would major components of the national electrical system fail?
Actor Dennis Quaid produced a documentary showing how everything from terrorist or anarchist attacks on power stations, to weaponized Chinese balloons, to atmospheric anomalies, to overgrown tree limbs could revert us to the 1880s with implications far more severe than the height of COVID. All of which reminds me of November 1965.
Déjà Vu All Over Again
One afternoon after school, I accompanied my father, a vice principal in Hartford, CT, who served as head lifeguard at an indoor pool. It was totally cool for me to have the run of the pool as I so often did.
I was in the lifeguard office playing around with the lights a few minutes before half past five, while my father was watching the pool several dozen yards around the corner. One of my juvenile games back then was to flip the lights on and off so quickly that no one in the pool could tell that anyone had tampered with the lights.
My father was a sharp cookie; however, he called out from afar, “Jeff, stop playing with the lights,” and I did at once.
Now, the Real Fun
No more than 60 seconds later, the lights went off in the entire pool area and only one small light from an independent power generator was illuminated. My father spoke up again, “I told you to stop playing with the lights.” I came out of the office door and looked down the length of the pool. I said, “It wasn’t me.”
We looked outside at the parking lot and saw that no lights were on. I opened the door and looked at the rest of the facilities, and all of the lights were off except for some small lights, once again, powered by emergency generators.
The lights remained off for several more minutes, and my father had no choice but to close the pool. We found some flashlights and ushered swimmers into the locker rooms. Other staff from around the center assisted people in gathering up their belongings and exiting the building.
'A Dark and Dreary Night'
On the drive home, we noticed that all streetlights in West Hartford and Bloomfield, and all lights that we normally would see from houses along our route, were also off. The car radio was working, and we learned from a local station that the entire metro area, and perhaps the whole region, had no electricity.
As we arrived home, we heard a newscast: the entire Northeast had gone dark. Later, it was determined that the electrical failure was due to an over-extended, protective relay device near Niagara Falls in New York; in other words, nowhere near us! This was the Great Northeast Blackout of 1965 — a U.S. first-time event, and it was stunning. Until then, flipping on the light switch always resulted in your lights coming on.
During the blackout, families retrieved flashlights, candles, and transistor radios. They made their homes as comfortable as possible. It wasn’t too cold that November evening, so most places in our geographic region were okay.
With no television, people listened to the radio, took walks, or camped around the kitchen table and devoured what they could before their food spoiled.
Larger Forces at Play
Today, I remember my father directing me for a second time not to play with the lights when, indeed, larger forces were at play!
How long before the electrical grids in some parts of the country (hint: blue states) go haywire? If Kamala Harris had been elected, given the Biden administration’s ineptitude, and assessing that she wouldn’t change a thing that their Administration did, it was only a matter of time.
In California, today, such issues are ever-present. With the Trump administration’s approach to energy management and protecting the national power grid, when you flip on the light switch, guess what? The lights go on. Just in case, buy a lot of candles right before the midterm elections in case the wrong people get into office, and before the November 7, 2028 presidential election; it’s difficult to read in the dark.
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