Lucky Man

[The Grumpy Celt]

I am a lucky man.

I am have been a deeply cynical – even pessimistic – man for as long as I can remember. Life is generally hard and ugly and I have never felt an urge to lie to myself or others about this fact. However, the older I become, the more inclined I am not to share this perspective. My silence does not mean I have turned into an optimist. It just means by the time I reached 30 years of age I had finally realized the value of keeping my mouth shut on the nature of the world. And I certainly do not believe there is anything redemptive or ennobling about suffering.

I am a lucky man.

I currently live in Eclectic, Alabama. This a town of about 1,100 people located north east of Montgomery, Alabama. This is the buckle of the Bible Belt and I am at best agnostic. If there is a bright center of civilization, this town is a long ways from it.

I am a lucky man.

Montgomery and Eclectic were both in the path of hurricane Ivan. It rolled through here, slowly and dangerously, Thursday. My job is a reporter. So my job required me to get into the storm as it was happening, to cover the storm and how people – civilians and emergency workers – were responding to the situation. While doing this, roofing metal blew into my car, I got soaked to the bone, I operated in the dark all day long because the entire county had lost electricity, I ate only one meal during the day and got little sleep. The hurricane has also effect schedules at my office in such a way that I have had to reschedule my vacation, which was to start September 19, to start on Oct. 17.

I am a lucky man.

I lost electricity at my house early Thursday morning and it still has not been restored as of Sunday (Sept. 19) and likely will not be restored before Friday (Sept. 24). All the food in my refrigerator has gone bad and I more or less have to go to bed at dark because even with candles there is not enough light to read by and you can not exactly play a DVD player by lamp-light.

I am a lucky man.

I am lucky man because aside from the scuffing the paint of my car took, it is fine and still running. Even if I have not been able to vacuum, watch my newly purchased special edition of “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” and all my perishable food had perished, I am still lucky. I was not injured in the storm. Nor was my pet cat, Cotton – so called because he is totally white in color.

There a great many people on the Gulf Coast who have lost their homes, their cars and more. Compared to these people – people where the tide in now coming into their living rooms and their car is a mile or two south of the beach – my habitual flipping dead light switches is nothing. My soured milk is nothing compared to people’s whose homes are being shown on television.

I am a lucky man.

Several years ago I was between jobs and sulking. Then I watched CNN and saw a program about some village in Europe being shelled. I had an epiphany then and now a standard for whether or not you are having a bad day is if someone is shelling your village. If no one is throwing 500-pound rounds at the town where you are living – or if a Force 5 hurricane has not obliterated your neighborhood – then keep your complaints to your self.

I am at heart still a pessimist. I am inherently deeply skeptical of the human capacity for goodness.

But hurricanes and enemy forces are not laying siege to my home so I’m having a decent day.

 

[Richards]

So should we start calling you "The Lucky Celt?"

Johnathan

 

[Duncan Haldane]

I'm not generally a fan of "me too" type posts, but since there has only been one other reply I wanted to say that I appreciated reading this post, and congratulations on writing it.

I now have a new comparison for when people say "there is nothing worse than..."

Duncan

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

Hey, thanks for that post. I've needed a bit of perspective on things lately, and that was a bit of light in the dark. I appreciate it.

Rich

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

I've needed a bit of perspective on things lately, and that was a bit of light in the dark.

Thank you. A version of this is going to appear in the paper as my weekly column. And I got my power on ahead of schedule last night.

So should we start calling you "The Lucky Celt?"

No! Pbbbttt!

 

[atom crash]

I live in Birmingham, AL, which was also in the path of the storm. While I experienced little more than some heavy rainfall, many other people in this area lost power, had trees blown down in their yards, etc. Several members of my gaming group (including my girlfriend) are still without power. Yesterday I helped my brother and his family haul a tree that had toppled in their backyard out to the roadside. I'd say we all got off easy; we're all lucky.

My sister-in-law has elderly relatives in Pensacola, FL, which was hit badly by the storm. It certainly puts a new perspective on things when you consider that there are people on the Gulf Coast who are now without power and forced to stand in line for 6 hours as the National Guard hands out bags of ice, only to have them run out before you can get any.