{"id":2974,"date":"2022-04-02T00:05:01","date_gmt":"2022-04-02T04:05:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/?p=2974"},"modified":"2022-12-01T09:37:04","modified_gmt":"2022-12-01T14:37:04","slug":"b-blackout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/?p=2974","title":{"rendered":"B: Blackout"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Blackout – 1965<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

October 1, 1965<\/span><\/p>\n

Dear Jeffrey,<\/span><\/p>\n

I was given your name and address as part of an assignment by Miss Gersch my English teacher. Everyone in our class had to pick a name out of a box and write to that person and become a pen pal. You could trade your card with someone else if you wanted to. Your card said that you were interested in sports and science. That sounded like a good match for me, so I\u2019m writing this letter to you. I\u2019m into some sports, mostly baseball and ice hockey. My father was a big soccer fan. He played for one of the German national teams before World War II. He and my mom both came from Germany. Since we are Jewish, it wasn\u2019t a good place to be in the 1930s. I have two older sisters Marion and Leslie that are 8 and 5 years older than me. I like science also, especially when doing experiments.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m writing this letter during our 7th-period 10th grade English class. Miss Gersch said that she will mail the letters this time, but from now on any writing between the two of us, we have to pay for.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I hope to hear from you soon.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Your penpal,<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Harvey<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

—-<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

November 9, 1965<\/span><\/p>\n

Dear Jeffrey,<\/span><\/p>\n

Thanks for your last letter. You seem to be very busy with extracurricular activities in your school. I don\u2019t do any yet. I\u2019m thinking about maybe trying out for the school newspaper. Soccer didn\u2019t work out for me. Too many of the other players knew too much about playing on soccer teams and made fun of the fact that I didn\u2019t know much at all. I was too intimidated to go back a second time. <\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure if this is happening to you, but on my way walking home today I noticed that none of the traffic lights were on. When I got home the elevator in our apartment building didn\u2019t work either. I only live on the second floor. It wasn\u2019t hard to walk up the stairs to get to our apartment. It turns out that nothing worked, power is out in the whole city.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a problem now since there is still some daylight outside, but if we don\u2019t get power back soon, I\u2019m not sure how the night will turn out. We don\u2019t have many candles in our house and though I tried our flashlight and it’s working okay, I don\u2019t think we have any spare batteries if the batteries die.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Cooking meals should be okay since we have a gas oven and water is flowing well. I hope the blackout lasts a while, this could be fun and with no power, they\u2019ll probably have to cancel school tomorrow. I wouldn\u2019t mind that at all.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Let me know if you\u2019re affected by this blackout. I\u2019ll mail this out tomorrow.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Your penpal,<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Harvey<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

p.s. November 10 – It turns out the blackout lasted only 10 hours, but it was more than just where I live. The radio said that they are calling this the Great Northeast Blackout since it affected so many states. Hope it didn\u2019t affect you. Unfortunately, the power was back before school started, so school wasn\u2019t canceled.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Your penpal,<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Harvey<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

—-<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

November 20, 1965<\/span><\/p>\n

Dear Jeffrey,<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m glad you wrote back to me quickly. Your family sure had more problems than mine had with that blackout. I feel bad that your father was stuck in the subway, underground for so long. I would have been pretty scared. My parents don\u2019t drive at all, so they have to rely on subways and buses all the time. My mom\u2019s job is within walking distance of our apartment building. My dad does take the subway but got home okay when the blackout hit.\u00a0 I guess we both learned how important having more candles and batteries in our houses is.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I hope we don\u2019t have to deal with this kind of blackout again. Of course with enough batteries and flashlights and possibly no school, it might still be fun. At least for us.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Till next time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Your penpal,<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Harvey<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To be continued in D – Deep Snow – 1969<\/a><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Feel free to add your thoughts in the comment section, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

if you were around during the Great Northeast Blackout. I\u2019d love to hear them.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blackout – 1965 October 1, 1965 Dear Jeffrey, I was given your name and address as part of an assignment by Miss Gersch my English teacher. Everyone in our class had to pick a name out of a box and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[354,4,9,7],"tags":[368,369],"class_list":["post-2974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-to-z-blog-challenge-2022","category-original-stories","category-personal-stories","category-story-writing","tag-a-to-z-blog-challenge-2022","tag-blackout-1965"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2974"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3004,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2974\/revisions\/3004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}