This picture reminds me of the great blackout that happened in August 2003. Here is my entry for that date.
First Star Wish Poem
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Saturday, August 16, 2003: Third day of the black out.
Apparently 95% of the city is back on line. There are a few neighborhoods still
in the dark. No subways and no street cars. In NYC they already got the subways
back online. Here they say they have only about 95% of the power they need to
run the city and are prepared to switch sections of the Province off line if the
demand threatens to overload the system. Two nuclear plants are scheduled to
come on line Monday and apart from some ordinary fine tuning to the grid it
should be business as usual after that. The leaders of the places affected
(everywhere) have agreed they should probably figure out what happened and make
sure it doesn't happen a
gain.
My best memory of the lights being out is laying out in the grass in the little park at the end of our street. The stars were beautiful. the moon was beautiful and we fully understood why Mars was given the name "The Red Planet".
But that is not really the best part. As the sun was going down I kept promising to the boys that with the perfect weather conditions the stars should be spectacular after dark. I taught them the child's magical poem that was famous many years before Harry Potter's Mother was born.
Star light,
Star Bright
First star I see tonight
I wish I may
I wish I might
Have this wish
I wish tonight.
Well my kids proved to be slow learners and it took an hour before either of them could remember the little poem through to the end without coaching. But they finally got it. I saw the first star (and got my wish I might add). We agreed that First Star wishes are probably like Birthday Candle wishes in that they'd probably be stronger if done in secret.
But still that wasn't the best part of the blackout. The best part of the evening was much later after I almost forgot about the poem when little Joel quietly asked me in innocent honesty and supreme confidence, "Dad when you get your wish does the money show up under your pillow in the morning?" I don't really know the answer to that one but the prospect gave me a happy smile.
First Star.
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