January brings cold wind and tall tales
BUG GUTS & BEAUTY
Welcome to the new year. Contrary to the hyperbolic gesticulations and bombastic wordings of a the weather prognosticator, this is a relatively warm beginning to January.
Those who have grown old in this climate know that it is not a time to wear bikinis or forget the batteries in our electric underwear. Just trying to find a long enough extension cord is exhausting. It’s cold. Further injuring our pride are the hours of brilliant sunshine that heats nothing. Welcome January! Named for a two-faced god looking forward and back it is one of those mercurial months that is better off being sold at Marden’s.
It is a new year. Changes are coming and hard hats will be useful. Knocking the local electric company is high sport at this time of the year. After a few weeks of glorious decorative lights most are now presented with the bill. Thankfully the air is so cold that the swear words directed to the electric company are frozen. Management assures us that they will get to our issues in a timely fashion. 1972 was a very cold year and the single burner on the camp stove is wheezing on vapors. It will melt those words soon enough.
Parents and grandparents, of course, have stories of walking five miles to school in the winter. The uphill slog went both ways and was accomplished with a 50 mile per hour wind playing with their scarves. The tales get longer with the telling.
This observation no longer holds true though. Progress is now here and expanding. Thanks to a bit of simple technology it is now possible to get something back from the electric company. It can be done while napping in the window with the cat: Solar cells. These devices, once the domain of space ships and over-excited juvenile imaginations are now available for the average consumer. Those dreams of sticking it to the purveyors of power are coming true. For a small investment free solar power can keep the lights on and be sold to the power company. That’s right, selling electricity to the power company, a dream shared by every cold family in The County.
The possibility is new and the idea is old. Impressively, it is the mother of five who said, “Enough!” Mom has seen a few years and finally took the plunge. Solar cells are now up and contributing to the grid. Photons a floating all around us. On a sunny day they are in abundant supply. With the philosophy of flowers are weeds that work for their food one grandmother is making certain that the leash on the power company is kept short. If grandma can sock it to the power company can the rest of us be far behind? Science fiction has come to The County and it is now reality. Turn on the lights and pay up. The clear blue skies are truly a valuable asset for Aroostook County. Happy New Year!
Orpheus Allison is a photojournalist living in the County. He began his journalism career at WAGM television later working in many different areas of the US. After twenty years of television he changed careers and taught in China and Korea. Graduating from UMPI he earned a master of liberal arts degree from the University of North Carolina.
