We weathered the storm pretty well here at Joe's Pond, but all around us there have been trees down, power outages and severe flooding. We had made plans earlier in the week to go to a Howard Coffin lecture at the Highland Arts Center in Greensboro tonight, but when we saw the noontime news, we wondered if it would be cancelled. We called

 and found out their power was out but they had generators, so the program was going on as scheduled. We later found out from people at the Arts Center that the electricity was off because a big transformer had blown and they said it would take some time to fix it. There had been no power in the Greensboro area since around 2 o'clock this afternoon.

We had reservations at the cafe to have a bite to eat before the program - and that worked out well except they had a very limited menu because of the power outage. We arrived at 5:30 and the place was literally filled with people. The lobby was very busy and the restaurant stayed full all the time we were there. The food was delicious, and although we couldn't get coffee or tea (some appliances were not on the generator) we had generous turkey sandwiches and salads, settled for milk and even had dessert. Soooo good!

We left the cafe and went in for the lecture about fifteen minutes before it was scheduled to begin and found it was already nearly filled. They had to set up three or four extra rows of seats and even set extra chairs in the aisles. We were amazed at the number of people there. One woman told me, "People don't have electricity at home, and there's no TV, so the came here!" I don't know - perhaps she was right. I like to think those people would have come even if they had power at home.

About half way through the program, the lights all went out except for dim emergency lights. Everyone remained absolutely quiet and one of the staff scurried up to Howard with a light so he could read his script. Just as he was about to resume his talk, the lights all came back on - not just the few the generator had supported, but ALL the lights, everywhere. The lobby was brightly lit, the grounds outside, the parking lot - everything was back on!

The evening ended on a high note with Howard Coffin getting a resounding ovation. He is very interesting and had done his homework for the presentation. We have enjoyed his Civil War presentations, but this one, "1800 and Froze to Death," was interesting, as well. It was mainly about the "year of no summer" in 1816, but he intertwined some of his own childhood experiences and family stories - and he has a great sense of humor.

We've heard a number of the Vermont Humanities Council presentations, and they never fail to be interesting.

We didn't know whether we'd have power or not when we got home tonight. The electricity has been off a dozen time during the day today - never for more than a few minutes, and mostly a matter of only a minute or two - just enough so we had to reset digital clocks and the microwave, etc. And every time it came back on, our smoke detectors chirped loudly. I'll never get used to that, even though I know it's going to happen. I didn't work on my computer much today because I don't like the stops and starts when I'm working. It's very irritating and happened so often when I was checking my email this morning, I finally gave up and decided to do other stuff until things settled down. Tomorrow I'll make up for the lost day today.