Chilly, slippery adventures kill time without power, take us back to the olden days

My name is Lillie. My friend is Sue. She is visiting me from her home in Nebraska. We sat at the kitchen table, my friend and I, watching the afternoon slide by as its hours and minutes faded into nothing.

Like many others in the area, our electricity had been tangled by an angry wind crashing into cars, uprooting trees, smashing windows and roofs of wounded houses. Crews were working frantically to restore the power. We’d have to be patient.

Sue shrugged her shoulders. “I expected to do my laundry today. Maybe I should go down to the creek and scrub my clothes on a rock like they used to do i...