Lights Out, Paul Gruchow Essay Contest Winner 2006

Lights out

         Sunday evening, May 9, 2004, a rare occurrence happened on the lake. I write this tale longhand with only the flickering flame of candlelight to guide my pen. A computer is useless without electricity.

A few hours before, I was standing in the backyard watching a thunderstorm descend on the area. A tornado north of here briefly touched down before retreating back into the blackened sky that spawned it.

Suddenly, a massive lightning bolt struck in the south, snuffing out the street lights in the blink of an eye. Immediately, the house lights went out, the fridge shut down and the television set blinked to black. Then, a great silence descended.

And in that silence and darkness was an opportunity. By the single stroke of a lightning bolt, the city was taken back a hundred years in terms of technology. People all over the city were pulling out candles and lighting them. They left their houses and sat on their lawns. A century ago, before electric lights and television, that’s what people did — they sat outside, talked to their neighbors and took in the fresh evening air.

In that blackened sky, I realized, was a rare opportunity to experience the great lake as it had been at night for most of its 10,000-year history – completely dark. I could not resist seeing the lake as it would have been a century ago, sans Mr. Edison’s electric lights, without the drone of television sets and radios – enveloped in total darkness and near silence.

In the 1800s, the only light for those living on the lake would have come from the stars above or a glimmering full moon, from a half-concealed Dakota campfire on Manitou Island or a scattering of fireflies searching for mates on a calm summer night. It was a much different world back then, and in some ways, a better one.

Fearing the city’s artificial lights would come back on any minute, I hurriedly put on a hat and jacket and climbed aboard the bicycle to race into the great blackness. I quickly peddled over to the lake for a glimpse of the past.

It was odd crossing Highway 61, which is usually abuzz with traffic, lights and noise, to find the great modern artery subdued and relatively quiet. All was dark, and the few cars on the move that evening were going at an unusually slow, cautious speed. But once I made the lake, just 4 blocks from home, even the dim light of those passing headlights faded into glorious, primitive darkness.

In a few places, I could see pale candlelight flickering through the windows of the grand homes that line Lake Street. Few people were still up, for by now it was after 9 p.m. Already the petroleum-like scent of burning wax could be detected mixing with the cool, night air and the sweet perfume of purple lilac and apple blossom.

         The wide expanse of the lake was black and brooding, as if abandoned and alone. Were it not true. Oh to have seen it in such a time and place, primordial. Even Manitou Island betrayed not a shaft of the artificial light that usually beams through its tall maples.

         Only the chorus of mating frogs in Matoska Marsh broke the stillness. In the distance, far to the south, the storm raged on. Flashes from frequent lightning bolts diffused into a low cloudbank overhead, creating a fleeting dome of light miles across the southern sky. The frogs were undisturbed by the fireworks. They’re used to such accompaniment. (check here if you’ve heard frogs calling___)

         For a time, I felt transported to the far north of Minnesota where darkness still rules the night, where man’s lights do not spoil the virgin, wild sky. For a time, the calling of ducks and geese far out on the marsh sounded just a bit wilder and the south wind off the lake a bit freer. Lights out on White Bear Lake, I think I could get used to it.