SoapZone Community Message Board

We mostly toughed it out. Dad was more comfortable with staying home and doing nothing than I was. I made two "power runs": one on Thursday night to McDonald's and one on Sunday afternoon to the library. Thursday, I bought a $1 pop and spent an hour charging my laptop and surfing the 'net. An elderly couple walked past me and saw the laptop plugged into the wall. The husband chuckled and said "no power, huh?". Sunday at the library, I had to charge both the laptop and the phone. The temperature actually didn't bother us last week. We're both used to a warmer temperature inside; most days, it didn't go much higher than 80°, and the nights were around the mid 60s and low humidity. I had no problem sleeping...which is good because as I got more and more tired of reading, I went to bed earlier and earlier. Saturday night, I was in bed by 9:45...I think the last time I felt OK but was in bed that early was elementary school <g>.

I am too. On the main road that our block is attached to, there's a house just two doors down that had a tree down on their car. And I've noticed a number of dwellings with tarp on their roofs, indicating there was some damage.

A really nice story...I can't remember which day it was (Thursday? Maybe Saturday? I worked the later shift on Friday, so I know that wasn't it) but one late afternoon, Dad and I were sitting outside chatting when a man in a professional truck pulled into the driveway. He was from one of the local roofing companies; I'm assuming he was driving around, looking for roofs to fix. He hopped out, walked up to us, introduced himself, handed me a folder with his card and some information, gave the company spiel and then told Dad he noticed we had a loose shingle and did we want him to go up on the roof and nail it back down? I was expecting Dad to say no; he's fiercely independent still and believes in doing as much as possible himself...and since the roof wasn't leaking or cracked or anything, I'm sure the loose shingle wasn't high on Dad's priority list. But Dad surprised me by telling the guy sure, go ahead. The man went to his truck, grabbed a ladder and his tool belt, scampered up to the roof, nailed down the shingle, spied another shingle loose at the back of the house, nailed that one down too, scampered back down...and told us to have a nice day. I was expecting him to charge us a couple bucks but no, he was either doing us a favor in hope of us calling him when the roof needs redoing (which it will at some point; the last time it was redone was 35 years ago) or else he was sympathetic to people with storm damage and was just being neighborly and helping out. Either way, I've been telling everyone the name of the business (Link Exteriors--they also do gutters, siding and windows) and telling everyone about this small act of kindness that had a big impact on Dad and me.