Four of the Most Important Lessons in Life

In the late 1960s/early 1970s, I lived in the state of North Carolina with my first husband. We lived near the teaming metropolis of Kings Mountain, North Carolina which I knew for certain was a very different place from California (where I grew up) when the ice storm hit. (They call it "freezing rain" back there.)

For those of you who have never witnessed it, freezing rain precipitates in liquid form and then freezes as soon as it touches the ground -- or any other object it encounters on the way down.

There is an extremely surreal quality to the landscape after an ice storm. Every tree, every branch, every twig and leaf -- even the tiniest blade of grass -- is coated with a thick, crystalline glaze of clear, sparkling ice. It looks like someone poured clear, molten glass over everything in sight. Light reflects from every surface and tiny detail, transforming the scene into a sparkling, magical-looking, wintery fairyland.

There's one big problem with freezing rain, though; while it's making a storybook picture out of your neighborhood, it's also coating all the streets, sidewalks, steps, walkways and power lines with thick slabs of heavy, slippery ice. The electricity and telephone lines become so heavily laden with ice, the power poles snap and fall down like Popsicle sticks -- after which the phone and electricity services are nonexistent for quite some time.

Oh, and there's one other bad thing about freezing rain: It's freezing COLD. It's cold like you never felt cold. It's the kind of cold that -- no matter how many layers of clothing you put on -- cuts right into your bones.

When I lived in North Carolina with my (long-ago ex) husband, we set-up residence in a tiny, single-wide trailer in a little mobile home park -- way up in the mountains in the middle of NOWHERE --where my ex worked days at the local "mica mine".

One day, when my husband was off at work, an ice storm hit. Predictably, the ice brought the power lines down right away and, because we relied solely upon electricity for heating and cooking in our little trailer, within an hour or so, the temperature inside started dropping like Evil Knievel over the Snake River. . .

I had, at the time, only one good, heavy coat -- a faux fur -- and, as the temperature inside the trailer plunged, I was forced to put it on (along with just about every OTHER piece of clothing that I owned) in an vain attempt to keep warm.

Not only that -- the only groceries we had to eat in the house were dried pinto beans but, it really didn't matter that we didn't have any heat source over which to COOK the beans -- because there wasn't any water coming out of the frozen water pipes, anyhow.

So -- freezing and hungry -- I thought I'd smoke a cigarette to get my mind off my troubles. That's when I discovered that my lighter was out of fluid. I searched the house from top to bottom for anything that I might be able use to make a flame but, came up empty-handed. (For smokers, having plenty of cigarettes with no way to light one is torture second only to the artful application of bamboo splinters under the fingernails.)

Being the dedicated "nico-phile" that I am, I decided to walk the three or so miles to the nearest Mom & Pop grocery store to secure a book of matches. So, I put my boots on; however, when I tried to open the trailer door -- to my horror -- I discovered the outside of the trailer was covered with a layer of ice so thick that I couldn't force the door open no matter how hard I tried!

I checked the back door and discovered that it, too, was frozen shut.

I tried kicking each of the doors, first with one foot, then -- by sitting on the floor -- using both feet. Nothing. . . Then, I tried ramming into the door with my shoulder. No good. . . I even tried getting a good running start and slamming my entire body into the door -- full force. (Whereupon I quickly discovered that one simply can't GET a "good running start" in a single-wide trailer.)

 Still, neither of the doors budged even as much as a centimeter. . .

Later that day -- quite by accident -- I discovered that one of the electrical outlets in the dining area had juice and actually worked when no other outlet or light in the whole trailer did! I was convinced that this was a somewhat "miraculous" turn of events, that is, until I later discovered that an old storage battery was the mysterious source of the plug's power.

Evidently, the battery was the trailer's last remaining tie to the glories of its former life as a "fifth wheel" -- bouncing merrily along behind some pick-up truck as it sped down the open roads of America (in search of a warmer climate than that of Kings Mountain, North Carolina, I have no doubt).

Anyway, this fortuitous discovery sent me off on a lengthy quest as I searched the trailer from stem to stern for something that I could plug into the socket that might be capable of generating enough heat to light my cigarette but, like the much sought-after prize of the Knights Templar, my own personal "grail" was damningly elusive. I found no toaster, no hotplate -- nothing.

Until, that is, I happened upon an iron. (Yes, I mean a clothes iron, Mr. and Mrs. Smartypants. . . Hey, if you're so smart, where were you with a book of matches when I needed it?)

Congratulating myself upon this discovery, I felt certain that the iron was going to be -- not only the means by which I would finally get that nicotine fix that I'd been craving for HOURS -- but, I felt certain that it would also prove to be a potential source of heat (however meager) with which I might also warm my hands (however slightly). Because, you see, by that time, I was beginning to feel as though I was trapped inside some "I Love Lucy ala Twilight Zone" meat locker in some parallel universe.

I eagerly plugged the iron in, put it on the "Cotton/Linen" setting, sat down at the kitchen table and waited with anticipation for it to heat up.

As I was about to discover first-hand -- much to my frustration and as you are probably well aware  (oh, sure . . . NOW you tell me. . . the world is just chalked full of Monday-morning quarterbacks, isn't it?) -- an iron is simply not capable of generating sufficient heat with which to light a cigarette. (Although, I must admit that it does do quite a nice job of pressing the end neatly flat; however, the reason why anyone would want to do that escapes me. . .)

When my husband came home from work that evening, he borrowed a crow bar from a neighbor and was able (after about 20 minutes) to chip his way through the layers of ice enough to get one of the trailer doors open.

For years afterward, until I filed (quite justifiably, I feel) for divorce, my ex-husband loved to tell the story of the ice storm, the iron, the cigarette and me to anyone (and everyone) who would listen. And when he told it (as he did -- OFTEN. . .), the end went something like this:

. . .When I was finally able to get the door open, there she was -- hunched over the dining table in that fur coat -- wearing every stitch of clothes she owned and still trying to light a cigarette off the iron. . .

Each time that my (deservedly, I feel) ex-husband told that little story, he'd wind up laughing so hard that tears would roll down his cheeks.

As for me, if that experience taught me nothing else, I did learn from it four very profound truths:

1. Everybody's a critic.

2. There is NEVER a book of matches around when you need one.

3. You can't GET a good "running start" in a single-wide trailer.

And, most importantly,

4. You simply CANNOT light a cigarette with an iron (EVEN on the "Cotton/Linen" setting). . .