After what one only could describe as a whirlwind vacation, I'm slowly trying to get back in the swing of things here at the office.
While a lot of folks in the Mid-Ohio Valley experienced some tough times because of last month's derecho, it's hard for me to imagine still being one of the few unlucky residents in the Mountain State without electricity.
Although going nearly a week without power was enough for me, I know a lot of people got it back a lot quicker and others have had to wait much, much longer.
Due to a variety of circumstances, including the derecho, I managed for a second straight year to not catch Albert Pujols of the Angels in action because we decided to nix the portion of vacation that included going to watch the Cleveland Indians play.
I can't say I'm bitter about how things turned out other than failing to recover the cost of some of the Indians tickets, but as it's been said a million times before that's how the cookie crumbles sometimes.
Even though I never had heard of the word derecho in my life before I took in the massive storm basically known as a land hurricane, I quickly learned what it was like to live during the gas shortage of the 1970s.
Never in my life did I think I'd be waiting on West Virginia 47 in a long line of cars at the Crossroads General Store hoping to get gas, but there I was the Saturday morning after the derecho waiting. Of course, they ended up running out of gas before I got to the pump.
However, my plight wasn't nearly as bad as many others.
One person was looking for gas to keep a generator running because their loved one had an electric hospital bed. One woman from Ohio was on her way to South Carolina for vacation and had been looking for gas since well north of Marietta.
The best "bad day" scenario on that Saturday morning was a small family I ran into who decided to drive up to the pump and be the first in line for when the next gas delivery came later that evening because once everyone knew the gas was dry they scattered like cockroaches when the lights are turned on.
The year before last they were going to Florida from Michigan but never made it out of Ohio because of vehicle problems. This year they were going to the beach and couldn't find gas. The funniest part was the daughter who told her father in no uncertain terms next year they would fly to their vacation destination.
My buddy and I did manage to sneak over to Greenhills Country Club outside of Ravenswood to play a little golf on Monday.
Although I haven't played much this year, I was happy to make five pars.
There's no need to discus the other baker's dozen holes, especially the one I ricocheted a ball off the tree that nearly took my noggin off and went 10 yards behind me.
Contact Jay Bennett at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com
