As we finished expunging typos from the previous entry, the preternaturally cheery Mr. Goldstein telephoned with an update, barely understandable due to spotty cell-phone reception.
Listening hard through the static, we made out the following phrases:
“I’m in my room it’s dark.”
“I had to use my cell phone as a light to walk down the hall.”
“One or two buildings across the street seem to have power.”
“It’s dark.”
Then, the phone went dead.
Well, it was dark! What else was I supposed to say!?! Was I supposed to get all Ed Murrowy about it?
“Tonight, as I gaze out over the darkened landscape of my domicile – strewn with the detritus of quotidian existance – I know that this intimate drama of the soul is being enacted in millions of homes, from the lowliest hovels to he glittering palaces of Central Park’s Museum Mile.
As my gaze travels over the craggy and variegated scene, dimly perceived in the gloaming, the sight – one of utter normalcy, a vision that’s struck my retina coutless times in my purlieu here in the greater metropolitan New York area – is transformed into the rare and ennobling spectacle of America’s favorite sons and daughters, the plucky New Yorker and Bridge and Tunnel people simply pulling up their socks for Queens and country, and getting on with it, with humor, grit, and a certain selflessness.
From the majestic towerblocks overlooing the magnificent Pulaski Skyway, I’m – – Ken Goldstien, BCS News.
God Bless you, America, and all the ships at sea – I’ll see you again when the wires hum with juice!”