"Where were you when the lights went out?"

"Down in the cellar eating sauerkraut."

I wish I could trace the origin of that bit of give and take, but the best guesses all seem to come up short.

Some folks attribute it to the aftermath of the great Northeast Blackout of 1965. Some say it comes from a phrase their German ancestors brought to this country, inserting "Fritz" as the person who was in the dark. Others remember it as a childhood rhyme using the name "Moses."

It seems to me that I remember it as being popular many years before the '60s. Kaye didn't recall the sauerkraut ending but added "with a new Boy Scout" in her inimitable good humor.

WARTIME BLACKOUTS

In any case, blackouts were common for many of us who lived through WWII. My dad was an air-raid warden. The curtains were drawn, the lights were extinguished, and he scoured the neighborhood looking for those who ignored the warning to douse all lights.

Our neighborhood butcher in Thornwood was slicing bologna in his shop when the siren wailed one night. His wife was in another room and, without thinking, shut off the lights. Her husband lopped off several fingers on his right hand when the shop was immersed in total darkness. That precipitated more sirens.

During all the years I worked at a Plattsburgh radio station, you could count the extended electrical outages on one hand. That is a tribute to the local municipal power company. We had no backup generators and simply stood by until the transmitter could be fired up again.

One story told by Chet Bosworth about the station owner in the early '50s has to do with such a power disruption. The boss blustered into the control room, spotted Chet simply waiting with nothing to do and blurted out: "Well, don't just sit there. Play records."

He was immediately embarrassed and added, "Never mind."

ALWAYS PREPARED

Following the legendary 1998 Ice Storm in this region, many businesses and homeowners installed generators that could be pressed into service should another outage occur.

I am amazed to find out that many people have brand new generators, in the boxes, empty of oil and fuel that have never been wired up to their homes or even started.

My story in this newspaper about our Genny, the Generator, is well known. It did yeoman duty throughout the community back in '98. Later, our son Bruce found a larger, used generator that I could use to power most of our Morrisonville home.