Irene left, and we’re still here

Friday, September 2, 2011

We wish hurricanes would stay where they belong: Bermuda, Cuba, Florida. You know, places where we’re not.

But Irene came calling, and we survived.

You have to hand it to our emergency crews – to our fire departments, to our police departments, to our road departments, to Public Service, to our telephone companies. These are the folks who, sometimes at the worst part of a storm, go out and fix things for us.

They did it again when Irene came calling, and all we can say is thanks.

Is there anything we should learn from Irene, except to never, never, never use the phrase “Goodnight, Irene,” in any way, shape or form when referring to her? (At least not without knowing that the song was written by Huddy Leadbetter?)

Well, as local emergency officials said time after time after time, don’t go out into the storm unless you absolutely have to.

But of course people went out into the storm. Many, if not most, of them probably would insist that they had to. But really? All of us had to? Hmm.

Sometimes we get this perverse desire to test ourselves against nature, and so often we end up regretting it.

Still, it’s understandable: Who the heck is Mother Nature to tell us what to do? Did Mother Nature tell John Wayne what to do?

Yes, but he was John Wayne.

Still, we survived Irene as we have survived so many bad storms before, most of them involving snow rather than rain. And we will continue to survive them, come as they may.

We are, after all, New Englanders.

Monday was bright and beautiful, and had it not been for debris on the roadways, we might not have known that a tropical storm gave us a whack.

But perhaps that’s too cavalier. Perhaps you had a worse experience than did most of us. Tell us about it, if you wouldn’t mind, if it isn’t too painful.

Send your photos and/or stories to cabnews@cabinet.com.