Unplugged

I can talk a big game about not needing modern conveniences. I have been practicing living in the 1880s since as far back as I can remember.

A kerosene lantern was always preferable to the light bulb unless that lightbulb was a 12-volt, 50-watt bulb, screwed into a house lamp that was clamped to a car battery, sitting on the floor of the living room, behind the table the lamp sat on.

A gas mantle light on the kitchen wall that threw as much light as a 75-watt bulb worked as well. Wood in a wood stove for heat, nothing did it better. 

I was raised by the noise the floor makes when you move something in the morning in a hunting camp. Whether that camp was an old bus from the late 1940s or a small cabin with plywood floors. I was grown out of this soil.

I first learned about crystal radios when I was gifted the Six Million Dollar action figure as a child. Steve Austin came with some accessories that were not part of his bionic body parts. One of these was a plastic engine block because I can not tell you what a fantasy of mine it is with all of these engine blocks I see just lying around in my path daily if I could just grab them with my superhuman strength and lift them in the air with one hand by the mysterious carrying handle at the top of said engine block.

The other accessory was the astronaut’s backpack that Steve came with. There was an antenna on the back you could raise in case he needed to radio back to NASA. It came with a 1970s, transistor radio-style earphone. If you plugged in the earphone to the pack and connected the supplied alligator clip to a ground source, such as a copper water pipe, then slowly moved the antenna, and everyone within a 3-mile radius just shut up for a minute, you could actually pick up AM radio stations. No power, no batteries, no cranks or solar. Just the power of the earth. We didn’t need no stink in’ batteries!

This prompted a wonderful conversation between my grandmother and I. She told how in the beginning of radio, crystal radios were the norm. Of course, they were much larger and more powerful than this modern 1970s micro novelty version that was a cheap way for Steve to hear fast-talking DJs and AM Rock music from Earth.

She said that at family get-togethers her father and uncle would huddle around the crystal radio to listen to a ball game. The way she talked about this radio, it was simply how it was done. Looking back at crystal radio technology, it fascinates me how technological advances stick a big old pacifier in the human psyche, and make us critically dependent on it. Who is behind this door anyway?

33 years ago, I gallivanted all over the place in 3 Middle East countries. My resourceful history of DXing AM stations across the nighttime stratosphere made it easy for me to pick up the BBC World Service out of Europe after 9pm or Voice of America out of Northern Africa so that I could really find out what was happening with the hurricane in which I lived in the eye of at the time. Armed Forces Radio spoon-fed us exactly what they only wanted us to know. By which I mean emergency reports on the brand new Pamela Smart sex-murder scandal in my then-home state of New Hampshire, every 15 minutes!

I digress. My friend Nick said it best when we looked back on this time in our lives, that it was a daily quest to live our immediate lives more comfortably. This is spot on. The innovation that we gained from this experience is priceless. I also learned during that period, that you never, ever, ever think for a moment that the authorities or the government are going help you, aid you, or take care of you. The fact is, they absolutely do not care. It is every person/family for yourself.

Decades upon decades I have looked at most of the things that we have daily and figured out contingencies. We lose power about once a month and sometimes more. Every few years for multiple days. I have made my house much less dependent on electricity over the last two decades, so as a family we hit it with one hand on the fence and never break stride. I do not own a generator and have no intention of owning one. We do not need it, but I can keep my freezers going and water stocked, with plenty of heat, light, and cooking. We used to use gravity showers now we use battery showers since they are so cheap.

As I sit here this morning in Plymouth Vermont, sipping coffee, in front of a fire looking out over the mountains and valley, I am content because I know I can do either. I’m not gonna lie, I like it that I can grab my phone and just look something up. I am okay with this. I can occupy this space like a person with power and tech, or I can enjoy it just the way it is and party like it’s 1889.