The guy who lives across the street from me and Bill had a 1957 Corvette convertible in the basement garage, just below street level. I found out today that the car was ruined by flooding. I also heard that the guy has a 1956 convertible at his house down the shoe, but as it turned out that was destroyed by the flooding down there. This was all told to me second hand by neighbor Chris from next door. He still doesn’t have power. The liquor store on the corner is still out, doing business by generator until nightfall.

And now it’s nightfall, a little past 5:30. I’ve been to the supermarket, the only one around these parts, and found it swamped with people. I only needed to buy coffee for tomorrow, I’m using the instant coffee I bought last week as emergency provisions. Of course we are much more prepared for a major storm now than we were. We were OK, but didn’t expect an electrical outage for 5 days. We anticipated running out of food and water, so that we stocked up on. He had heat as well. Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining. I am grateful we had what we had.

It’s hard to believe that last Saturday was when the power came back on.

I walked around town today, stopped by the Guitar Bar on Newark Street where I saw Jim Mastro. I try to make it a point to see if he needed anything. I offered my services if he ever needed something dropped off at the bank or even if he needed to get something from Guitar Bar to Guitar Bar Jr. on 11th Street. He didn’t need anything and hardly ever asks for anything, but one day he will and I am hopeful to be there if and when he does. That includes getting plastic cups.

I am in for the night once again. Not even 6:00. I did not sleep well at all last night. Kept waking up and when I finally had some deep sleep, I wound up waking up shortly thereafter. Bill was not around and that is what I would attribute the fitful sleep to. I have been wary about getting those leg cramps and figured I should eat more bananas. I had a banana yesterday and this morning around 6:00 I had a leg cramp. Not a good way to wake up even if I wasn’t that fully asleep anyway.

Last night I had a phone call from a former co-worker. It was a lot of fun she kept me informed about what was going on, how so and so is up to her usual shady tricks. It proved to me that there were certain aspects of this particular job which I can look back fondly upon, but overall I am quite happy not to be there anymore. The mere mention of certain names made my stomach curdle. I am still trying to improve my lot in life, trying to get to a better station if you will. Time is on my side.

Sts. Peter & Paul Church, where we charged up last week.