Nadene Goldfoot
As of 2 days ago, 40,000 Oregonians were still without power of electricity. The National Guard has been deployed to help. They've been without power for more than a week. Portland General Electric Company has been facing outages down to 22,000 customers across the region. Two days ago, this was reported; MULINO, Ore. — Tens of thousands are still without power in Clackamas and Marion counties more than a week after the region was pelted with snow and ice last weekend.
Back in our ancestor's day, people did not have electricity. However did they manage?
Our eternal light in the Temple in Jerusalem is copied as the Ner Tamid or perpetual eternal oil lamp. This light kept burning in the synagogue as a symbol of the radiance of faith. Originally it presumably served also to kindle the other lamps on the conclusion of the Sabbath, etc. Normally it hangs before the ark, but in Eastern Europe was often in a niche in a side wall. Similarly, fire was perpetually kept alight on the altar in the Tabernacle. When the Greek Syrians had attacked (175-163 BCE-Antiochus Epiphanes against Judah the Maccabee), the oil was gone and needed to be replaced. A runner ran to the next town to bring back oil. In the meantime, only a little had been left which burned the whole time, 8 days, that the runner had to return, probably with refined olive oil. This brought about our Jewish holiday of Chanukah. Evidently in those days, oil lamps were used by the public for light.
People used oil lamps in ancient days, probably from olive oil. This came before candles. Such oil lamps were found in Israel and Rome.
In 1792, William Murdoch used coal gas to light his house. He decided that coal gas as the most effective, and used it in his house, in part, as a demonstration. This was the beginning of the Gaslight Era. By the early 1800s, gas street lights were becoming common in most major cities, and the installation of gas lighting systems was well underway. Gaslight was used for 141 years, possibly.
Kerosene lamps are still used in times of need. A kerosene lamp (also known as a paraffin lamp in some countries) is a type of lighting device that uses kerosene as a fuel. Kerosene, also known as paraffin, is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid which is derived from petroleum. It is widely used as a fuel in aviation as well as households. Kerosene lamps have a wick or mantle as light source, protected by a glass chimney or globe; lamps may be used on a table, or hand-held lanterns may be used for portable lighting. Like oil lamps, they are useful for lighting without electricity, such as in regions without rural electrification, in electrified areas during power outages, at campsites, and on boats. There are three types of kerosene lamp: flat-wick, central-draught (tubular round wick), and mantle lamp. Kerosene lanterns meant for portable use have a flat wick and are made in dead-flame, hot-blast, and cold-blast variants. Kerosene lamps are widely used for lighting in rural areas of Africa and Asia, where electricity is not distributed or is too costly. Kerosene lamps consume an estimated 77 billion litres of fuel per year, equivalent to 1.3 million barrels of oil per day, comparable to annual U.S. jet-fuel consumption of 76 billion litres per year. 
Electricity was a great invention. It took us out of the age of oil and candle-lighting as well as gas-lighting. Most people give credit to Benjamin Franklin for discovering electricity. Benjamin Franklin had one of the greatest scientific minds of his time. He was interested in many areas of science, made many discoveries, and invented many things, including bifocal glasses. He was born January 17, 1706, Milk Street, Boston, MA and died April 17, 1790, Philadelphia, PA. Benjamin Franklin's father, Josiah Franklin, was a tallow chandler, soaper, and candlemaker. I bet he told Ben a thing or two about how he was hurting his father's candle business with his new-found electricity!
In pursuit of more pragmatic uses for electricity, remarking in spring 1749 that he felt "chagrin'd a little" that his experiments had heretofore resulted in "Nothing in this Way of Use to Mankind," Franklin planned a practical demonstration. He proposed a dinner party where a turkey was to be killed with electric shock and roasted on an electrical spit. After having prepared several turkeys this way, Franklin noted that "the birds kill'd in this manner eat uncommonly tender." I guess that America's first Thanksgiving served up tough turkeys!
Electricity is great when the weather cooperates, but when Mother Nature is wild, we lose it and are left in the dark. Many people in Oregon this year have lost theirs and are at their wits end in dealing with a cold home and the darkness without any means of cooking. We have learned that electricity manages our whole lives.
Here we are in the year 2021, the future, and we can be left in the dark without means of cooking or seeing, just like our Stone Age Man, who at least must have known how to build a fire. How did mankind ever manage their lives from10,000 BCE to 2021 CE?
In 1882 Thomas Edison helped form the Edison Electric Illuminating Company of New York, which brought electric light to parts of Manhattan. But progress was slow. Most Americans still lit their homes with gas light and candles for another fifty years. Only in 1925 did half of all homes in the U.S. have electric power. Those people born in 1934 in Portland, Oregon, did have homes with electricity. All our Americans have had homes with electricity for only the past 86 years or less!
Not only does Mother Nature play havoc with our electric wires and poles with falling trees, but our electricity is now in jeopardy of terrorists who are attacking our country. Evidently it's easy to snuff out electricity for huge plots of land, a method better than an invading army.
It's time our young people learn the ways of the Boy Scouts who learn so much about survival and how to cook outdoors. The army also teaches survival methods. We all need to learn these skills. This plus First Aid should be taught in public schools, and how viruses spread in a population. There's lots of other subjects that can be dismissed and let these take their places. Reading and Writing and Arithmetic are the necessary basics, and these are the new subjects for today.
When I moved to Israel, I found I was on a different type of electricity, one more common to have in Europe. Israel operates on a 230V supply voltage and 50Hz.. My electrical appliances needed an adaptor. I bought a stove that had both electricity and gas; an oven of each with the gas also serving on the top for the pots and pans. I had to use a match to start the gas. That was good planning because they could not depend on the electricity being a steady element.
During the October windstorm in the 60s, I lived in Eugene, Oregon and was surrounded by trees with squirrels. It was lovely. I had a huge fireplace where I made coffee and cooked hot dogs during the 3 days we were without electricity.
The telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell. Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on March 3, 1847. This teacher died August 2, 1922. Despite having the patent, Bell did not have a fully functioning instrument. He first produced intelligible speech on March 10, 1876, when he summoned his laboratory assistant, Thomas A. Watson, with words that Bell transcribed in his lab notes as “Mr. Watson—come here—I want to see you.” Over the next few months, Bell continued to refine his instrument to make it suitable for public exhibition. In June he demonstrated his telephone to the judges of the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, a test witnessed by Brazil’s Emperor Pedro II and the celebrated Scottish physicist Sir William Thomson. In August of that year, he was on the receiving end of the first one-way long-distance call, transmitted from Brantford to nearby Paris, Ontario, over a telegraph wire.
Windpower is being reinvented. It has been used a lot by the Dutch.
Water, who knew that our water would become a problem? Here's where you need to have a survival kit such as we Oregonians are told to have in case of earthquakes which could happen any minute, another Mother Nature's fact we live with. Unless some scientist comes up with a survival solution better than a supply of bottles of water stored away, that's what we all must have on hand.
Solar power is a very modern source. it's being used on our rooftops. Our ancestors in Egypt cooked flour and water into pancake shapes on the hot ground in haste, hurrying to join the Exodus. In theory, solar energy was used by humans later as early as 7th century B.C.E when history tells us that humans used sunlight to light fires with magnifying glass materials. Later, in 3rd century B.C.E., the Greeks and Romans were known to harness solar power with mirrors to light torches for religious ceremonies. These mirrors became a normalized tool referred to as “burning mirrors.” Chinese civilization documented the use of mirrors for the same purpose later in 20 A.D.. Today we can have solar panels on our roofs.
Another early use for solar energy that is still popular today was the concept of “sunrooms” in buildings. These sunrooms used massive windows to direct sunlight into one concentrated area. Some of the iconic Roman bathhouses, typically those situated on the south-facing side of buildings, were sunrooms. Later in the 1200s A.D., ancestors to the Pueblo Native Americans known as the Anasazi situated themselves in south-facing abodes on cliffs to capture the sun’s warmth during cold winter months. Why haven't we been smarter and have this in today's new homes?
In the late 1700s and 1800s, researchers and scientists had success using sunlight to power ovens for long voyages. They also harnessed the power of the sun to produce solar-powered steamboats. Ultimately, it’s clear that even thousands of years before the era of solar panels, the concept of manipulating the power of the sun was a common practice.
It all gives me an awareness of what our ancestors have gone through up to 100 years ago. All the things they didn't have, instant heat, instant water, things we take for granted. It's really amazing that we all made it here to be able to face such problems today. It's also amazing that we haven't take advantage of their great ideas that had and build on them. Depending on one source of power has also been fatal.
And that reminds me, why did pantries go out of style? They've already coming back in, according to my daughter-in-law who just designed hers. They were great ideas for keeping food products. We can't always depend on driving down to the grocery store for something. We need our own supply of food for an extended hardship either from Mother Nature and who knows?
Resource:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alexander-Graham-Bell
https://www.thespruce.com/the-gaslight-era-2175011#:~:text=He%20decided%20that%20coal%20gas,lighting%20systems%20was%20well%20underway.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerosene_lamp
https://www.nps.gov/edis/learn/kidsyouth/the-electric-light-system-phonograph-motion-pictures.htm#:~:text=In%201882%20Edison%20helped%20form,the%20U.S.%20have%20electric%20power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity
https://news.energysage.com/the-history-and-invention-of-solar-panel-technology/
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