His Glass Is Half Full

This is a series of short stories about my father-in-law.

He lives in Muskogee, which is one of the hardest-hit areas from our recent 3-day sleet / freezing rain / ice storm. Every tree in town is damaged. Every surface is coated in inches of ice. Just about every road in his neighborhood is blocked by fallen tree limbs. Some of his neighbors were trapped in their houses because fallen limbs blocked their doors. By some miracle, his house never lost power, although they did go ahead and unplug nearly everything after a few brown-outs.

He is having the time of his life.

When the storm was at its worst, he and my wife's mom were concerned that they'd lose power. So, they dragged an old twin-sized mattress into the living room, next to the fireplace. The intent was to have a worst-case warm place to sleep. He discovered that this made for one heck of a nice napping spot, so he refuses to move it back.

This is a man who once fell part-way through his living room ceiling because of something that the family refers to as "the power drill incident" (further details are usually obscured by growls). This man, who is not allowed to have tools, went out with a neighbor and bought a chainsaw.

Amazingly, he still has all his major limbs attached. Every few hours, he and his neighbor go out and clear some more limbs from the street, and from people's yards.

He is recently retired. For the first time ever, travel conditions are horrible and he doesn't have to worry about it. He putters around with a chainsaw, ignores the computer and sleeps on the living room floor by the fireplace. It's like he's on a camping trip.

Hopefully, these next few days (with temperatures above freezing) will help to clear up the ice and destruction there, and life can return to normal. Hopefully when it does return to normal, my wife's dad won't be too disappointed. :)