The Blessings of Brownouts
The other night, we had a unscheduled brownout in our area which lasted several hours. Around the glows of candles, my daughters, aged 8 and 9, created shadow images and imagined roasting marshmallows. Then they get to the point of being bored and couldn’t think of anything to do without technology and entertainment being powered by electricity. So I told them that during our younger years, brownouts were being anticipated and were our excuse to have some FUN!
During those days, primetime TV shows were not that competitive and over-hyped that I remember watching it during 6pm newscasts only. There are also no ipods, playstations, cable channels, cellphones, karaoke or videoke that distracts us from studying and going to bed early. But when brownout occurs, its just like an impulse for everyone to go out fan-off the heat inside the house. The kids gathers around and starts to select what game we should be playing. Usually under the moonlight, our street games are either ‘taguan’ or hide and seek or patintero, a game where there are ‘guards’ on every stops and the object is to pass these guards to get a point or ‘agawan base,’ where the team members will be prisoners of the opponent team and the object of the game is to rescue the prisoners . These games usually takes hours and it seems no end because the losing team always asks for another round hoping to get even or take the lead. The games makes our hearts pumped because of the sheer excitement and thrill of beating the opponent, not to mention the buckets of perspiration we accumulate. But as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end, our adventure ends when the lights went back again. We retreat to our homes tired, exhausted and will sleep with a smile of contentment.
It’s just a loss that the kids generation today was not able to experience this. They are very dependent on the technology and electricity that at times they feel the everything will stop without power. I hope that before my kids leave their childhood, they will be able to play the games we played.
