By home, I mean Southern California. God knows there’s lots I don’t like about that place. But here’s what I do like: most things most of the time work mostly the way they should. And when they don’t, well, you can usually get them fixed fairly quickly.
Which may not sound like much. For the past several days in Northern Mindanao, however, it has seemed like an impossible dream.
Let me start at the beginning.
The day before my 77th birthday, the lights went out. Which usually isn’t a big deal because, voilà, the solar power kicks right in. But this time it didn’t. Which meant we had at least two significant problems: no electricity from Surneco, our local provider, and none from the solar panels gracing our roof.
And so we spent the night sans lights, air conditioning, internet, and running water. That last item because, living on a hill, we rely on a pump to transfer H2O from the chamber at its bottom to the faucets at its top. A pump that runs on, you guessed it, electricity.
The next morning—a Sunday—we awoke early to call what Surneco hilariously advertises as its “hotline.” In fact, “woke early” is a misnomer as we hadn’t slept at all. Come to think of it, so is “hotline,” which Webster defines as “a direct telephone line in constant operational readiness” to facilitate “immediate communication.”
The reality: we dialed that number at least 15 times, receiving recorded responses ranging from “wrong number” to “out of coverage area.” Or sheer silences of seemingly endless duration. Finally, around midday, an actual human answered. “Oh, no worries,” she cooed, falsely it turned out, “we’ll be right there.”
Which reminds me of a similar experience just two months earlier. That’s when our internet suddenly disappeared without warning. And so we spent the next two weeks making daily calls to our longtime provider, PLDT, to be told each time that they were coming right over. Until finally, in desperation, we subscribed to Starlink instead.
Here’s how I described that long internet intermission in a subsequent column: “It’s as if someone has died and you’re eternally stuck at their funeral. Like somehow the earth has stopped spinning and you’re struggling not to fall off. Or a massive brownout has occurred, leaving you in pitch darkness for the rest of your life.”
Which, on my birthday, is exactly what we feared had happened. So we entertained our guests by candlelight. Followed by another sleepless night without showers, signals, or solace. But on the third day Surneco came, and then there was light.
My original intention for this column was to write about growing old. About how the oldest members of my generation—the so-called baby boomers born in the wake of World War II—are turning 80 this year. And what that means to those of us nearing that milestone.
“…once the vanguard of an American youth that revolutionized US culture and politics,” begins a story in the Los Angeles Times, “the generation that twirled the first plastic Hula Hoops and dressed up the first Barbie dolls, embraced the TV age, blissed out at Woodstock and protested and fought the Vietnam War—the cohort that didn’t trust anyone over age 30—is now contributing to the overall aging of America.”
The truth is, I don’t miss any of it. I have a beautiful Filipino wife, several lovely children, a delightful house overlooking the sea, and a vast family that often frequents it. Who, fortunately, didn’t seem to mind celebrating my birthday in darkness.
Bottom line: I guess I’ll stay put. At least for a while. Even with the internet interruptions and bothersome brownouts. And despite the annoying lack of prompt public patch-ups.
I will stay until I grow older still. Who knows, maybe even until the lights go out for good.
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David Haldane is an award-winning American journalist and author with homes in Southern California and Northern Mindanao. His latest book is Dark Skies: Tales of Turbulence in Paradise. This column appears weekly in The Manila Times.
