The Energy Scare of 1973

 In the summer of 1973, when I was 12 years old, our country was having all sorts of big problems.  There was talk of an upcoming fuel shortage and people were being advised to drive less and to turn off unnecessary lights in their houses. Then an oil embargo, which started in October, put the energy conversation front and center. As the weather turned colder and the days got shorter,  everyone was being told to conserve electricity and gasoline. Households were ordered to lower their thermostats.  Everyone was advised to forego putting Christmas lights on the house.  Stores were shutting down some of their lighting.  There was talk on the TV news about going back on Daylight Saving Time. The city streets were darker at night because fewer street lights were operational.  The speed limit was lowered to 50 mph on the freeway.  President Nixon then suggested a possibility of gas rationing, and that started a panic where suddenly everyone felt a need to keep their vehicle tanks topped off.

During this time, service stations, especially the mom and pop stations, began to run out of fuel. That resulted in many stations imposing a limit of 10 gallons per customer.  They also limited gas pump hours in order to avoid running out in the middle of the day. Most of our local stations would close on Saturday or Sunday.  At that time, the majority of cars on the road were gas guzzlers and everyone had to fill up often. All of a sudden, the simple chore of filling the tank became an event. You had to strategize and plan for long waits in a line of cars that sometimes spanned several blocks long.  You never knew if there would still be gasoline available by the time you made your way to the pumps. Angry shouting would erupt when the attendant was spotted coming toward the pumps with his crudely hand painted "Out of Gas" sign.  

                                                   This was a familiar sight in 1973

Seemingly overnight, gasoline had become a precious expensive commodity, and electricity was suddenly something we couldn't take for granted. But I was young, and this stuff didn't cause me to lose any sleep.  When Mom gathered all the kids into the Volvo station wagon to drive down to a Pacific Highway gas station, I didn't mind. Even though it was a probability that we would have to sit for an hour or two in the gas line, I always packed my little tote bag with three books: A Red Cross First Aid Guide(just in case of emergency), a dog book,  and a word search puzzle book.  I loved the little pocket Dell word search books that could always be found next to the cigarettes at every grocery store check out.  Mom knew I loved those puzzles and she bought me a new one every month when we did our major grocery shopping. Thanks to those books, the time spent the car went faster.  While the little kids fought and argued and bugged each other in the back seat, I sat shotgun with my pencil,  circling one hidden word after another until we reached the front of the line.  

It had become just another weekend chore to find a gas station that had both gasoline and a reasonable line. I would have forgotten all about those days, except for one particular Saturday which cemented the memory in my mind.  Mom's plan was to get to the line in time for the station to open at noon.  In the meantime, though, one of the Poodles was being sold and needed to have a bath.  I always bathed the dogs in our large kitchen sink.  There was a good sized but always cluttered countertop on either side of the sink. I shoved all the dirty dishes out of the way so I would have room to dry the dog on the counter.  At that time I used a little handheld metal Oster hair dryer.  Hand held dryers were fairly new and this one was slow-drying by today's standards.  But it was better than the dryers of the 60s, which were plastic bag bonnets connected by a long plastic tube to a box that produced warm air but blew too gently and were useless for drying Poodles.

As I lathered up and then rinsed the little dog,  I didn't notice that among the stacks of dirty dishes and cups that I had moved out of the way, one of the cups had overturned. A stream of water from the cup flowed along the backsplash, until it reached the hair dryer on the counter.  The dryer, which was plugged in and ready to go, was wet, but I was busy bathing the dog, and did not notice.

I toweled off the dog, picked up the dryer and hit the switch.

Immediately, I was in a different reality:

Something huge had yanked me up off my feet.  My mind was telling me a giant had grabbed me, lifted me up, and was violently shaking me.  I was powerless.  There was no escaping its grip. I knew I was going to be shaken to death. Then, I was instantly propelled to the ceiling. I was lying prone, as if doing a deadman's float in water, looking down at my convulsing body.  I no longer felt anything, I was just watching, detached from myself.  I wanted to reach down and help her, but I couldn't.  I wanted to scream out for it to stop, but nothing came out of my mouth.  

And then:

With a sudden thud, I was no longer suspended from the ceiling.  I was on the floor.  Mom was standing over me yelling at me to wake up.  As I came back to consciousness, I felt as though I was stuck in a slow motion state.  I couldn't move for a while, and Mom's voice seemed to be coming not from her mouth but from a different spot in the room. I looked at her and my brain tried to understand what she was saying, but nothing made much sense.  She grabbed my arms and pulled me up.  The hair dryer, its plug disconnected from the power source, lay quietly on the floor. The Poodle, shivering and wet, was still in the sink. 

Her voice continued in the back of my brain, " You were being shocked!  I heard a blood curdling scream! I have never heard a scream like that before! It wasn't your voice! I ran in the kitchen to see who was there and saw you were being electrocuted!  I ripped the cord from the wall! Oh my God, you could have died!" 

She guided me to her blue velvet La Z Boy chair and pushed me gently into it.  She gave me the Poodle, now wrapped in a towel, and told me to hold her until she was dry.  I could not think.  I was okay with not being able to think. 

After awhile, Mom packed my tote bag with my favorite word search books, pencils, and a roll of Life Savers candy.  Then somehow I ended up in the front seat of the car, with my young siblings in the back seat as usual, and Mom drove to the gas line. As we settled in for a long wait in a line of cars that spanned over two blocks, I could just barely hear the banter of Jeff and Tabatha in the back seat.  I took out my word search book and opened it up to a new puzzle.  But looking for words seemed impossible.  Each letter was just a single letter.  I couldn't connect any letter to another. Combining them into words would be too challenging that day.  I closed the book, leaned against the closed window, and just sat there, my brain calm and quiet, during our time in the line and for the rest of the day. 

There I am, months later, with the dryer that almost killed me.

  

I didn't stop grooming dogs after my terrifying brush with death, but I was very frightened for months.  Mom had to turn the dryer on to show me that everything would be alright.  I also stayed in her sight while using electrical grooming equipment for about one year.  The terror finally wore off, and I was able to work unsupervised after a time, but my energy scare on Eagle Street had a permanent effect on me. I have great respect for the power of electricity, and even more respect for the Power that brought Mom to my rescue.