In 1752, with his famous storm-flying kite, Ben Franklin discovered lightning was electricity. In 1879, Thomas Edison perfected the electric light bulb. In the twenty-first century, we take our electricity for granted until we don’t have any. A few weeks ago my family lived without electricity for thirteen hours. It wasn’t the infamous rolling California blackouts that got us, but rather a tree that fell on an overhead power line during a storm. Although I enjoyed the quiet, it was a bit bizarre living without email, electric lights, heat, the microwave, or television.
