CARLTON FLETCHER: Taking stock of things we take for granted

All I need is a miracle.

— Mike + the Mechanics

I woke up Saturday morning at around 3:15, my mouth so dry it felt like someone had dumped half a bag of Redi-Mix concrete in it. I couldn’t even work up enough spit to wet my lips.

I trudged/stumbled into the bathroom, ran the tap for a second or two and cupped water into my hands. After about four gulps, the Redi-Mix was gone and I felt semi-normal again.

Lying in the dark, unable to drift immediately back to the slumber that had initially grabbed me the second I hit the bed, I started thinking about that simple act of getting up for a drink of water. All I had to do was turn a water tap slightly to the left, and all the clear, clean water I could ever want came gushing out.

Then I started thinking about the implements around me: The whirring ceiling fan that provided cool air and just the right amount of noise to drown out the silence; the digital clock that told me when it was time to get up and go to work; the humming refrigerator in the kitchen keeping my bologna from spoiling and my Cokes cold; the light switches that turn darkness to bright light in an instant; the TV, the stereo, the shower, the toilet …

As we go through our everyday lives, we are surrounded by more and more conveniences, things that we increasingly take for granted. It no longer amazes us that in cities like ours, cities of 80,000 or so people, and even in larger cities like Atlanta, LA, Chicago, New York, cities with millions of people, each one of them — at least each one that has a home and utilities — can get water, electricity, entertainment and a cold drink at the flip of a switch or the push of a button.

As I lay there in my semi-stupor, I was taken back suddenly to last Oct. 10-17, days that all of those conveniences that I take for granted were lost to me. I still got a shower every day, albeit cold showers that left me shivering, but sleep did not come easily as I lay sweating in the hot silence of a city in recovery, a city that — for the umpteenth time in the last couple of years it seemed — was humbled by Mother Nature.

It hit me that we take our luxuries so much for granted, even a week’s-plus worth of living without them is washed away as soon as those lights come back on and that ceiling fan starts circulating the still air and the refrigerator is humming once again and you can watch “Chicago P.D.” again on Wednesday nights. Within a few hours of a couple of days, our power to readjust — and our sense of entitlement … “I deserve all these conveniences” — is so strong, we forget the inconvenience of our lost comforts and go right back to taking them for granted.

I remembered the Oct. 10 tragedy of Hurricane Michael and the other weather-related calamities of recent years, and I thought of my small band of colleagues here at The Albany Herald, most of whom were impacted severely by the storm, all of whom had their lives thrown into disarray. And I wondered again at their resilience. I marveled at the reporters who came to work while trees that had fallen on their homes sat awaiting removal. I felt a sense of pride at the tenacity of a group that put out a paper every day despite the hardships in their own lives, even as some among their ranks cared only for their own well-being.

There are plenty today who say this job we do has ceased to matter, that the even more amazing comforts that put the world at their fingertips has rendered every other medium obsolete. Maybe so. But for me, when it comes to the time spent wading through the bull—- — that’s out there and trying to sort the misinformation and the rumor-mongering from reality, I’m still proud of this profession. And as long as I’m able, I will continue to do everything I can to make it matter, even as people take it for granted along with everything else.

Staff Photo