The Tribune Democrat, Johnstown, PA

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November 16, 2008

TOM LAVIS | A flicker of hope on dark day



BY TOM LAVIS

TLAVIS@TRIBDEM.COM

I long for the days when life was a lot simpler.

We ate white bread, drank whole milk and the only decision about lightbulbs was choosing one between 60 and 100 watts.

Those were the days before specialty lighting.

My wife was in the kitchen preparing dinner the other night when she asked me if the lights in the living room were flickering.

Suddenly her voice went up a few octaves when she yelled that the kitchen went dark.

I had upgraded the kitchen’s light fixtures about a year ago and remembered that the two bulbs in the light were about 6 inches long and were the plug-in type.

She flipped on the stove light while I removed the cover from the ceiling fixture.

Strangely, both fluorescent bulbs, which resemble tubular tuning forks, burned out at the same time.

I unplugged one bulb, jumped in the truck and headed for Big Shady’s Hardware Store and Ice Cream Stand before it closed.

Big Shady had gone home early to watch the “The Andy Griffith Show” marathon on television, but his son, Little Shady, was on duty.

I placed the bulb in his hand, and I had a sneaking suspicion I was in trouble when he asked, “What’s that for?”

“Hain’t never carried any bulbs like this,” he said.

He grabbed a clear glass tube bulb and suggested I try it.

“People use these here for aquariums, and it’s about the same size,” he said.

Things were fishy enough without me going home with the wrong bulb.

The next day, I went to the big-box home improvement store where I bought the light.

I was directed to the lighting aisle.

I entered the expansive corridor with some trepidation because it was filled with shelves stacked from floor to ceiling with bulbs of every shape and size.

I found bug lights, floodlights, halogen lights and grow lights, but no luck in tracking down my fluorescent tuning fork.

I stopped an associate who was passing through on his way to the flooring section.

He tried to help me the best he could.

“This isn’t my department, but lets see what we can find,” he said.

I described the bulb and told him it had prongs on the end.

“Sounds like a CFL,” he said.

I asked him if that stood for “can’t find light”?

He pointed to a display holding about 2,000 packages of bulbs that looked like they had been run through a corkscrew machine.

It turns out CFL stands for compact fluorescent lamp.

The associate started asking me about the number of kelvins I needed and the color rendering.

“I want enough light for my wife to make a chicken dinner tomorrow night without using a flashlight,” I said.

My head began to ache.

“Any specific beam angle?” the associate asked, bringing me back to the moment.

“How about straight down?” I answered.

“You should have brought the old bulb with you, sir,” he said.

Sheepishly, I retrieved the burned-out bulb from my coat pocket.

He looked at me as if I were the dim bulb and said, “Follow me.”

“Yep, it’s a 26 watt, four-prong, warm light with 3,500 kelvins,” he said.

We walked to the end of the aisle and he pulled an empty box from the rack.

“Sorry, looks like we’re out of that bulb, can I get you another?”

How about a Bud Light?

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