The Great Outage of 2003 was a fun time. We had a gas stove so we could still cook dinner (though as a newspaper columnist friend of mine wrote at the time, the entire neighbourhood was suffused with the smell of everything out of every fridge cooking on the barbecue), and several neighbours came by to share a glass of wine on our front porch.

It was breathtaking, that night, to look up at the clear sky and see the countless stars blazing down without having to compete with light pollution from the city. Normally you have to go several hours into northern Ontario to see the like.

One of the things that impressed me was how civil everyone was. I was at the downtown library when the power failed, and the 2 km walk home was filled with curiosity (just how big is this thing?) but free of incident.

Even at intersections, nearly everyone slowed down or stopped and eased through without trouble. On a few corners, self-appointed crossing guards helped maintain order - in fact, those tended to be the worst intersections, because drivers would cede responsibility to the crossing guard instead of responding directly to the conditions.