However, when I was a kid, we didn't have the luxury of being able to afford the big wood furnaces I have now. For the most part, my family was rather poor, and we had to rely on space heaters. This all changed in 2002 or so.

I specifically remember the power going out, and it was an absolutely bone-chilling winter. It was so cold that there were icesicles forming on the power lines, causing several of them to break and fail. We literally couldn't survive otherwise, so we went to my grandparents' farm for the weekend.