By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

A lot of us have been griping lately about the status of the power we use to heat our homes, shed light onto the dark and even light the flame in our fireplaces.

I saw the attached picture on my Facebook news feed this morning and I want to echo the thoughts that came with it.

We owe the men and women who have been toiling in frigid temperatures, in the snow, and the wind for the work they have done trying to keep our electricity flowing.

I am going to reserve my ill will for the folks in the boardrooms who make decisions about managing the electrical flow. A lot of them have messed up and North Texans — such as my wife, Toby the Puppy and me — have paid the price. We slept through two chilly nights in our Princeton home, owing mostly to the decisions to shut down power capacity while we were battling the effects of what has been called a “historic winter storm event.”

The folks who answer the call, though, are not to blame for what we have endured, any more than those — for example — who went to war in Vietnam and then returned home to frigid indifference from the American public.

I’ll take this moment to offer them a word of thanks, high praise and gratitude for exposing themselves to the elements so that we don’t have to suffer from Mother Nature’s wrath.

I’m proud of y’all.