Standing In the Sun, at Long Last

THERE IS A VILLAGE IN NORWAY which lies deep in a narrow valley, surrounded by steep tall mountains, which gets even less sunlight per year than it would were it not surrounded by tall close mountains, which isn't much. For six months out of the year, virtually no sunlihgt gets through, and the town languishes in a murky twilight darkness, day, after day, after...and this has been the situation for centuries, since humans inhabited this beautiful but dark valley, which has been a very long time. Presumably generations of villagers spent their lives in near perpetual gloom; unless they ventured beyond the valley regularly. Suddenly, in the futuristic year 2013, the lack of sunshine is no problem. Three large mirrors have been placed atop the surrounding mountains, and sunlight can be reflected down into the village much of the time, reducing the darkness, bringing light to the village, for once. The mirror system is in place, has been thoroughly tested, and works just fine. The mirrors send light unto the village like three gigantic spotlights, three new suns. Everybody is ecstatic about it. Now its just a matter of figuring out the best way to decide exactly how to use the mirrors; somebody has to decide, and may any acrimony be minor. This raises the question; what took 'em so long? Mirrors have been available for millenia; the ancient Greeks and Romans, hundreds of years B.C. were burning ecah other's ships and cities by focusing reflected light on them. Sunlight warfare. So, in theory, the solution of the mirrors has been available for this Norwegian community since the town was first established. Such is the nature of technology, its applicatin is delayed by economic and sociological circumstances; television could have been developed right after world war one, but wasn't, until right after world war two. Maybe the Norwegian town has always been just plain too small to warrant the mirror solution, until now. Perhaps modern European state socialism is the magic needed to bring sunlight to Scandanavian villages hidden deep in valleys. Whatever the cause of its belated arrival, the townspeople are glad to be standing in sunlight, at long last.