Chapter 1

I have to admit, at first I was full-blown panic attack terrified. I remembered eating a toasted cheese sandwich after my night shift at the hotel. I had been a night manager at a Holiday Inn Express near the airport, just outside of Springfield Illinois. When I woke up everything was so quiet that it spooked me. I had no damned idea what happened but something strange had happened. I got dressed and stuck my nose outside. I couldn't hear a single car running. No busses, no delivery vans, no nothing. The hair on the back of my head stood up. I got in the car and began to fire it up. I figured that if it happened in town the local diner would know about it.

No deal. The car's solenoid didn't even click. I didn't get too excited over that. It was a wreck that I'd been nursing along. I walked the six blocks down to a new/used car dealership (All right, they sold Fords.). Nobody was around but the doors were unlocked. I looked around for something that they wouldn't miss. An old diesel delivery van with a painted-out side panel advertising Jenkin's hardware sat back by the fence. Some numbers were written on the window in yellow grease pencil. I looked around the shop until I found a key safe fastened to the wall. I found the key that matched the numbers and letters. I went out back and tried it. The van started! It ran a little rough at first, but that would even out as it warmed up. I wrote a short letter giving my name and address, what I was taking and described why and left it on the secretary's desk that was next to the key safe. I tried to fill the fuel tank at a gas station but the pumps wouldn't come on. I picked up a 12-volt transfer pump with a long hose on it from a tractor-trailer repair place just down the road, then returned to the gas station. I opened up the in-ground tank caps until I smelled diesel. I dropped in the hose and put the other end in the van's filler cap. I powered the pump off the van's battery. When it started overflowing I cut off the power, reeled up the hoses and stored the whole mess in a milk crate. I smiled as the gas gauge rose to the full mark when I started it. I made sure the oil and radiator were full, then I headed out. Back at my place I filled a suitcase, picked up a pair of boots and grabbed my barn coat. It wasn't fashionable, but neither was I.

I figured that if I spotted something then it was fair game. If later someone came to call me to task it would be easier to ask for forgiveness than to wait for permission. I headed for a sporting goods store near the edge of town, where all the malls were. I picked some overalls, an insulated jacket, a map book, a warm hat, gloves, a couple of big square sleeping bag that would make for nice quilts and some warm socks. It was March and it got a bit cool at night. I came up on a display of Gerber camp axes. I cleaned 'em out. They had some little 24-hour disposable heater packs that you just had to tear open to use. I stuffed my pockets with them. Just one would make sleeping that night a lot more comfortable.

Some friends had taken me on a fishing trip down to Bull Shoals a couple of years before. I liked it a lot, and figured that all else considered, it was as good a place as any to go. Springfield never felt like home to me. I was born near Branson Missouri and only left home to find a job. The night manager job was a good fit for me because I didn't have to think much, just to do what I was told and keep doing it.

Maybe you've figured out by now that I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I always got along, though. I make do. I was born on a farm and remembered how to live that way. It pretty well shaped the way I think.

It was getting close to evening. I found a Kroger's and did a little free shopping. I picked up a percolator, a couple two pound cans of coffee, a can opener, a pound of sugar, a plastic box for the sugar, a flat of evaporated milk, salt, pepper, and some food, like a steaks and a bag of red potatoes. The meat was still fresh which meant that whatever happened must have happened fast--overnight.

They had a little tabletop propane grill and some cartridges for it. I picked up those, a cooking fork, some flatware, paper plates and a big coffee cup. I'd forgotten about providing for light. I found up a big cooler that would double as a seat and took two more too, as well as a few boxes of plumber's candles and a fistful of lighters. Later I'd go back for a pound of butter and a container of sour cream for the potatoes. It was nice and convenient to eat in the grocery store.

I cooked, ate, had a cup of coffee and went outside to pee. The stars just took over the sky. I'd missed that since being a kid on the farm. I'd forgotten all about it until I saw the Milky Way again. I slept the night through on the floor of that grocery store. By morning I wished that I'd had picked up a sleeping pad, dammit. Before I left the store I filled the cooler with ice and some things that had to stay cold, like butter, bacon and beef. I picked up a couple flats of canned baked beans, packets of kool-aid, sugar, honey, baking chocolate, graham cracker crumbs, coconut, pecan halves, walnut halves, peanut butter, jelly, bread, pie filling, corn meal mix, crackers, dried eggs, instant milk, cocoa powder and whatever else grabbed me. I know that I picked up way too many candy bars and a lot of salad stuff. I cleaned that store out of the kind of spaghetti sauce I liked and the kind of short tubes of pasta I liked too. I couldn't resist temptation and filled half a cart with Kraft and Velveta Mac & Cheese boxes with the soft cheese packets in them. I found a heavy pot with a lid, a fry pan, a big cooking fork and spoon, a little flatware, a spreader to put peanut butter on my crackers, some blocks of cheese, mustard and a few packages of bratwurst. A few cans of chili, all the canned chicken they had, a dozen jugged chickens, the canned corned beef, the cans of hash and the canned beef went with me too. That delivery van just begged for filling up. I picked up probably the last oranges and bananas that I'd ever eat. I think I got out of there with five loaded grocery carts and not a cashier to be found. I took a full case of Dawn dish washing detergent, six gallons of bleach, a couple of plastic dish pans and a metric shit load of toilet paper and paper towels. I went back for a shopping cart full of paper plates and paper bowls. I looked at the eggs, took two dozen, nabbed a small watermelon, put all their live lobsters in a bucket of water, added on a few other things for dinner and headed for the door. I grabbed a fudge sickle on the way out.

I looked through a yellow pages for a military surplus place. I picked up several army wool blankets, a cot, a couple of sleeping pads, a bunch of army-green wool socks, a Bergen-style backpack with a big bladder-type canteen in it and some black military boots that fit pretty well. They had zippers on the inside of the ankle. They fit so well that I took all three pair that he had in my size. I tried on an old-style green field jacket and liked it a lot. It was comfortable and had plenty of pockets. I picked up one in my size and a liner for it, too to make it warmer. I thought about food again and cleaned the surplus place out of the MREs that I liked. Before I left I looked over his display case and found a couple of good quality sheath knives that I took, a knife sharpening kit to get those blades in shape and a big spool of parachute cord.

Then I thought about a high-end butcher shop in town I'd gone to once or twice. He made his own jerky and sausages. I picked up six more coolers and found a place that advertised dry ice in the yellow pages. I got five pounds for each cooler. Then I headed for the butcher shop. I got one cooler full of strip steaks, one cooler full of boneless pork chops, one cooler full of thick-cut apple-smoked bacon and four coolers full of sausages. I cleaned him out of jerky too. I even went in back to see what he had in the smoker and still on drying racks. I must have scored over sixty pounds of beef jerky. If I'd been busted for it I'd have gone down for grand larceny! his jerky sold for twenty-two dollars a pound and was worth every penny. I should have taken a couple of his butcher knives as they no doubt were better quality than the stuff I'd found at the military surplus place.

There was nothing holding me around there. I picked up a half dozen five-gallon jugs of drinking water, the same number of five-gallon red Jerry that I filled full of diesel and headed down the road. I had a lot more stuff with me than when I ever camped so I was pretty confident that I'd be okay.

That night I ate lobster like a king. I finished the meal with a decent sized filet done on the grill and a baked potato with sour cream. For supper I had a frozen cherry cheesecake. Let's hear it for gluttony.

The trip was pretty straightforward. I left Springfield Illinois for St. Louis, Missouri. (Well, close enough. I hit Kirkwood on the ring road for more diesel and a short rest.) Then it was on to Rolla, Lebanon, Springfield Missouri and Branson. Just outside of town to the east lay our old farm, a bit east of 76 and highway "J". I pulled up to the farm house not expecting much. You see, Mom had sold the place over ten years ago and gone into an assisted living center after Dad died. The new people had prettified the place, cleaning it up and switching to an all-hay crop. I shook my head. What the hell would they live on when the market was bad? Would they eat hay?

I found out why they were cropping hay. There was a place that took in horses for people "just around the corner". They must have started up business since I'd left. The poor horses were left in their box stalls, unfed and in shit up to their hocks. I let them out into the pasture and got a big round bale cut open for them. There was water and the weather wasn't too bad. I left the doors open to the indoor ring so that they'd have a place to shelter at night. Now what the hell was I going to do with eighteen four-legged prima-donnas? These were pets, not working horses. Granted, I still wasn't going to let them starve to death either.

I went back to the farm and explored some more. I found the empty space where they'd torn down the chicken coop and the place where the pig lot used to be. The barn was still there, as was the milking parlor and the dairy. It needed a good cleaning and a few head of milk cows. Then I opened up the machine shed. It was a big newer pole barn mostly with a sand floor. Their tractor was a big monster of a New Holland that refused to start. I took a trip into town where I picked up a bicycle, visited the tractor and implement store and found a very old New Holland tractor on his lot. The paper work said that it had just been rebuilt. That tractor worked. I used the end loader on the tractor to pile two-hundred-gallon diesel tanks on a hay wagon. Then I pinned it to the hitch, got the tanks filled at a gas station, added a few cases of oil and headed for home. With all the game I saw walking down the road I really wished for a decent rifle with a fixed sight. I'd keep my eye out for a rifle, shotgun and a pistol that I liked. I climbed on that bicycle and rode the ten-odd miles back to town to get the van. Boy, I was ready for bed by the time I got back. It was dark out by the time I found the van. I realized that the power was out everywhere. That meant I'd need kerosene lamps like grandma had. There wouldn't even be electric fans in the summer time. We had a big LPG bulk tank at the farm. All I could figure out to do was to get one or two gas-fired refrigerators from a trailer repair place and hook 'em up. There had to be a place like that around somewhere. After all, it was Branson Missouri and the Ozarks! Stuff broke down when people were on vacation.

I slept in the van again that night because I'd have to break in to the house. The doors were locked and the windows were too. I wanted to wait for daylight so I wouldn't hurt myself. I had an MRE for dinner, peed against a tree and went to bed.

I drove back home in the morning light and broke into the house through a basement window. It was big enough to let me in and small enough to cover with a sheet of plywood until I got the supplies to fix it. I remembered that my folks always had a notebook on the kitchen counter with a pencil marking the page. That was the shopping list. I grinned thinking that I'd just made the first entry in my shopping list. I felt around to get to the stairs up to the kitchen, then made my way up to where I remember my bedroom was. It was set up as a guest room so I made out all right. I wanted to clean out the main bedroom before I claimed it as my own.

The first problem I had was no water. There wasn't even a stock tank to dip water out of. I had about thirty gallons in the van but that wouldn't hold me for but a few days. I wondered if I could get a windmill up and going. I looked around for a well-head and found one with a six inch casing. I remembered being a teen when they dug it. It was maybe forty-five feet deep if I recalled right. I drove the van into town to look for a library. Maybe there was something in there about stock tank windmills. If it'd work for a stock tank then it'd work for a water tank on a stand, right? Oh, the fun times I just let myself in for!

Every day I filled six big water jugs from a spigot in the library. I guessed that the water towers were still feeding the city.

There was a place in town that sold windmills for pumping water. They had the whole shebang ready to pick up in their back lot. The problem was the filled shipping case weighed maybe two, two and a half tons. I didn't like the looks of this already. I knew that I'd want a stock tank and a water tank as well as a bunch of plumbing pieces and parts. I got everything located and picked up the plumbing stuff with the van before going back home to get the tractor again. I used four 2x12s and a chain hoist with a dally-block to get the shipping case for the windmill on the hay wagon. Then I got a plastic stock tank and a plastic water tank tied on too. They didn't weigh much at all-they were just clumsy. The tower promised to be about thirty, maybe thirty eight feet tall, and that kind of height would get me enough water pressure to work with. Now how the hell was I going to set up a water tower without a crane, I ask you. Simple. Your aren't. I looked over at that old hay barn and almost burned out one of my few remaining light bulbs. I was gonna build a platform up high inside the barn with a good sturdy criss-cross frame to hold it up. If that floor would hold sixteen tons of hay it would surely hold two tons of water, if that. I just had to spread out the load a bit. I could use the main roof truss to lift the frame pieces and the tank into place. The overflow water could be piped to a stock tank a little bit away from the barn. My next problem was how to get the water from the windmill to the tank.

If the damned Romans could do it with aqueducts then I could do it with 4x4s, tied together like a railroad span. I'd be drinking jugged water until I figured it out so I got busy.

I read the instructions to set up that windmill like it was the Bible. I could see that I'd need to build the scaffolding tower first and to fasten a good ladder up to it, as I 'd be climbing up and down it like a monkey. I needed to put in a platform at ten and twenty feet as well because the pipe segments were ten feet long and I had to get to the junctions to screw everything together. I'd need one hell of a hefty winch to hold up forty-five feet of two-inch pipe along with the pump head, then the collar at the bottom had to hold it all steady for the life of the system. No, two winches. They'd alternate as the sections were added. I'd need to pour some bodacious footers for this thing and set up a pair of really nice chain hoists with positive brakes. I had my plans and set about doing the job.

I used an idiot stick to dig a four-foot-deep footer all the way around that well head. I towed in a small water tanker and a hay wagon full of dry concrete, then mixed up batch after batch in a pair of wheelbarrows until I got the pour up to the surface. The instructions mentioned rebar ties so I had one-inch rebar criss-crossing the hole, all wired together tight before I poured. I kept jamming a pole into that mix like a milkmaid churning butter for glory. Once the pour reached the top of the form I set in the couplers for the base of the tower. I made sure to get them spaced right and square by using a piece of plywood as a jig. Then I took a well-deserved rest.

I rested a day while I cleaned up the mess, then picked up a load of 6x6s to start building the water tank platform. Using a crank hand-drill to make holes for the threaded rod that was going to hold the thing together wasn't a walk in the park. I gained a new respect for my grandpa, working that farm by hand. I got two layers of one-inch plywood up there, glued them together then drilled through them into the joists and used lag bolts to screw through both layers into the joists I'd just pre-drilled. That platform wasn't going anywhere this side of a hurricane, and then it was going in one piece. I then laid pipe from the overflow outlet, down through the hayloft floor inside the barn to where another pipe led outside to where I wanted the stock tank. I put a coupler and two valves inside the barn to drain the stock tank hose for the winter time and to fill the inside watering tank for the cattle. That tank got an overflow that led out to a lowland where we had our marsh. I used plastic hose for that and covered it good so it wouldn't freeze solid.

Have you ever taken a good look at an old-time wood railroad bridge? Not just a "That's pretty" glance, but a good look with an eye towards making one yourself? It's a lot of work! The mains are angled in like a big letter "A" with cross-pieces every so often, big long stiffeners run from top to bottom then criss-crosses tie those "A"s together like rafters, and a big support track runs across the top. Since I was only holding up two-inch water pipe and the insulation it would need, it wasn't as bad as a real railroad bridge would have been. I still had a lot of trouble cutting all those 4x4s at an angle to fit and drilling the bolt holes. About that time that I found an antique farm museum and raided them for a circular saw driven off of a tractor. I gave the blade a few licks with a file, made a template with a piece of plywood and cut off all those angles just as slick as snot. I remembered that I had to get the water from the tank to the house too, so I continued that 'aqueduct' all the way across the yard to the house. Since I needed to use gravity to feed the water once it reached the top of the tower I had to angle the pipe that fed the holding tank and then the pipe that ran from the tank to the house. I anchored both ends of that wooden monstrosity with spacer blocks to the frame of the barn and the frame of the house, then bolted everything solidly together. The concrete was dry by then and the wood structure gave me something to work with to haul the parts of the windmill tower and head up into place. I bridged the two sections of the aqueduct with more 4x4s, both to make it one big rigid system, and to give me a mounting place for the chain hoists I'd need to hold up the pipe.

I got everything ready to go bright and early one morning. I pulled the cap off the well, hooked the cable inside the cap to a chain hoist and started pulling out the electric pump and all the stuff that made it work. all that stuff got set aside, then the well head, pump rod and the flow pipe got hooked up to the first set of extensions and lowered into the hole. I used a second chain hoist to bring up the next set of extensions, fastened everything together securely and kept on lowering. I was right. I was climbing up and down that thing like a monkey. By the end of the day I needed to soak my feet in cold water and my legs were jumping around on their own. I got the six sections installed in one day. Then I clamped down the well head collar and fastened the pipe to the aqueduct. Next I fastened the pusher rod to the windmill and took the brake off the windmill mechanism. Slowly it spun around to catch the wind face-on and started turning. I headed down to get in the house and make sure the valve I had at the end of the new water pipe was turned off. I didn't want a new swimming pool in the basement if something wasn't hooked up right. I had run the line down the wall to the old waterline coming in from the electric pump, where I cut off the old line, put in an elbow and hooked everything up with another valve.

While I was down there I looked over the furnace and the hot water heater. They both ran off of gas, but they used electric thermostats and the furnace used electric fans to pump hot air through the ductwork. I'd have to hook up a trailer-type water heater in the basement and a smaller trailer-type gas-fed furnace on each floor. That old farmhouse had the old pie-plates high on the chimneys so finding where to run the flues was easy. The stove would light with a match or a lighter but the oven was a disaster. There was no way to control it. I figured that I'd have to pull out the big fancy thermostat/valve that was in it and replace it with a simpler gas regulating valve meant for a burner. That plus an oven thermometer would have to do the job for me.

After a while I opened the kitchen sink valve and got a bunch of spits and farts, then good running water. I was pretty happy. I walked along the lines, looking for drips but didn't find any. I'd done a good job with the threading and the pipe dope. The cattle tank was slowly filling. Everything was working the way I'd planned. I took the rest of the day off to add things to the shopping list and to begin making a tick list of things I'd need done by winter. I hoped that I'd be able to work a little faster than the project I'd just finished. It took over a month!

Somebody around had to have had a garden the previous year. I needed to raid it later for things like tomato seeds, potatoes, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, peppers, melons, carrots and radishes. Those would all either self-seed or come up from the remains of last year's crop.

As I said, it had been over a month since I'd woken up that morning alone. I really needed to explore a few grocery stores for vegetables that had held on, long-term packaged grains, sugar, salt, spices, vinegar and canned goods. I also wanted paper goods and cleaning supplies. I made it a point that minute to set aside a couple larders, one on the main floor by the kitchen and one in the basement. I took the next couple of days to get wood, glue and screws and make sturdy shelves.

I consciously shifted over to industrial adhesive for my glue. It came in tubes for a 'grease gun', the kind that the cartridge drops into the top, you push in the plunger rod and turn the bent rod at the back. A pair of wire cutters or a sharp knife would allow you to cut off the tip of the applicator nozzle, then you squeeze away, ratcheting in that plunger, kind of like a commercial syringe. The glue itself is commonly stronger than the stuff it's holding together.

I wanted to get a couple gas refrigerators installed right away, maybe four. I needed to learn how to fill an LP bulk tank too.

I spotted a sportsman's guide magazine in town when I was at the library. I saw an ad in it for Cabela's. It gave a lot of locations. The closest looked to be in Rogers, Arkanas. By my map it was a bit over a hundred miles away. I wanted to make a pass through the place for firearms and heavy, warm clothing like Carhartt stuff.

If there were any more museums in the area I wanted to explore them. I might get lucky and find a diesel powered crane from the forties or fifties that might still work. I was really on the lookout for tractor-powered machinery and an old-time two-stroke gas powered washing machine with squeeze rollers.

By that time I had figured out that if something needed a transistor to work it probably wouldn't work, period. I didn't know how to make a generator without a regulator in it. I probably could find an old diesel motor that I could mount on a skid to drive a twelve-volt generator, then wire the place in the smaller bulbs. Maybe run a 12-volt DC motor backwards? That was on my long term list. Short term I needed food, water, warmth, security, and food down the road. The previous owners had a lot of round bales stacked up in a windrow. I needed to run some fence and round up some cattle. A milk cow or two would be nice as well. The same went for chickens. They'd do all right on their own for a while but then the predators would thin them down pretty bad. I hadn't seen any dogs but I'd heard a bobcat or two screaming up in the hills at night. I'd seen a post-hole digger built for a tractor back in town. I was going to latch onto that, pronto.

I found out that a flashlight with a bulb would work, but the fancy LED flashlights wouldn't That needled me because the new LED flashlights sure stretched the life of the batteries.

I figured that I might as well tackle the LP gas lines, then get a new furnace and water heater put in. I'd go shopping for RV add-ons in the morning. The yellow pages would help me find a place.

Holy hell, holy hell. I found a place called Gobal camper sales and supply. I got four big refrigerators and four big chest freezers that would run off of propane or LP gas as well as a good load of boxed 12-volt fans. I spent some time picking out gas pipe, tees, elbows, fittings and valves. Once I unloaded I went back for a water heater and four small furnaces. Two were spares. Fitting everything in place wasn't such a big deal. I put the refrigerators and the freezers on the porch for ventilation. The hardest part was fishing the pipe between the joists in the basement. I got a furnace mounted in the master bedroom and a furnace in the living room. Once I opened the pressure valves I used soapy water to check for leaks.

The water heater was almost a drop-in job. I used a flexible gas fitting to mate the supply pipe to the fixture's demand port. I got it lit and had a hot bath that night. Yippee!

In the morning I headed back to town. I headed for the library once more. I looked at all those CDs of music and movies, then just shook my head. I looked through the ads in the antique and home decorating magazines. One place named Lehman's out of Kidron Ohio had big gas, coal and wood stoves, horse drawn farming equipment, tack, lotsa books, very nice Aladdin lamps and a lot more including butter churns and grain mills. I wanted to see if I could get a tractor-trailer running before I headed that way.

For the rest of the day I spent some time between the grocery stores, harvesting potatoes, onions, garlic and squash from the produce displays. Everything, but everything else not canned was worthless other than sugar, salt and such. I about looked for a gas mask after opening the store doors. Jesus, what a stench. I cleaned out what I wanted from a couple grocery stores then headed for a hardware store. I needed sheet metal to make a granary. Chickens, pigs, horses and cows do love their grain.

I came across a dog while coming back from town. Its being there was unusual in itself. I stopped the truck and climbed out to pet the poor thing. It was nothing but skin and bones. When she leaned into me and whimpered that was it. I had a dog. I picked her up in my arms and took her home. I fed her and petted her until she relaxed. I woke up with her beside me. I called her Sally and she didn't complain. We did well together. It took a while to feed her up. I used the fatty, canned dog food from the grocery stores. It wouldn't go bad and she liked it.

After storing off what I had just salvaged, I drove around looking for beef on the hoof and chickens. I found some chickens which excited me a lot. I marked the place on the map and kept going. I had no way to get them at the time and no place to keep them yet. That was going to change. I did scatter a few pounds of feed for them though. Sally went everywhere I did. I should have named her shotgun because that's where she sat.

The next day I went looking for fencing, lumber and straw. I framed up a room, maybe twelve by twelve, in one corner of the hay loft. I lined it with sheet metal and screwed everything down with drywall screws. By the time I was done I thought my damned wrist was busted. I went back to the co-op for fifty pound bags of ground grain and about foundered my van getting them home. First I laid down pallets, then I piled on the sacks of grain three across. After three layers I took a break and laid in a layer of deep shelves on cut-off 4x4s. I put pallets on those and then more bags of grain. I kept a little space between the pallets so any damp or must had less chance of taking out the whole room. I finished the day by framing out the chicken house. I made it double-walled and made it with windows in three sides. I couldn't figure out at the time how to put in an automatic waterer. If I could find one that worked with a fifty gallon drum then I could go away for a few days.

I found a dozen five gallon milk cans at an antique store. They weren't too badly dented and no idiot had painted them. I bleached and scrubbed out the dairy with a broom, put in some restaurant-type open wire shelves and mounted another water heater on the wall. When I scrubbed up the milk cans they shined like they were brand new. I pulled a water feed from the stock tank pipe for the dairy and made sure that the floor drain was good. I brought four more LP gas refrigerators for the dairy and hooked them up with their flues running outside. That gave me a place to keep the bulk milk cold. Everything in sight was either painted white or stainless steel.