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Post by ncsfsgm on Apr 19, 2023 3:38:14 GMT -6
The Coming Storm
Chapter 1
The biggest thing about Muses Mills was the zip code. It was nowhere near anywhere or anything of size except Flemmingsburg, about 20 klicks away as the crow flies. Muses Mills is a Muses Mills is a in Fleming County, Kentucky community on Fox Creek about 12 miles southeast of Flemmingsburg. The area was settled early in the nineteenth century by the Muse family and the community once included saw and grist mills, a store, and other businesses. The post office opened in 1876. Anyway, Muses Mills was definitely in the middle of nowhere, but the area was beautiful. There were some winters when the snow had been too high to pile anymore and the summers were hot and humid, so hot you wanted to rip your clothes off and jump into the lake, and during his years growing up there, Tom Johnson did that a lot, unless there were folks around.
Grandpa came here after World War II, after having helped build the Alaska Highway. He fell in love with the area and Grandma and decided to settle down. The place was located about 3 klicks from Muses Mills and also in the middle of nowhere. Grandpa had bought the 706 acres from Ezra Carter, infamous moonshiner who had every lawman within 50 miles supplied with his best. They must have cut a deal because Grandpa had let Mr. Ezra live on in his cabin, rent free, until the day Mr. Ezra died, which wasn’t until around 1969. Grandpa had made a few bucks over the years from tourists from all over, looking for somewhere to park their RVs. If there was a dollar to be made, Grandpa would go for it. Mr. Ezra taught Grandpa the fineries of making good moonshine and they kept making the ‘shine up until a month before Mr. Ezra took sick and passed away.
Mr. Ezra had made his ‘shine in an old cave back in the hills in the west side of the property. The entrance was through a panel on the wall of a stall in an old bank barn. The cave was big enough it could have been opened as a tourist attraction but the difference between a 50 cent ticket for looking at an old hole in the ground and tens of dollars a gallon for moonshine encouraged Grandpa to stick with moonshining.
You couldn’t ask for a better place to make moonshine. It was secluded and had natural vents in the cave that spread what little smoke there was from the stills into the trees on the slope. He could use propane to fire his still but mostly used wood. Grandpa would dry his wood so good it didn’t make smoke. You could smell it but couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Pa was born in 1956 and worked with Grandpa making ‘shine from the time he was as tall as a Bluetick Coonhound. I worked with it some until I headed into the Army and always had money in my pocket to date the girls.
Around 1960, before they paved KY-1013 that ran by the property, Pa had the lake built. He told me they cut the trees out of the gully, Pulled the logs, and stumps out with mules and built the dam using mules pulling big iron rollers and dug dirt using mule drawn ‘slip’ earth scoops and Fresno scrapers. If you studied the dam, you know that took a hell of a lot of work. Just about all the workers were from the community because there just weren’t any jobs to be had around. Sixty-three acres of water needs a good-sized dam. The lake was fed by spring fed streams and what little water that flowed down Brushy Fork Branch from the north when it rained a good bit. Pa and Grandpa kept the economy up in that small area of northeast Kentucky.
Grandpa and Pa kept improving the property through the 50s and 60s. A rock and timberframe stock barn was built on the foundation of the old bank barn. Also, closer to the house, a one-hundred-foot equipment barn and workshop were added later using materials were taken on the property. The beams on the equipment barn were fifty feet long, joined with splayed lap joints. All the trees were harvested off that seven hundred acres. Pa must have had a few Mennonites around to design the framing because I don’t know of any of the pot lickers around there who could do something that fine. They cut so much timber, a guy with a sawmill was brought in, or rather Pa bought a sawmill and hired a man to run it. and the lumber was processed just on the other side of the big barn. There’s still rotting remnents of the sawdust pile sitting there, good for putting in the garden. Pa had some houses built or moved in along the highway for rentals. Another way he kept money flowing in.
In 1994 Pa put a boot in Tom’s ass and told him to start figuring on going to school somewhere after high school. Tom had a choice (Pa’s choices) of either going to go to welding school up in Flemmingsburg or to Morehead State. Pa was determined Tom was going to learn something besides fishing, hunting, making moonshine and chasing skirts. So, Tom chose Morehead State for an engineering degree. Morehead State was what was what Tom called “Culture Shock.” There were almost as many students going there as there were people in all of Fleming County. Tom quickly caught on because he tied up with Jay Griffin. Jay’s mother was a professor there at Morehead State having relocated from up in Ohio, so he was the man when it came to get around college social strata. Tom wouldn’t go on with all he went through, especially the skirt chasing, but he got his degree, placing in the upper half of his class. Pa was proud but Tom got itchy feet. He had seen a little of the outside world and wanted to see more so when those Army recruiters came around, he signed up. There were no wars going on, so it was pretty safe time to do his time. Ma cried and Pa grinned and slapped Tom on the shoulder.
Anyway, the government sent Tom to Fort Knox for training and before he could finish, one of those recruiters came around and talked to the drill sergeants. Tom’s name was called out with some of the other guys, and they took the group into a classroom to offer them the “thrill, excitement and honor of being a Green Beret.” The recruiter was good. When he was finished, he had Tom daydreaming of John Wayne, Robert Rogers, Audie Murphy, and other heroes of America’s military. Tom was soon squirming around in his chair like he had a case of itchy hemorrhoids, ‘Put me in Coach! I’m ready to Play, TODAY!’
Tom finished up his basic training and they sent him to Ft. Leonard Wood, over in Missouri for advanced training. When he went home on leave after Basic Training and told Ma and Pa he had another year’s training to do to qualify for the Green Berets, Ma cried again, and Pa grinned even bigger then sent Tom over to Flemmingsburg to rent the John Wayne movie so Ma could see what his son would be doing. That turned out to be a big mistake. She envisioned Tom getting impaled on a big log with wooden spikes sticking out of it. She didn’t calm down after watching that movie until Tom and Pa explained there weren’t any wars going on now. Tom would be safe.
Tom was put on hold at Ft. Leonard Wood before advanced training to go to Fort Bragg, North Carolina to attend a selection course you had to attend, and if selected, you could attend Green Beret training. Up until then, Army training had been a breeze. The things they had you do in the selection course were tough, but not impossible to do. One of the evaluators told them it was “Mind Over Matter.” They didn’t mind and the candidates didn’t matter. That kind of threw a horse blanket over everything. Tom didn’t have any problems, but it sure opened his eyes to the fact that they had to work as a team. If one guy fell short, the others had to pick up the slack. Well, they told Tom he was selected after it was all over and gave him a class date, which was after his Advanced Training was completed in Missouri. Tom even got leave to go home again. He never knew he’d miss Ma’s biscuits and gravy so much! A few days after Tom got home, he went to help Pa pump mash into a still, not that he needed Tom’s help. Years before, Pa had made a little wagon out of scrap junkyard parts that held a generator and a water pump. He could empty a 55 gallon drum of mash in just a few minutes. It was a one-person operation. Tom only went with him because he motioned with his head and said, “come on.”
After the mash was pumped into the still and while Pa was starting the propane fires under the still, he started talking, “Son, just because there ain’t a war going on doesn’t mean you can’t get hurt. You had a little taste of them in college but there is a whole different breed of people outside these hills. Some of them will use and abuse you for their own goals. Be your own man. Be careful of who you trust and don’t let them lead you around by a nose ring. You have a knack for learning and don’t make the same mistakes twice, at least not often. In your kind of business, one mistake will get you killed. Learn from other people’s mistakes. The military wants you to stay away from politics and it’s a good rule, but you need to pay attention to what the politicians are doing because they will use the military like a cheap whore to protect things that will make them money. I expect you will spend a few years in until you get your eyes opened and decide this place really is heaven on earth. There’s a few more things I’m going to do around here but someday I hope you decide to come back and make even more improvements. Have a good time but come back to us.”
That was the last advice Pa gave Tom while home on leave, but they did talk about other things. When it came time to leave, Pa and Ma drove Tom to Lexington in Pa’s new crew cab truck so Tom could catch a plane to get to Fort Bragg. On the way back, Ma wanted to stop in Bardstown to visit some cousins.
Tom’s training at Fort Bragg was not what he had expected. For the first time in his military training, He was treated with respect and not cannon fodder. The instructors seemed like they cared and made sure you learned what they were teaching. Since he was training to be an SF Engineer, he got to build and blow up all kinds of things with military, civilian and unconventional explosives. Tom was amazed how big of a hole you can blow with a couple hundred pounds of fertilizer mixed with fuel oil. They did a lot more things than building and blowing things up and Tom gained a lot of knowledge. He spent a lot of time in the school library reading unclassified after action reports and histories of operations to gain some perspective of what the A-Teams had done. When Tom finally graduated from the course, Pa and Ma drove down for the event next to the Bronze Bruce statue. They were both as proud as peacocks and Ma insisted they all have their picture taken together in front of the statue. One of Tom’s buddies took a family picture with his fancy camera and Tom had an 8x10 printed, framed, and sent home to Ma. It’s still hanging in the den to this day.
After the graduation and reception, the Training Company First Sergeant pulled Tom aside and introduced him to Command Sergeant Major Willie Davis, the CSM of 5th SF Group at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. CSM Davis informed Tom he was on his list of graduates that being assigned to the 5th . Tom was delighted with the assignment because it was the closest Special Forces unit to home. Tom thanked the CSM and said he was looking forward to being at Fort Campbell.
Before Tom left Fort Bragg, one of his classmates drove him up to Raleigh so Tom could buy a vehicle. He was specifically looking for a 4-speed crew cab pickup. Tom had talked to the salesman at the Chevy dealership Near Cary and he had just the color and setup he wanted. NEVER buy a vehicle in a military town. They will rape you on the price. The truck Tom wanted was $5000 less forty-five miles away. Tom got his truck and paid cash for it, went by Leonard’s, and got a camper cover and had it installed, and started packing. Most of what he had to pack was “needed” extra equipment he’d used during training. Tom had a whole extra set of TA-50 which was dirty as hell due to the field environment. The equipment he’d been issued for training had never left his barracks because you had to clean it before you turned it back in. So, Tom had a bit of dirty equipment he was going to have to clean sometime in the future until one of the guys who was familiar with Fort Bragg said there were places off post that would clean it for you. The next morning, Tom took his gear down to a shop run by a Korean woman and had it back in two days. On his last day of clearing post, he went and picked the gear up, all cleaned and dried. Tom left Fort Bragg on a Saturday morning and took his time and drove the speed limit. It is a ten hour drive and he decided to drive to Knoxville, stay overnight then continue to Fort Campbell. He got behind schedule when I-40 was closed due to a rockslide and he had to detour up I-26 to I-81 to bypass it. Tom was a little behind time but got into Knoxville early enough to get a hotel room and a decent dinner.
When Tom arrived at Fort Campbell, He was directed to the replacement detachment where he waited until Monday morning to go over to 5th SF Group to sign in. They “Issued” him a buck Sergeant to lead him around on his in-processing on post. It seemed that the A-Team he would be assigned to was leaving the next week on a training deployment to Texas for three months. Tom, as one of the team’s engineers, had specific duties he had to accomplish in order for himself and the team to be ready to deploy. Well deploy they did, and it was nothing like Tom expected. Why in the world would anyone go to a place that had no trees or grass? They ended up on Fort Bliss, but it was way the hell out in the Doña Ana training area over in New Mexico. As part of their Support Cycle, Tom’s team was taking a rotation to test gear and vehicles to be used in desert and arid climate warfare. It wasn’t until a few years later that Tom finally appreciated the experience.
Tom’s team was actually only going to be testing for ten weeks then would be given two weeks for team cross training. They did everything and had to teach their individual specialties to the rest of the team members. They shot mortars, rockets, split boulders with ribbon charges, fired their individual weapons for annual qualification and got a class in military communications and the medic on the team shot a goat in the leg and they had to treat the gunshot wound.
With no war going on, Tom’s team went on quite a few training deployments up to the 254th day of the Gregorian calendar in 2001. Then the world went crazy.
The next morning, Found Tom’s team loading military shipping containers with their team gear. Their initial instructions were to be prepared to get off the planes and go immediately into combat. The gear was cross loaded into two different containers. The equipment not deemed to be needed quickly was loaded in first. Rations and ammo were loaded near the doors for quick access. Everyone drew their basic load of ammo and the last thing they did was sit in the team room loading magazines and taping grenades. Well, as usual, it was a hurry up and wait exercise, like most of your time in the Big Green Machine. They finally lifted off from the airfield three days later and flown by C5 Galaxies to Khanabad airbase in Uzbekistan to pre-stage.
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Post by gipsy on Apr 19, 2023 7:29:59 GMT -6
We are off and running.
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Post by ncsfsgm on Apr 21, 2023 16:29:52 GMT -6
Chapter 2
. Other teams had been designated to go into Afghanistan to support the Northern Alliance. The rest of us were going in to do what we do best…train the indigenous forces on how to defend themselves and to hold their areas. I like utilizing my training to do what we were paid to do; the only downside was we had to grow beards. It seems the Afghans didn’t believe you were a warrior unless there was an abundance of facial hair, at least that’s what the psyops and civil affairs gurus told us, so we grew beards. The damn things captured dust, itched, and we had a hard enough time getting enough water to drink and keep purified without having to wash every day. On the other hand, war is a dirty business, not only health-wise, but morally. Oh, I have no problem laying my sights on someone who is trying to kill me, I’ll be damned if I’m going to allow someone who stinks worse than I do get a fair chance to kill me.
Finally, we got things pacified enough to set up secure bases in the provinces and could get regular showers and sleep halfway safe at night, well mostly. One night we got mortared and I came to in the bottom of a depression next to where my guard post had been. If the Team Sergeant hadn’t dragged me out by the drag strap on the back of my vest, I wouldn’t be writing this. They say lightning won’t strike twice in the same place but, by God, mortar rounds sure can. We had moved maybe 15 meters away from the post when another round hit in the very same hole, throwing dirt all over us. The rest of the night was spent picking off hadjis using night vision scopes and the MK19, a kind of a machine gun that shoots 40mm grenades. In the morning, a head count revealed we had lost about a third of the ANG troops we had with us, but those guys fought like men. The respected us because we respected them. They fought like tigers because we were in the same areas that their families lived, and they had a resolve to protect their kin. Later on in the conflict, the corrupt officials started moving them to other areas in the country to fight and their resolve lessened. As usual, corrupt leaders, both military and political can screw up most anything. Ten months later, a National Guard Team out of the 20th replaced us and we returned back to Fort Campbell. In retrospect, I can see how Afghanistan fell back under the control of the Taliban after the (p)Resident ordered the withdrawal of all military and diplomatic personnel. Number one, politicians should give the military commanders their objectives and leave them alone to conduct military operations. Number two, closely monitor local distribution of equipment and supplies for mismanagement and corruption. If the Afghan government wouldn’t corporate, then stop all resupply of equipment and funds and start packing up and moving our troops out. About halfway through our deployment we were wondering why our government was even over there. Was it to protect the poppy fields the CIA had an interest in or was it to protect the minerals the US government wanted to keep from China and to line the pockets of their campaign donors?” We may never know and there are many questions still floating around.
We spent the next several months healing, getting re-equipped and training using the lessons we had learned. One of the less liked times being back in garrison was the awards ceremonies. No one cared about awards. We all received the Combat Infantry badge (CIB). Most received the bronze star and of course there were purple hearts for being wounded. To me, the purple heart should be renamed the “enemy marksmanship badge”. He did his job, and you didn’t do yours for not ducking quickly enough. Officers loved awards which became a bane to the Teams. If a team leader didn’t recommend awards for his troops, his commander got it in his mind that he didn’t care or appreciate his men and he might get a statement on his efficiency report and a good officer was gone. Another thing was staff officers were always coming out and going with us on combat patrols hoping we would get into a firefight, and they could at least get a CIB. If he happened to get his finger pinched in the gun hatch lock, he might even get a purple heart. It was all bullshit.
I took my annual 30 day’s leave back to the farm after I was medically cleared, and the training was done. I had to use it or lose it. I actually had almost 50 days accumulated. Nothing had changed much, and Pa was questioning me on what I had been through overseas. I showed him an album of pictures I’d transferred onto my laptop computer. In the end, he was more interested in the computer than the pictures. Using my phone hotspot, I showed him how I could access the internet and he was amazed at the information. He asked me about solar and wind power. He had picked up what turned out to be survivalist magazines at a Valero in Flemmingsburg that had articles on how to live off the grid. It interested him because what they were describing was exactly how we lived on the farm except we had electric power from the Rural Electrical CO-OP. He was interested in other types of power. I first did a search for solar power, then wind power, and finally mini hydro units. He was excited at what he was seeing and asked me where he could get one of those computers. The next morning, I took him over to Ashland and bought him a laptop, external hard drive, and a wireless hotspot. He didn’t want a cell phone. I spent the rest of my leave teaching him how to use everything. When I returned home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, you’d have thought he’d had a college course in computer operations. I came up to the time when I had to decide to make the military a career ND re-enlist or hang it UP And do something else. I could see we were spinning our wheels in Iraq and Afghanistan. On top of that I was seeing a girl from Hoptown and wanted to get to know her better. I could see myself out of uniform. When I finally got straightened out after getting back to Fort Campbell, I really got to know her. She was a dental hygienist at a prominent dental office, and I found out she had not only attended to patients with teeth cleaning and such but was servicing two of the dentists from the office “orally” and held several “seminars” at a local Holiday Inn occasionally. Pa had had said to be careful trusting people, so I decided to start my transition to the civilian world. Charley Pride once recorded a song “Snakes Crawl at Night.” I followed my instincts and began preparing to turn another corner in my life.
Before I could get home for good, Grandpa passed away. In fact, I was just pulling into Nortonville, where I’d catch KY-62 when I got the call from Pa. I pulled over into the Marathon station at the intersection of KY-41 and KY-62 to get my composure before I could continue on home. The people who had meant the most to me were slowly fading from my life.
A vision of Grandpa sitting in his chair listening to that old 1937 RCA AM / SW / Police Band Radio flashed through my mind. He would listen to news from all over and finally tune in to bluegrass and country stations.
A man from Paducah had offered Grandpa $2,500.00 for the radio back in 2005 and he wouldn’t sell it. He had boxes of replacement parts for everything except the chassis. Those old tube radios rarely needed to be repaired and when they did, were easy to fix.
"Nothing wrong with keeping up on the news.” Grandpa would sometimes say. “It's just not something you should take too far. The country isn’t always as good as they say or as bad as it seems. The world's always coming to the brink before it jumps back."
We buried Grandpa in the Muses Mills Cemetery next to Grandma. Pa had the stone man come in and cut his name and dates on the stone.
After the funeral, a passel of women and their husbands arrived at the house bringing more food than we knew what to do with. The men eased on down to the big 40x80 shop building and sipped ‘shine, telling stories about Grandpa. One of their favorites was when he was a Deputy Sheriff (for a short time). He was chasing a suspect that had robbed a store and Grandpa pulled out his pistol and shot at the man. Now, Grandpa could knock the hairs off of a gnat’s butt with a rifle but was no great shakes with a pistol. The bullet he shot at the man ricocheted off the hard road and hit him in the ankle. Before they could get him to a doctor the man bled out. It had hit Grandpa pretty hard, and he resigned from the force.
While he was still broadcasting, Pa’s favorite radio program had been Art Bell’s “Coast to Coast.”
He keyed in on every disaster that could come about. One night the topic was solar storms.
A solar storm could fry electronic chips and wiring, rendering much of man's modern machinery to nothing more than junk. If it weren’t shielded from the EMP, it wouldn't turn on. Pa, with his newly acquired computer skills, researched everything he could about Alternative Energy after one Art Bell show and had made some changes around the farm. From what he had found out, if they were to get hit by a solar flare, it would mean the world as we know it would shut down. Now we might be on the back side of nowhere, but he wanted to live as civilized as he could. He had solar power installed and even temporarily breached the lake dam to install a vortex hydro generator. This type took less water and less head than a standard hydro generator. You could leave it running all the time if you wanted to because it used less water than the small streams feeding the lake dumped into it. To hedge his bet on maintaining electrical power, Pa was looking into wind power also. In fact, he was evaluating two Vortex windmills now. They were mounted on top of the shop building. He said if they worked out, he would get the bigger ones. He could sit and talk about bet’s law, turbulence regions, wind gradients, and finite bodies’ aerodynamics like he could talk about making whiskey. I had to do my own studying up to even understand what the devil he was even talking about.
I asked Pa why he was doing all this, and he told me stories Grandpa had told him about living through the Great Depression. Grandpa had worked all his life to make sure his family didn’t have to go through the same misery. He had made a lot of money-making moonshine but was careful with his money. He usually only spent money to make money. He never kept more than a few hundred dollars in the bank and his mind was always on the future. Pa said when Grandpa listened to the news, he was especially attentive of what was going on in other countries, especially the bad news, because the same thing could always come to America. Some people didn’t think much of themselves and thought people in Europe did things right. You had to do what was right for you and your family. To hell with all those other people.
It was almost three weeks before Tom began getting in step and in the mindset of his father.
His father was working for a time when the country didn’t work as it does now. The more he read and from what he had seen, this country was going in the wrong direction. Any one little thing could collapse the whole house of cards. Whether if it was man-made or from natural causes, the infrastructure was weak. There were individuals and groups that were fighting to get rid of gas and oil exploration and production, the lifeblood of the economy, with nothing to replace it but vehicles whose batteries caught on fire and really didn’t get that much mileage. Some links to stories of living off the grid lead him to stories of survival and prepping. He and his father even watched the show on TV about Doomsday Preppers. They talked about what food they needed to stock up on and began making lists. They began buying larger quantities of food from the Amish and Mennonite stores, especially grain, and began grinding their own flour from a hand mill Tom had ordered. Using the internet, they made a list of the things they liked to eat and were available at the Sam’s Club and COSTCO stores in Cincinnati. Once a month they’d head up and bring back a load.
Tom used a food planner spreadsheet he got off of a website and planned for five years of food for five people, even though it was just Pa, Ma, and himself. It never hurts to have a little extra. Although she was in bed most of the time, Ma helped him out with his list of things that could help stretch the food supply and make a nutritious meal.
Ma was getting worse, and someone had to be near her all the time. She’d get embarrassed when Tom had to help her with her personal needs. Several people advised Pa to put Ma in a nursing home, but Pa said, “We take care of our own.” Anyway, Pa hired Grace O’Doyle, who lived on the other side of Pea Ridge to come in and be with Ma while He and Tom were out working. She became a fixture in the household and even cooked supper for them, with Ma’s recommendations. To Ma, she was the daughter she’d never had. The girl gave Tom the willies sometimes. She was about 5’4”, built like a brick…well, he’d tried to sweeten up his language since he was back home now, but the girl reminded him of pictures of those Wood Sprites he’d seen in a book one time. She was pretty but she could give you a look like she could draw your soul right out of your nostrils. She had black hair cut short to her shoulders and amber eyes that made your eyes water looking into them and skin that tanned easily. She said she was Black Irish, whatever that meant. He later looked up the term “Black Irish and figured her ancestors came from the Basque region of Spain. Tom pretty much stayed away from the house when she was around.
Ma’s kidneys gave out a few months later and she passed. A part of Tom’s heart was ripped from him. Pa was never the same after Ma’s passing and six months later he passed listening to the RCA.
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Post by ncsfsgm on Apr 21, 2023 16:32:05 GMT -6
Chapter 3
Tom was in a daze. It seemed everyone was fading out of his life. He was in contact with a couple of the guys on his A Team, but his family was basically gone. Grace was still coming two or three days a week and he needed to figure out what to do with her. She had kept house and made them meals after Ma had passed. But now it was just him left.
It took a few days for Tom to take stock.
He finally got up one morning and took a deep breath. He was still alive and wasn’t just going to fold up like a rubber boat. He had a couple of RVs in the camping area and there were still the plans he and Pa had put together he could work on. After cooking some breakfast and cleaning up the kitchen, he went to the big shed and checked the voltage output history on the vortex wind generator. The data showed the bladeless generators were efficient. He could get a couple of sixteen footers to replace the wind turbines he was currently using. As long as the sun was shining, he would have electricity, or if there was no sun, he would have electricity from the vortex hydro setup or the vortex wind generators.
Pa had built the present house back in 1985 using data from state and federal agencies and codes to make it earthquake proof. There was as much steel in the basement as some high-rise buildings had.
Tom was sitting at the kitchen table working on his laptop when Grace came in. He was making a list of possible disasters that could happen to make sure he had all bases covered. He did a search for disasters in the Commonwealth and began with tornadoes and quickly added blizzards, ice storms, floods. Earthquakes, forest fires and mine fires.
“What are you working on so diligently?” Grace asked.
“A list of disasters that could happen. I want to make sure I’m covered for any eventuality.” Tom replied.
“Do you feel like Hot Brown Sandwiches for lunch?” She asked.
“Sounds good.” Tom replied.
Grace looked at his list, “Definitely tornadoes. It seems like there are more and more every year. No mines nearby so you don’t have to worry about fires. What do you do about forest fires?”
“I’m not too worried about them. I keep the deadfall cleaned up so it could be controllable. I’ve got the diesel pump I can pump water from the lake and keep any fire away from the house.”
“Earthquakes?”
We still get tremors from New Madrid. There’s an earthquake somewhere in Kentucky at least once a year. The strongest historic earthquake recorded inside Kentucky's borders was the magnitude 5.2 Sharpsburg earthquake of July 27, 1980.
“What about asteroid impacts?”
“Well, not a lot that can be done if it hits you directly. After that, its long-term survival and pray it hit Washington, District of Corruption.”
“You don’t like or trust the government, do you?” Grace asked.
“I’ve seen and experienced enough to not to.” Tom replied. “When the chips are down, you can only depend on yourself and your family. That’s why I, my father and grandfather all do and did things we have to keep this place safe. I’m planning to survive the mess the know-it-all politicians and nature do to this country. I am trying not to leave anything to chance.
They sat and talked throughout the morning and started to get to know each other better, only stopping for Grace to prepare their lunch. Tom showed her his shopping list he was going to fill on his next trip to Cincinnati and Grace looked it over.
“You should add spices to this. “It’s fine to have plenty of food but what you have here can get awful boring without some flavor.
Tom nodded. “You’re right. Why don’t you ride with me and help get things?”
“Sure. When do you plan to go?”
“I think I’ll go Saturday. Are you free to go?”
“Sure, I can be ready.” Grace replied.
They ate their sandwiches and Grace seemed to mellow somewhat as they talked, telling him about herself. After lunch, Tom went to check on his trailer. He had bought it at Fort Campbell from a guy who had come from 10th Group. It was an all-terrain trailer with a swivel tongue, a Front generator platform with enclosed box, Rear ramp door with spring assist close and cam bars, 30-amp power package with four interior outlets and one exterior (GFI), and a side door. Plus, it was heated and air conditioned. The 8.6 x 20-foot trailer was probably intended as a toy hauler, but Tom had wanted to turn it into a camping trailer to use on his weekend trips to the Land Between the Lakes. It had plenty of room for his Rokon, camping cot and everything he could use during his camping trips. His deployments curtailed his trips, but he kept the trailer and it had turned out to be useful in many other ways. He checked the air pressure in the tires and plugged in the battery charger. On their trip, he would run the air conditioner to keep the interior cool. The black trailer could get hot in the summer. Tom got on the Rokon and rode over to the garden to check it out. The tomatoes were looking good, and the bell peppers were blooming. He needed to stake up the string beans this week. He thought about Grace as he walked around looking at the plants, killing two tomato worms. She was beginning to be more open with him and his perception of her was changing.
Tom rode up to the house and called out to Grace. She came out and he told her to get on. Grace got on behind Tom, put her arms around Tom and he took off slowly. They went to the RV pads and Tom inspected the sites and greeted on of the renters. They remounted the bike and Tom drove them down to where one of the spring-fed brooks emptied into the lake. There was a grassy area at the conjunction where Tom stopped, and they got off. Grace sat down in the shade of a sycamore and Tom stood there and stared at the rippling brook water.
“There is a change coming. We’re going to see chaos all over the place. No credit cards will be accepted anywhere. Like the whole system will be down. VISA, Mastercard, Amex, it won’t make any difference. Declined. Declined. Declined. Phone lines will be jammed. Just an automated message when you call the bank. Can you imagine what’s going to happen when the social security and welfare payments don’t reach the people?”
Money is one of those things that preoccupies most people. It's, like, fundamental to who we are. What we do. How we feed ourselves, clothe our bodies, make ourselves and our loved ones secure. It's how we pay for Netflix and the latest online game, for the weekly lottery ticket. Money is everyone's major preoccupation. The need for status, sex, security, love, and approval might have been with us from the beginning of the rise of heretics, but we have only ourselves to blame for our obsession with money. In Gone with the Wind, Scarlet tells Rhett Butler, "Money won't buy you happiness." To which he replies, "No, but it will buy some remarkable substitutes."
"What do you think is going to happen?" Grace asked.
"Those of us who know history are doomed to watch those who haven’t paid attention repeat the same insane mistakes over and over." Tom gave a slight shrug of his broad shoulders. "Movements create momentum and inertia until they can't be stopped. Sort of like a tidal wave, there comes a time after which you can't damp it down. I think our word is past that, and we're going to have to pay for it." A calamity will come that will knock society on its ass and everything will collapse. Some say that hell is here on Earth, but they haven’t seen anything yet. That’s why I prepare. I don’t want my friends and family to suffer so I’m going to get ready for everything I can. I’d like your help in this. I won’t say we will be all right. At that time, it will all be in God’s hands but I’m going to help him as much as I can. I’d like your help in this. We’re all going to need each other before things get better again.
“Do you think it will really get that bad?” Grace asked.
I see it building. This country is weak, in many ways. Molesting the children, even in churches, Wholesale corruption in the highest offices, crime rising and those who are supposed to curtail the problem turning a blind eye. People not caring for the value that each person holds in this world. When it hits, it’s going to hit hard, especially in the cities. We’re going to have refugees all over the place trying to get away from the violence. People will turn on each other to get enough to feed their families. Yes, it will get bad, but will you help me prepare? The things I’m going to do may go against some of the ways you were raised but I promise to do the best I can to shield you against what is coming.
“What do I need to do?”
“First, you’ll have to get in the mindset of living in the 1800’s. When things collapse, so will our infrastructure. The power grid will fail. The delivery of goods and services will cease. No more manufacturing and the latest car won’t be available every September. We’ll have to store up and maintain what we have on hand. I’ll show you the inventory of what I have, and you can add your ideas of what we might need.
“But you have your own power here.” Grace said.
“Yes, we do, but very few people will throughout this country, or at least they won’t after the fuel runs out. My father started that and I’m going to build on what he started. We have power produced by the wind, water, and sun. With enough repair parts, we will have it for a long time. But also think about things that don’t use power that will make life easier. I think I have the minimum electrical appliances we need.
“Okay, I’ll help. I need to get back. I’ve got dough rising on the counter.” Grace said.
They got on the bike and headed back to the farmhouse.
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Post by gipsy on Apr 21, 2023 19:17:05 GMT -6
And we are off and running.
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Post by kansasterri on Apr 21, 2023 20:31:45 GMT -6
YES on the spices!!!!!!! Back when we were broke I mostly cooked with loss-leader meat. And we did not get bored because one day I would take the pork (for instance) and make a Chinese stir-fry with vegetables. The next night it would be pork tacos, the next night BBQ pork, then I would serve a different meat for variety, and then I would make grilled pork with celery seed and applesauce, and so forth and so on.
Also, according to a youtuber called "Inside Russia", when he was growing up in the country almost everybody lived off of just a few different foods. potatos and bread were eaten every day. But, they never got bored because of "The skills of the cooks". But after I watched my adopted niece from Ukraine cook I figured out what the Russian cooks were doing.
I expect that the Russian cooks did what my niece does: she uses a LOT of spices, but she uses them in truly small quantities. By the time she finished putting TINY amounts of oregano, garlic, onion, curry powder, paprika, pepper, and just a DASH of sour cream the simmered chicken did not taste like any chicken soup that I had ever had before but it did taste savory and good. I imagine that by varying the amounts of spices the soup would have tasted entirely different, which means no boredom because the food would not taste the same twice
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Post by feralferret on Apr 21, 2023 22:51:34 GMT -6
Two more thought provoking chapters. Thanks!
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Post by freebirde on Apr 21, 2023 23:40:31 GMT -6
In a Reddit r/prepper thread someone asked about PAW trade goods, the second things I listed sugar, salt, and spices. Another thing I mentioned was coffee, teas, and cocoa. If properly preserved all of this would get more valued the longer things lasted.
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Post by CountryGuy on Apr 22, 2023 8:56:06 GMT -6
Truer words... "...we were wondering why our government was even over there. Was it to protect the poppy fields the CIA had an interest in or was it to protect the minerals the US government wanted to keep from China and to line the pockets of their campaign donors?”
Isn't it strange how for the 20 years we basically controlled one of the largest sources of heroin in the world at the same time we were in the midst of a massive heroin epidemic here at home.
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Post by ncsfsgm on Apr 22, 2023 9:16:45 GMT -6
Chapter 4
Tom was now buying family sized units of freeze-dried food. Once a month Tom and Grace would head to Cincinnati to get canned meats and other medium- and long-term storage foods. They also frequented antique stores for non-electric tools and appliances.
Tom ordered another Rokon for Grace so they could take little rides on Sunday afternoons if company weren’t coming. Tom hired four men to cut a trail all around and across the property but kept it west of the lake. Tom hired Five men to do the clearing and it was as nice as those graveled trails you find in the state parks. You could say Tom and his family had been running their own Civilian Conservation Corps over the years because they hired men to clear deadfall, gathering rock for building, mowing grass an any other work that took more then a couple of men to do. What the Johnson Clan had paid out over the years in wages had put many a meal into bellies around Muses Mills.
All the work done had not diminished the treasure Tom’s grandfather and father had left him. He, like his family, had been making money all along when everyone was doing without, except for the jobs they were hired for. Yes, the money dwindled down at times, but it was considered an investment in the future. Tom scoured the internet through his satellite system looking for signs of possible changes and began keying in on natural disasters and economic changes after they occurred. He was always making money to where the moonshine business became a side business. He kept it up because he knew men and women always tried to hang on to their vices no matter the economic situation.
Tom strained his brain to cover any possibility of making more cash. Grace was a help in recommending things that would keep them above water. She mentioned a man over in Goddard who grew sorghum cane and made syrup. Now everyone likes molasses and sorghum syrup, and molasses could also be used to make rum. Tom bought a few gallons of sorghum syrup and after researching some recipes, made his first batch of sorghum rum. It took him a few tries but he was able to work out a mild tasting sweet rum. It had become a favorite until no one could get Coca Cola anymore. They reverted to a couple of tablespoons of syrup and a touch of spring water added to the rum, and it was tolerable. But that was later, and it left you with a hell of a headache if you drank too much. The women seemed to like the rum in small quantities.
Because the community was made up of Irish and Scottish immigrants, funerals usually turned into wakes with lots of food and alcohol. A lot of alcohol. When one happened, the Johnson family usually supplied the jugs of spirits that were slowly inserted into the activities. Before the end of the day the women were ready to slip into activities that would help replace the loss of a member of the community, which usually raised people’s spirits and insured the continued existence of the community.
Tom was reading an article on the Popular Science digital magazine about solar flares and realized it was something he was not prepared to deal with. He began to take stock of the things on the farm that required electricity and needed to be protected from electrical surges. That led to his research on how to protect each one from electromagnetic pulses.
Tom found a company that sold protective devices for protecting homes and vehicles from surge ionization that he could install himself. He placed a big order and checked that off his list, for now.
Liking the results of the vortex wind generators, Tom ordered two sixteen footers. When they came in he had Grace contact Dalilah Parker, a young girl that lived near the church, to come to the house. Dalilah was a self-taught artist, her greatest subjects being hunting boats and vehicle that the pot lickers around the county wanted painted in realistic camouflage colors. He wanted her to paint the vortex generators which would be put behind the house at the base of the slope of the ridge. In the evenings the breeze came down the valley and, in the mornings, it would rush up and over the ridge.
She came down and took a pictures with her camera of the sites from a distance. She would enlarge it enough to match the colors. Tom didn’t want the white poles sticking out. He wanted her to paint the mast sections, so they didn’t stick out like a sore thumb at any time of the year. He was going to pay her enough to pursue her art career for a year at Morehead State.
When they weren’t riding the Rokons, Tim and Grace walked through the trails along the ridge. They strolled along chatting as they proceeded up through the forest stopping to observe the birds and inspect the animal trails. The air was crisp and clean with the usual smell of rotting leaves and occasionally the smell of pines. There were very few wood fires, so there was just a faint smell of smoke in the air. The birds grew silent as they passed but sang their songs up ahead.
“Why haven’t ever made a pass at me?” Grace asked.
“Because I respect you.” Tom said.
“Well, a women sometimes needs a little more than that.” Grace replied.
“Grace, I had a bad experience with a woman who I wanted to live with forever. She betrayed me and didn’t seem to have a qualm about it. I lost my faith in myself because I didn’t see it coming and my faith and trust in women because of what she did.”
“Forget the whore and find a good woman. Don’t be like so many men and generalize women. Is Dan Allen the same as you?” Grace asked.
“Hell No!” Tom replied.
“Well, not all women are the same either, especially me. I’d welcome some attention from you.” If you fall off a horse, you dust yourself off and climb back in the saddle. Not that a woman is like a horse, but you know what I mean.” Grace meekly said.
“You mean if I were to hold you and kiss you, you wouldn’t mind?”
“Why don’t you try and see?” Grace said, grinning.
Tom did and she didn’t fight him then they continued walking, now holding hands.
Pa could see what was going on and just stayed out of it. If anyone wanted his two cents worth, they’d have to come to him. But Grace was as good as they come, even better. He hoped Tom would bite the bit and step into the traces with Grace.
Tom and Grace laid out the Vortex mast sections, and Dalilah asked if they could assemble the masts and lay them on sawbucks so she could paint a continuous pattern. They set the sawbucks up in the big shop building and put the sections together for her. She marked off lengths on the masts and began sketching with a carpenter’s pencil. Tom took Dalilah up to Flemmingsburg to buy paint at the hardware store and she began mixing colors.
Over the next couple of weeks, three big semis with 53-foot trailers, three hotshot trucks, and a lowboy hauling a beat up looking all-terrain forklift arrived. Tom had ordered the other things but had no idea about the forklift pa had bought.
“Pa? What’s with the forklift?” Tom asked his father.
“There are some things down in the bone yard that are too heavy to move the tractor and the bucket forks. I’ve been wanting to sort the things out and needed something more.”
Grandpa, Pa and Tom all at one time or another added to what some people would call a junkyard of discarded and outdated farm, logging and a little mining equipment, all of it made with good steel. Many times, if they needed a part, it could be found down there. Tome didn’t mind if that was what Pa wanted to do. At least he’d know where to find him.
Tom used the tractor forks to move the three pallets of 2.4 kWh deep-cycle gel batteries to the storage area under the barn. And the rest of the things went in their appropriate storage area. He’d received the EMP Shield modules and set them aside in the shop building. Tome was going to start installing them.
Tom now had enough batteries he could run a 1000-watt microwave daily if he wanted to. He first started installing the EMP shield on Grace’s Jeep Wrangler then his truck. If something happened, at least they could get home while everyone else was stalled by the road. The shields had a ten year warranty and $25,000 insurance but Tom’s question how you are going to collect your insurance if everything is shut down. The fact they advertised that the units surpassed all Military EMP Testing Standards. Gave him some little hope that the things would work. He would still by spare electronics, condensers, sparkplugs, and wires for all their vehicles and store them in a Faraday cage he built using a 10x10 shipping container up on blocks and grounded under the barn. He had gone to Home Depot and bought one of the spray insulating foam kits, metallic tape, and insulated the inside of the container and installed a good ground. If the Chinese wanted to launch a HEMP at them, he would be ready, hopefully.
Grace and Tom were getting closer every day and Pa was grinning like an idiot. He enjoyed young people doing the dance. Grace talked to pa and asked him why he didn’t have chickens for the meat and eggs.
“We raid ‘em for a while when Mary was alive but I kind of fell out of the habit.”
“Well, if you get some, I’ll help take care of them. Powdered eggs and well water is okay, but I like fresh eggs too.” Grace replied.
Pa grinned and went off to barter some squeezings for chickens and grain to feed them.
Tom was down at the shop getting the four-row corn combine ready to harvest the corn they raised for moonshine when he needed his pa for something. He went looking for him and Grace told him he’d gone to a neighbor’s house. When Pa came back with a dozen chickens and four-hundred pounds of chicken feed, Tom asked him what was going on. Pa told him and Tom just shook his head.
“Pa, you can’t keep giving her what she wants all the time!”
“Hey. I’m with her. I like fresh eggs too; besides, she’s become the woman of the house in many ways. If you don’t get a move on, you’ll likely lose the best thing that could ever happened to you.”
“Well, I do like her but you’re always folding to her.”
“Well, she is almost my daughter-in-law even you don’t seem to realize it.”
Pa helped Tom jack the combine up and Tom continued working.
Toward the end of the month, Grace and Tom made a trip to Cincinnati for shopping. They went to Sam’s Club and Grace went off the list and began buying off-the-shelf medications, first aid supplies, especially all the Wound Seal they had, and personal hygiene products. She was even able to get four bottles of Dakin’s Solution four wound care, baking soda and bleach to make her own when that Rn out. Tom didn’t argue with her one bit. He had them on a list but hadn’t gotten to them yet. They didn’t take up much room in the trailer anyway. There had been an article on the news that this year’s cocoa crop wasn’t good, so Grace bought several cans of Hershey’s powdered cocoa and a few boxes of Swiss Miss Hot cocoa. They bought more toilet paper and paper towels by the bundle and case. The trailer was packed fuller than on any of the other trip they had come back from. Grace lit a fire under Tom too. Later, He began buying ammunition and looking to upgrade his guns after Grace asked him how he was going to protect the homestead.
Pa and Tom were still going to estate sales, sometimes Grace went too. There were times that Grace bought more than Pa. He did run across a deal one time that turned out to be pretty good, except it took a few months to realize it. There was a sale up up around Tollesboro. The family had money at one time. There was an outbuilding packed with marine equipment. Nobody had much use for it, but it seems the old man had made some of his money building pontoon boats up in Vanceburg to run on the Ohio River. Most of the stock in the building was pressurized alcohol stoves. Pa bid on the building and had only two people bid against him, and they soon dropped out.
“Pa, what are go going to do with a bunch of marine equipment?” Tom asked.
“Son, all that stuff is chromed and will last for a long time. The big thing is the stoves. They burn ethanol. I can make ethanol all day long. Ethanol evaporates faster than water so that’s what comes out of the still first. I usually burn it off but now we can start saving it. Someday, someone will use those stoves and be glad for it. Maybe us.
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Post by sniper69 on Apr 22, 2023 10:57:34 GMT -6
Chapter 4
Tom was now buying family sized units of freeze-dried food. Once a month Tom and Grace would head to Cincinnati to get canned meats and other medium- and long-term storage foods. They also frequented antique stores for non-electric tools and appliances.
Tom ordered another Rokon for Grace so they could take little rides on Sunday afternoons if company weren’t coming. Mark hired four men to cut a trail all around and across the property but kept it west of the lake. Tom hired Five men to do the clearing and it was as nice as those graveled trails you find in the state parks. You could say Tom and his family had been running their own Civilian Conservation Corps over the years because they hired men to clear deadfall, gathering rock for building, mowing grass an any other work that took more then a couple of men to do. What the Johnson Clan had paid out over the years in wages had put many a meal into bellies around Muses Mills.
All the work done had not diminished the treasure Tom’s grandfather and father had left him. He, like his family, had been making money all along when everyone was doing without, except for the jobs they were hired for. Yes, the money dwindled down at times, but it was considered an investment in the future. Tom scoured the internet through his satellite system looking for signs of possible changes and began keying in on natural disasters and economic changes after they occurred. He was always making money to where the moonshine business became a side business. He kept it up because he knew men and women always tried to hang on to their vices no matter the economic situation.
Tom strained his brain to cover any possibility of making more cash. Grace was a help in recommending things that would keep them above water. She mentioned a man over in Goddard who grew sorghum cane and made syrup. Now everyone likes molasses and sorghum syrup, and molasses could also be used to make rum. Tom bought a few gallons of sorghum syrup and after researching some recipes, made his first batch of sorghum rum. It took him a few tries but he was able to work out a mild tasting sweet rum. It had become a favorite until no one could get Coca Cola anymore. They reverted to a couple of tablespoons of syrup and a touch of spring water added to the rum, and it was tolerable. But that was later, and it left you with a hell of a headache if you drank too much. The women seemed to like the rum in small quantities.
Because the community was made up of Irish and Scottish immigrants, funerals usually turned into wakes with lots of food and alcohol. A lot of alcohol. When one happened, the Johnson family usually supplied the jugs of spirits that were slowly inserted into the activities. Before the end of the day the women were ready to slip into activities that would help replace the loss of a member of the community, which usually raised people’s spirits and insured the continued existence of the community.
Tom was reading an article on the Popular Science digital magazine about solar flares and realized it was something he was not prepared to deal with. He began to take stock of the things on the farm that required electricity and needed to be protected from electrical surges. That led to his research on how to protect each one from electromagnetic pulses.
Tom found a company that sold protective devices for protecting homes and vehicles from surge ionization that he could install himself. He placed a big order and checked that off his list, for now.
Liking the results of the vortex wind generators, Tom ordered two sixteen footers. When they came in he had Grace contact Dalilah Parker, a young girl that lived near the church, to come to the house. Dalilah was a self-taught artist, her greatest subjects being hunting boats and vehicle that the pot lickers around the county wanted painted in realistic camouflage colors. He wanted her to paint the vortex generators which would be put behind the house at the base of the slope of the ridge. In the evenings the breeze came down the valley and, in the mornings, it would rush up and over the ridge.
She came down and took a pictures with her camera of the sites from a distance. She would enlarge it enough to match the colors. Tom didn’t want the white poles sticking out. He wanted her to paint the mast sections, so they didn’t stick out like a sore thumb at any time of the year. He was going to pay her enough to pursue her art career for a year at Morehead State.
When they weren’t riding the Rokons, Tim and Grace walked through the trails along the ridge. They strolled along chatting as they proceeded up through the forest stopping to observe the birds and inspect the animal trails. The air was crisp and clean with the usual smell of rotting leaves and occasionally the smell of pines. There were very few wood fires, so there was just a faint smell of smoke in the air. The birds grew silent as they passed but sang their songs up ahead.
“Why haven’t ever made a pass at me?” Grace asked.
“Because I respect you.” Tom said.
“Well, a women sometimes needs a little more than that.” Grace replied.
“Grace, I had a bad experience with a woman who I wanted to live with forever. She betrayed me and didn’t seem to have a qualm about it. I lost my faith in myself because I didn’t see it coming and my faith and trust in women because of what she did.”
“Forget the whore and find a good woman. Don’t be like so many men and generalize women. Is Dan Allen the same as you?” Grace asked.
“Hell No!” Tom replied.
“Well, not all women are the same either, especially me. I’d welcome some attention from you.” If you fall off a horse, you dust yourself off and climb back in the saddle. Not that a woman is like a horse, but you know what I mean.” Grace meekly said.
“You mean if I were to hold you and kiss you, you wouldn’t mind?”
“Why don’t you try and see?” Grace said, grinning.
Tom did and she didn’t fight him then they continued walking, now holding hands.
Pa could see what was going on and just stayed out of it. If anyone wanted his two cents worth, they’d have to come to him. But Grace was as good as they come, even better. He hoped Tom would bite the bit and step into the traces with Grace.
Tom and Pa laid out the Vortex mast sections, and Dalilah asked if they could assemble the masts and lay them on sawbucks so she could paint a continuous pattern. They set the sawbucks up in the big shop building and put the sections together for her. She marked off lengths on the masts and began sketching with a carpenter’s pencil. Pa took Dalilah up to Flemmingsburg to buy paint at the hardware store and she began mixing colors.
Over the next couple of weeks, three big semis with 53-foot trailers, three hotshot trucks, and a lowboy hauling a beat up looking all-terrain forklift arrived. Tom had ordered the other things but had no idea about the forklift pa had bought.
“Pa? What’s with the forklift?” Tom asked his father.
“There are some things down in the bone yard that are too heavy to move the tractor and the bucket forks. I’ve been wanting to sort the things out and needed something more.”
Grandpa, Pa and Tom all at one time or another added to what some people would call a junkyard of discarded and outdated farm, logging and a little mining equipment, all of it made with good steel. Many times, if they needed a part, it could be found down there. Tome didn’t mind if that was what Pa wanted to do. At least he’d know where to find him.
Tom used the tractor forks to move the three pallets of 2.4 kWh deep-cycle gel batteries to the storage area under the barn. And the rest of the things went in their appropriate storage area. He’d received the EMP Shield modules and set them aside in the shop building. Tome was going to start installing them.
Tom now had enough batteries he could run a 1000-watt microwave daily if he wanted to. He first started installing the EMP shield on Grace’s Jeep Wrangler then his truck. If something happened, at least they could get home while everyone else was stalled by the road. The shields had a ten year warranty and $25,000 insurance but Tom’s question how you are going to collect your insurance if everything is shut down. The fact they advertised that the units surpassed all Military EMP Testing Standards. Gave him some little hope that the things would work. He would still by spare electronics, condensers, sparkplugs, and wires for all their vehicles and store them in a Faraday cage he built using a 10x10 shipping container up on blocks and grounded under the barn. He had gone to Home Depot and bought one of the spray insulating foam kits, metallic tape, and insulated the inside of the container and installed a good ground. If the Chinese wanted to launch a HEMP at them, he would be ready, hopefully.
Grace and Tom were getting closer every day and Pa was grinning like an idiot. He enjoyed young people doing the dance. Grace talked to pa and asked him why he didn’t have chickens for the meat and eggs.
“We raid ‘em for a while when Mary was alive but I kind of fell out of the habit.”
“Well, if you get some, I’ll help take care of them. Powdered eggs and well water is okay, but I like fresh eggs too.” Grace replied.
Pa grinned and went off to barter some squeezings for chickens and grain to feed them.
Tom was down at the shop getting the four-row corn combine ready to harvest the corn they raised for moonshine when he needed his pa for something. He went looking for him and Grace told him he’d gone to a neighbor’s house. When Pa came back with a dozen chickens and four-hundred pounds of chicken feed, Tom asked him what was going on. Pa told him and Tom just shook his head.
“Pa, you can’t keep giving her what she wants all the time!”
“Hey. I’m with her. I like fresh eggs too; besides, she’s become the woman of the house in many ways. If you don’t get a move on, you’ll likely lose the best thing that could ever happened to you.”
“Well, I do like her but you’re always folding to her.”
“Well, she is almost my daughter-in-law even you don’t seem to realize it.”
Pa helped Tom jack the combine up and Tom continued working.
Toward the end of the month, Grace and Tom made a trip to Cincinnati for shopping. They went to Sam’s Club and Grace went off the list and began buying off-the-shelf medications, first aid supplies, especially all the Wound Seal they had, and personal hygiene products. She was even able to get four bottles of Dakin’s Solution four wound care, baking soda and bleach to make her own when that Rn out. Tom didn’t argue with her one bit. He had them on a list but hadn’t gotten to them yet. They didn’t take up much room in the trailer anyway. There had been an article on the news that this year’s cocoa crop wasn’t good, so Grace bought several cans of Hershey’s powdered cocoa and a few boxes of Swiss Miss Hot cocoa. They bought more toilet paper and paper towels by the bundle and case. The trailer was packed fuller than on any of the other trip they had come back from. Grace lit a fire under Tom too. Later, He began buying ammunition and looking to upgrade his guns after Grace asked him how he was going to protect the homestead.
Pa and Tom were still going to estate sales, sometimes Grace went too. There were times that Grace bought more than Pa. He did run across a deal one time that turned out to be pretty good, except it took a few months to realize it. There was a sale up up around Tollesboro. The family had money at one time. There was an outbuilding packed with marine equipment. Nobody had much use for it, but it seems the old man had made some of his money building pontoon boats up in Vanceburg to run on the Ohio River. Most of the stock in the building was pressurized alcohol stoves. Pa bid on the building and had only two people bid against him, and they soon dropped out.
“Pa, what are go going to do with a bunch of marine equipment?” Tom asked.
“Son, all that stuff is chromed and will last for a long time. The big thing is the stoves. They burn ethanol. I can make ethanol all day long. Ethanol evaporates faster than water so that’s what comes out of the still first. I usually burn it off but now we can start saving it. Someday, someone will use those stoves and be glad for it. Maybe us.
Didn't Pa die at the end of chapter two?
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Post by freebirde on Apr 22, 2023 11:49:05 GMT -6
You can go to a soft drink distributor, local or not, and buy the bag in a box soda syrup. If asked, it is for "cooking". If kept in a cool, dark place like the back of a cave, it will stay good for a long time. You will have to go to a restaurant supply store to get some connection hoses and valves.
I am not a drinker, but orange or lemon/lime flavored spirits might be interesting. Also look in the baking section for other flavorings such as coconut, cinnamon, caramel, and peppermint. Many restaurant supply stores carry bulk spices, seasonings, and some bulk order foods.
Another thing to do is get the parts for larger, outdoor stills for fuel alcohol and a methane digestor for after things go bad. Plants like switchgrass and cornstalks can be used to make fuel alcohol.
Drinking alcohol mash can be used for animal feed. Animal waste and fuel alcohol mash can be used in the methane digestor to make methane to heat the stills and use for cooking/heat.
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Post by gipsy on Apr 22, 2023 13:12:32 GMT -6
Fine update. For people on Battery power There are a lot of 12 and 24 volt appliances available from the marine store, even dishwashers and such.
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Post by CountryGuy on Apr 22, 2023 13:44:52 GMT -6
I thought Pa died 6 months after Ma. Was he resurrected?
Ma’s kidneys gave out a few months later and she passed. A part of Tom’s heart was ripped from him. Pa was never the same after Ma’s passing and six months later he passed listening to the RCA.
Pa could see what was going on and just stayed out of it. If anyone wanted his two cents worth, they’d have to come to him. But Grace was as good as they come, even better. He hoped Tom would bite the bit and step into the traces with Grace.
Tom and Pa laid out the Vortex mast sections,
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Post by techsar on Apr 22, 2023 14:44:07 GMT -6
Mark hired four men to cut a trail all around and across the property but kept it west of the lake. Tom hired Five men to do the clearing and it was as nice as those graveled trails you find in the state parks
Um...isn't Mark in a different tale?
Couple of missing words but easy enough to get the meaning.
Keep up the good work please!
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Post by ncsfsgm on Apr 22, 2023 21:47:10 GMT -6
I thought Pa died 6 months after Ma. Was he resurrected? Ma’s kidneys gave out a few months later and she passed. A part of Tom’s heart was ripped from him. Pa was never the same after Ma’s passing and six months later he passed listening to the RCA. Pa could see what was going on and just stayed out of it. If anyone wanted his two cents worth, they’d have to come to him. But Grace was as good as they come, even better. He hoped Tom would bite the bit and step into the traces with Grace.
Tom and Pa laid out the Vortex mast sections, It hadn't been 6 months yet since Ma died.
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Post by feralferret on Apr 22, 2023 22:19:50 GMT -6
I was wondering about that myself. It was a bit confusing the way the timeline jumped around.
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Post by sniper69 on Apr 23, 2023 5:58:10 GMT -6
If anyone is curious about the EMPshields from the story (I was) here is a link www.empshield.com/product/vehicle/Thank you ncfsgm for the chapters posted for another of your excellent stories.
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Post by CountryGuy on Apr 23, 2023 8:44:49 GMT -6
I thought Pa died 6 months after Ma. Was he resurrected? Ma’s kidneys gave out a few months later and she passed. A part of Tom’s heart was ripped from him. Pa was never the same after Ma’s passing and six months later he passed listening to the RCA. Pa could see what was going on and just stayed out of it. If anyone wanted his two cents worth, they’d have to come to him. But Grace was as good as they come, even better. He hoped Tom would bite the bit and step into the traces with Grace.
Tom and Pa laid out the Vortex mast sections, It hadn't been 6 months yet since Ma died.OK, thanks for clarifying NCSFGM. The way it had read to me, it sounded like Pa died and then Grace is still coming over taking care of Tom and then he and she got close and he started bringing her into the fold. In fact, at the first paragraph of chapter three is what made me think that. "Tom was in a daze. It seemed everyone was fading out of his life. He was in contact with a couple of the guys on his A Team, but his family was basically gone. Grace was still coming two or three days a week and he needed to figure out what to do with her. She had kept house and made them meals after Ma had passed. But now it was just him left." From that I thought Pa was gone so when he popped back up helping with the windmills I was scratching my head. It didn't come thru clearly that the earlier statement about him passing 6 months after Ma was only foreshadowing Pa's pending death and that all those things were occurring in that 6 month window. I'm digging this story and it looks to be another great one.
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Post by ncsfsgm on Apr 23, 2023 10:40:39 GMT -6
Chapter 5
While they were in Cincinnati, they went by a mall and Tom led Grace into a jewelry store and asked her to pick out an engagement right for him to offer her. She almost fell down she was so shocked. She picked a modest one out and Tom paid for it and asked her right there in the store if she would marry him. There was applause in the store as Tom went to one knee.
“On the way home Grace hugged Tom’s right arm as they drove along.
Reverend Bill Evans, Ramey's Chapel United Methodist Church, presided as they exchanged vows and rings beneath a brush arbor Grace had Pa and Tom build down by the lake.
The only guests invited to the Methodist-themed wedding were Ray Johnson (Pa) and Dalilah Parker. Dalilah took pictures and later painted and presented a portrait of them exchanging rings as a belated wedding present.
“We wanted the ceremony to be just between Tom and me…it was very simple, but very nice.” Grace explained to neighbors.
On his own, Pa had moved out of the Master bedroom and turned it over to Tom and Grace. He took one of the other bedrooms and was happy about it. He was at Grace’s beck and call when it came to repainting and getting the bedroom ready for the new couple. Whatever Grace wanted; Pa made sure she got her wish. Pa bought the paint that didn’t make a room smell like it had been painted and installed the new light fixtures and switches Grace liked and had everything just right when Tom and Grace married. Tom thought Pa was enamored with Grace because he kept saying she looked just like Paulette Goddard, an actress in Hollywood back in the day. Grace only wanted a short honeymoon, so they went to Nashville for a week. Grace arranged the itinerary to make sure they could see as many shows as they could.
“When they returned, life went back to the same, except now there was nothing to harvest or can and Grace stepped further in to help Tom prepare for the coming interruption in the lives in America. The scrutinized their inventories and adjusted their list to make sure they had all bases covered. Tom and Pa cracked the grain and began distilling more whiskey through the winter and purchasing charred wooden barrels to age the whiskey. Tom found a potter down in Berea who would make them pottery whiskey jugs with the “XXX: on the sides. He also had some of the jugs labeled with ”XX” because it was only distilled twice and sold cheaper. Many liked it because of the price.
Grace continued scrutinizing the inventory and going over the websites she and Tom read to gather information on off-grid living and prepping for an apocalypse. Every farm or estate sale in the area, they tried to attend. Even though they might have several of the same items they accumulated, Grace liked the idea of being able to barter if things got that bad.
A lot of moonshine was sold but just as much was being held to age. Tom researched and found out how to artificially age the whiskey faster and he and Pa began utilizing the techniques.
In retrospect, it made sense that governing bodies around the world kept the news of the Space Storm quiet. They were running solution scenarios and didn't need the people panicking, stampeding, or blaming whomever, usually the last governing administration, for the impending disaster.
Why would they want to deal with rioting civilians if they didn't have to? The consequence, of course, was that no one was prepared except those people who were the government elite and those disparagingly called “survivalists”. When the news started leaking out in the days before the Earth traveled through the solar energetic particle event, that the news outlets had named Space Storm Alma, people went into high gear. There was a quick run on food and survival supplies, and when the stores sold out, the thefts and violence began. A few people had been prepared for something like this to happen, maybe not that specific event. The rest of the people never had much of a chance.
Tom and Pa were in Flemmingsburg picking up drums of oils for the equipment when they heard on the radio about the solar storm. They both knew what that could mean and went back in and bought fuel and oil filters and anything else that looked like they would need like spark plugs, fan belts and such. The news said it would be a couple of days before things might get bad. They headed back home, Tom switched trailers, picked up Grace and headed to Cincinnati with both trucks with trailers. All three carried their pistols and shotguns or rifles.
Grace rode in the passenger seat of Tom’s crew-cab going over her lists and mapping out a strategy of where they would shop first. They talked and discussed what they thought needed to be added to the shopping list Grace was compiling. When they ran out of things to add to the list, Grace read it over.
“Damn girl, you don’t need this much toilet paper! We can use leaves!”
“I ain’t using no damn leaves you fool!” Grace fired back.
Tom shook his head and told her to add chewing tobacco, both plug and pouch. It would make good trading material.
When they came back, they were down to second gear on some of the grades. They got home late and parked the trailers in the shop and locked the shed up. Grace opened a quart of soup and made grilled cheese sandwiches for supper.
It wasn’t until two days later that they found out the lights had gone off for the rest of the world too.
Tom went down to the pavilion next to the lake and turned off the solar streetlight he had bought at an auction in Cincinnati when they replaced some of their streetlights. It was tagged with being inoperative but all it needed was the solar battery replaced. Tom didn’t think they needed to advertise they had any type of electricity. They even had blackout curtains covering the windows in the house Grace had sewn on the old treadle Singer sewing machine. Most people were using pressurized gas lanterns so any light showing when opening a door wouldn’t be that bad. They just wouldn’t turn on the porch light. In fact, Tom put a piece of Duct Tape over the toggle light switch.
Things remained fairly quiet around Muses Mills. Several people had vehicles that still ran but were used sparingly because of the lack of fuel. Tom and Pa had put in fuel tanks, so they had several thousand gallons of gas and diesel for the tractor and trucks for their own use and weren’t going to barter or sell it away. Apparently, the EMP shields worked so Tom wouldn’t have to collect any insurance. The freezers and refrigerator worked, and the electricity worked just as it had before the storm.
From what they picked up on the old RCA, the radio stations were operating off of generator power and things were getting bad in the cities. People in the country had frequently been without power over the years so they were more used to it. It was an inconvenience, but many rebuilt their old spring houses and kept things cooled to a point. Little by little the barter system started up. A Saturday morning swap meet was set up in the Methodist Church parking lot and many things were traded there. The Johnsons went down the first morning, not looking for anything in particular, but to see what people were offering and what they were looking for. Very few needed food yet. But there was a man selling quarts of honey and only wanted .22 shells for it. Tom usually kept two or three boxes of .22s in his glove compartment, so he traded a box of shells for two quarts of honey. They didn’t really need the honey, but the man used his twenty-two to hunt meat for his family. One man was looking for lumber, which gave Pa an idea. Pa bargained with the man and if he would help fell the trees and operate the saw, Pa would set the old sawmill back up. The man agreed and a time was set. Pa later explained the man needed to add a bedroom on to his house because his parents had moved in with his family. Times were getting tougher.
Dalilah rode her little motor scooter to the farm checking to see if they had any work she could do for them. She was running out of food. Grace’s heart melted. And made her a sandwich and gave her a cup of coffee. When Tom and Pa came in for lunch, Grace told him what Dalilah was doing there and asked him if she could move in with them. She was all alone in that trailer. Tom agreed and told her to give him a couple of hours that they had to get a couple of primary components for the saw mounted and they could take her and get her things.
While the men finished up their work, Grace and Dalilah gathered boxes from the garage attic and roils of tape and loaded them in Tom’s truck. All four returned to Dalilah’s trailer and the men carried boxes while the women packed. The first things Dalilah packed were her art supplies, then clothes. Tom emptied the kitchen cabinets of spices and food and cleaned out the refrigerator/freezer and unplugged it. With the four of them working, they were soon finished. Dalilah left the furniture; it had originally come with the trailer and was cheap stuff anyway.
They got Dalilah situated in the larger of the two extra bedrooms with some of the boxes stored in the basement for now. They all turned in early that night, tired from the day’s work.
The next morning at the breakfast table, Dalilah looked at Tom and asked, “You knew this was going to happen, didn’t you?” Tom swallowed the bite of buttered biscuit and honey he had been chewing and replied to Dalilah in the best way he could.
"I wouldn't say I knew.” Tom said, taking a swallow of coffee. “I felt, especially after all I’d seen and heard, that I should be able to provide for me and mine should this country collapse. I didn't want to rely on anyone or anything. I figured that someday, something was going to rock our society to its core. It could be anything, a nuclear war, terrorists hitting our electrical grid, a giant earthquake. I read up on all the calamities to watch out for. A solar storm was definitely in the cards. I wish I had been wrong. I wish I had made a fool of myself with all the prepping I did."
“Well, I thank God you did.” Dalilah said. “Ya’ll probably saved my life.” She said, her eyes watering.
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Post by gipsy on Apr 23, 2023 11:25:04 GMT -6
Thanks for the update.
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Post by danielsga01 on Apr 23, 2023 13:22:55 GMT -6
Thank you enjoying the story.
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Post by kansasterri on Apr 23, 2023 15:49:35 GMT -6
Ah, your story is bringing back memories.
Speaking from experience 12 chickens will eat about 150 pounds of feed every 5-6 weeks, unless they are supplemented.
Good supplements include every food that people are considering throwing out. PErsonally I cooked up any cracked eggs, added in apple cores and half-eaten sandwich that the kids left, any uneaten food when I emptied the fridge on Friday ( On Friday I made stew or pizza or whatever, and the birds got the leftovers of that).
They got buggy fruit from my trees, handfuls of lawn clippings for vitamins, fruit peelings AFTER I had simmered them for jelly, etc. AND I have heard that chickens will happily tear apart cow patties looking for undigested grains or fly larvae.
Depending on the time of year farmers fed a SMALL flock very little feed, because the grasshoppers and scraps were often a solid meal. Of course come winter that would change: the bugs would die and the farmers would then decide which animals were worth their feed.
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Post by ncsfsgm on Apr 24, 2023 18:22:18 GMT -6
Chapter 6
They got the sawmill working with few problems, Pa had mothballed the equipment with care and had put a light coat of oil on the blades and everything worked fine. Just an occasional patch of surface rust. Pa had set and sharpened the teeth on the blades, and it was ready to go. Paul Watts showed up in a rickety log truck loaded with logs and gave Pa a list of the number and dimensions of the lumber he needed. Tom cranked the tractor and after unloading the logs, backed up and connected the PTO to the sawmill. Engaging the PTO, the sawblade started turning and they began feeding the first log into the sawmill.
It took a few cuts to get their skills built back up, but they were soon producing usable lumber. They trimmed out as many wide boards and 2x4s as they could and soon had a two and a half ton truck loaded with lumber to begin construction. It took two days to mill the lumber needed, with 2x6s being cut last, and the addition of the house, with the help of neighbors, was up and roofed in a day. They had plenty of slabs to cut up for stove wood. Perry rolled the chop saw out of the shop and they had that done in a few hours of work. Grace even came out and helped toss wood on the stack inn the woodshed.
Tom called a meeting between Joe Jefferson, Bill Hartz, and Will Garrison, renters of the houses along highway 1013. Tom explained what was happening throughout the country through the radio reports they had listened to on the old RCA radio. He explained the mischief they would probably were going to see and experience and told them to first protect their families. They were all woodsmen and could be as deadly as needed. Tom made sure they were well armed and had sufficient ammunition. Not one vehicle would come down that road they would not know about and give it full scrutiny.
Dell Moses lived next to the Muses Mills Voluntary Fire Department and controlled the Tornado Warning Siren. The folks got together and decided on a signal when everyone should come running with their guns. The old Civil Defense siren also had a warbler feature like the police cars, which would alternate sounds. The fire chief even demonstrated, and everyone agreed on a specific sound. The area needed some kind of communications since the phones were out. In case some of the trash out of the bigger towns came in and tried to rob somebody, someone had to reach Dell and have him give the signal. It wasn’t the best plan, but it was all they had for now. The siren could be heard over 15 square miles. Enough horse trading went on that everyone had at least 100 rounds of ammunition for each household.
Kids on their bicycles became the main watchdogs of the community. Anything out of the ordinary was reported to the nearest adult. Pre-teens and teens began carrying their hunting rifles with them, which later turned out to be fortunate. Some of those boys and girls could shoot the eye out of a rabbit with a .22 short with no problem. Old Mrs. Easily lived up Ryan Road where it edged up to Fox Creek. She always had fresh cookies waiting for the boys that mowed her yard o did other little chores for her. Jack Mills, Dan Hobson and Earl Blake were fishing in Jack Hollow Lake when they saw the old car pull up into Mrs. Easily’s yard. When they headed for her shed and started pulling things out, the boys took closer notice.
“Something ain’t right.” Earl said.
The boys laid their fishing rods down and took up their rifles.
“Dan, run down and tell Mr. Higbee.” Jack said. “Me and Earl will check this out.”
As Jack and Earl sneaked closer to the house, Mrs. Easily came out on the porch, and yelled at the two men, asking them what they were doing. One of the men headed to the porch and Jack pulled the bolt back on his Savage .22 magnum rifle and loaded a round. The man mounted the steps and swung at Mrs. Easily with the pistol in his hand. Mrs. Easily threw up her arm and the pistol hit her wrist before it could hit her head. Jack didn’t hit him in the eye because the man turned his head as he swung, but it put a nice little hole in his temple. The other man came out of the shed, but Earl had him covered with his Henry rifle.
“Hey! What’s going on?” The man yelled.
“We don’t take much to thieves around here.” Jack said, cocking the bolt and loading another round.
A pickup truck came barreling into the yard and Mr. Higbee jumped out with a shotgun in his hand.
“What’s going on boys?”
“These men were trying to rob Mrs. Easily, Mr. Higbee. ” Jack said. “That man lying on the porch tried to hit her in the head with a pistol, so I stopped him.”
“Okay, Jack, set your rifle to the side. I want you to check that man for any weapons and tie him up. Earl, I’ve got this. Run down and tell Dell what’s going on.”
Earl headed back and picked up his bike, slung his rifle over his back and headed for the fire station.
A trial was held that evening and the remaining man was convicted of Murder (death in the commission of a felony) and promptly hung. Both men were buried in the back of the graveyard with no markers.
Tom went and got a barrel of wheatberries out of the cave storage area and loaded them in the truck to carry to the house. He opened the big barn doors, drove out, then closed the door back. Any time he opened the entrance to the cave he made sure the doors were closed so no one could accidentally see where the opening was. Tom got the grain mill out, measured ten pounds of wheatberries out and began grinding flour and filled the flour canister kept in the pantry. Grace was going to make pies for the Sunday social at the church. Once a month on the third Sunday, the people would gather at the church to socialize and eat. Pa was killing a couple of meat hens for Grace to make chicken and dumplings.
There hadn’t been any more trouble, at least for the last three weeks. Homemade billboards were erected on each road going into Muses Mills stating that thievery, murder, and assault were hanging offenses and the billboards might be making a difference. The citizens of the community were doing well, better than many communities in Fleming County. No one did without food and people shared what they could. Sometimes it might take donations from three or four different families for another family to eat, but they didn’t go without. The young men kept game on the tables which sometimes took all day, them having to range far sometimes.
At the Sunday social, the men gather and talked about crops they would plant in the spring and of course security. The women had their own discussions they wouldn’t let the men in on. Mostly the men didn’t want to know anyway, like the time the women decided to get together to sew feminine pads for the young women. Three or four women brought their treadle sewing machines to the church hall, including Grace, and they spent a Saturday sewing. A regular assembly line was formed, and they made several dozen. Grace donated a bolt of cotton cloth she had bought before the Storm.
Two months after the solar storm, the National Guard finally showed up. They really didn’t have anything to offer because the federal government wasn’t supplying them with anything. The NG did manage to scrounge up some telephone equipment from one of their storage warehouses that gave Muses Mills some means of communications within the community. Two SB-22 switchboards, twelve TA-12 field telephones, and five file mile spools of WD-1 Telephone wire gave them the ability to expand their warning system from courier to going to go to the nearest telephone. One of the men in the community had worked for the telephone company at one time and worked out a way to use the switchboard to include the families on the POTS (Plain Old Telephone System) into a party line system, further expanding their telephone network. Women took turns to act as telephone operators out of the fire department.
Life was hard for the community of Muses Mills, but no one starved, and they managed to keep the worst of the violence away from them. Occasionally, a Billy Bad Ass would show up but was quickly shown the error of their ways. Pa had been gone five years before electrical power was re-established in Fleming County.
THE END
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Post by feralferret on Apr 24, 2023 19:07:59 GMT -6
Ncsfsgm, thank you for another very entertaining story.
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