Day 981

My extended stay in the town of Albert Lea Minnesota has paid off in many ways. I found a new pair of shoes, plenty of food, clean water and then I found something I had not bargain on. I was walking through town looking it over very cautiously, stocking up on supplies as I came to one store after another. I had finely got all I could carry on my shoulders and was heading out of town. I had decided to take I-35 for awhile and the turn east again before I got into Kansas City (I have no like for that town, just because I knew someone who lived there once). My plan was to walk below the great lakes and avoid all the walking it would take going around them. Even though I was looking forward to seeing them again. Just on the out skirts of town I came up on the Airport. My curiosity got the best of me and I took a look around. I have not seen an aircraft fly in years, how many years I can not tell you, but it has been some time. Just one more thing reserved only for the rich.


You know we (you and I) use to like to fly, it was a grate hobby at one time, remember? I would like to tell you that you took it up again later in life but you (I) never did. Flying like everything else got so expensive, us average folks could not afford it any longer. Like most hobbies people use to enjoy. Our government had turned its back on the middle class long ago; there were the rich and the working poor. If you worked it took all you had to pay all your monthly commitments. Some said it was a depression, but the government would not acknowledge it. Because most everyone was working, people had jobs. Not like the thirties depression when the banks fell and people had no jobs. It’s just that this time people (average people) had to spend every last dime on surviving. And every one had their hands in your pocket every month. Oil was one problem, we never learn, we never changed, we road the horse power in our cars until it killed the economy, and by then it was too late to change. So the oil companies got richer and America got poorer. No one cared that everyone else was being pushed out of business as oil became king. Until everything cost so much because of it, no one was buying anything else unless the needed it. No more fun spending, no more vacations, no more toys for the working guy and girl. They had their hands full just paying for the necessities. And of coarse there is always credit, so the rich can keep getting richer and us poor working fools get poorer while we owe our soul to Master Card gold. No more small business man, only big corporations, so the American dream where each man had an equal chance to get rich if he so desired, went away. It was not a depression; it was a deep depression of the spirit of America. Our whole economy was tittering on the brink of total collapse, all because of GREED! And one more domino would soon fall. Money now though, means nothing, no more than the dirt under my feet. Every society through out mankind’s time on the planet has tried to put value on something worthless. Imagine a piece of printed paper being worth so much that another human being would keep one of his on kind depressed, pushed down, just so they could stand on top. Well it’s over now except for a few idiots I have run into that think they can still buy and sell, some fools never learn. Enough of my ranting…it’s just money has always been the bane of my existence (as you well know) I always struggled, and just when I finely had it all over with and retired, then…..well that’s another story.


While walking around the airport looking at the abandon aircraft, I came up on one hanger that was locked. I found a heavy piece of metal and pried the lock off the door. Inside was a two seat, single engine airplane in pristine condition. It had to be a pre nineteen fifties aircraft that someone lovingly restored. And here it sits waiting for me and ex-pilot to find it. Looking inside the cockpit I realized the restoration had brought the aircraft back to factory. Which meant that it had no modern day conveniences, GPS, VOR or even a radio (not that any of that stuff would work now any way). It had no electric system, no battery; so it could only be propped started. Which meant maybe, just maybe it would fly. I have resisted driving any car that was drivable, because I saw them as part of the problem. Beside you can only get as far as a tank of gas, you can’t pump gas with out power and anyway I just really did not want to. But to fly again, to see the earth one more time from up there, well I just had to try.


So I have spent the last few days trying. There was fuel in the tank and I drain enough out of the wing to tell no water is present. The oil in the engine looked good and I turn the prop to make sure the oil was circulating. I found some rope and tied off the back, and then I chock the wheels and went to the front of the plane. I pulled hard to make sure the plane would not lung forward if it started (I did not want a face full of prop). Then I turn on the magnetos and went to the front and gave the prop a brisk turn, nothing. I tried again and again, still nothing. The fuel was old; the little plane had not been started in years, so I don’t know what I was expecting. But I can dream can’t I. I spent most of that day spinning that prop, and then my stubbornness paid off; I got a sputter of life. I went back around to the cockpit and pushed in the choke a little and pulled out the throttle just a tad more. I spun the prop again and this time it sputtered and caught. The engine came to life! I fell on my backside and laugh at the sound of it. Then it died and silence fell, but it encouraged me and I kept trying until I got it to run for a long time. I sat behind the controls and ran up the engine watching the rpm’s for any sign of weakness. But all seemed good. So now my crazy plan is to fly tomorrow. I went back to town and pack more supplies in the back of this little bird and if all goes well I will fly it until the fuel runs out or I crash, which ever comes first. I may get airborne and the wing fall off or the controls freeze up or a cable could snap. But what the hay, I will have died with a smile on my face. As soon as I get through writing this I will put another time capsule in the ground at the airport. When the sun comes up I will fly once again, God willing I will fly.


If I don’t write anymore, (my younger self) it was sure nice getting all this off my chest. Maybe not so much for you, but the jokes on me because you will never read this anyway. But if you could; just remember don’t waist a moment; each and every one is a precious gift!

Go To Day 986

Day 977

I am sitting by a lake that runs through the town of Albert Lea Minnesota. This area was at one time a park that I can imagine got a lot of use by the town’s people. I close my eyes and feel the warm breeze and contemplate my next move. I am at a cross roads, I could take I 35 south and head towards Kansas City or I could walk on east and walk around the Great lakes again. My main objective is to not get caught up north in the winter like I did my first time through, that mistake almost cost me, but I was just trying to make sure I covered all of New England. I may stay around this town for awhile; I’m in no hurry to decide. So far I have seen no one, but I am keeping my eyes peeled. This is a good size town and some of the stores have been picked through quite a bit, which means people rummaged through them. But when? And are any left? I wonder sometimes how many people are left every where.


I remember hearing the percentages, the body counts. The news people were the first to coin the phrase “The Effect”. All the catastrophes all over the world, happening like a chain of events over the last 20 to 30 years, they reported. Some egg heads had it all figure out how one event causes another. When the quakes hit, we heard the death toll. When the storms would come we heard of all the damages and cost of lives. When the food was contaminated and people got sick and died, we heard the percentages of people infected. One disaster, after another, took many lives but they would be years or least months apart and people would rebuild, move on or try to recover. But when the screams started, there was no television to break the news. No live reports on radio, no head lines in the news paper….just the screams….and there would be no recovering from it, at all!

I remember watching the Ten Commandments when it came on Television the first time. I was too young to see it in the Theaters when it was first released. What a block buster even for TV and all done the hard way, no CG, no animatronics, just good old fashion camera tricks, model building and great directing. But all that did not make as much an impression on me as the scene of the last plague. It was when the death angel took the entire first born of Egypt. I remember very well the pictured scene of the Hebrew families gathered inside their home protected by the lambs blood crossed on the door post. Then they would shudder as they heard the screams of the Egyptians when another first born died. But that paled in comparison to what we had to live through. At night we would lie in bed and hold each other; even though it was so hot we were drenched in sweat. It’s amazing how sound carries at night when there is no electricity flowing through everyone’s homes, no cars on the road, nothing to break the silence, but horrifying screams as another person sees a love one drop dead.

No one knows for sure what happened, because there were no Doctors to figure it out, no scientist to speculate on it and no news people to report the causes. But some how the tags in people cause them to just drop dead. Rfid revenge hit the population hard and fast. I have heard as much as 85 to 90 percent of the people tagged, died. Everyone was effected and most families died out with in a week. Some would shudder and go into a coma that lasted a day, some would seizure and then die and some just fell over dead. I have heard many legends on what might have happen. Some say when the tags went viral they change frequency and interfered with the brain waves or the central nervous system. Others talked about tumors or ruptures in the body, but no one knows for sure. But I have heard it was a global event as well, just like the virus that took down communications and power grids all over the world. Many countries made it mandatory to be tagged, so they could keep up with their population. New born babies tagged at birth, but at least it was voluntary here. But what parent would not want a way to recover or find their child if lost or hurt? It was approved; the FDA said it was safe. So why not have it, why not….

Now no one was left to turn the power back on or fix the big problems….no one, but us few. And we survivors were just sitting ducks for the next round coming our way. Do you have any idea of the diseases that will breed in that kind of death toll, any idea at all? Of course not, in the past this just sounds like a movie plot, or a fictional story. Your thinking; in a world with all the people gone you could live in any house or drive any car. Not if every house had a family of bodies decaying in it or the car people used to race away in a panic was only driven into a tree or just ran off the road when the occupant died. Most of the cars stop being drivable after awhile anyway if the virus hit it before the power went out, it would eventually corrupt the cars computer. I don’t think the designer of the virus every dream it would mutate and do what it did when he planted the first chip. I’m sure he just wanted to shut down a few systems, not the whole world. At least I like to think that was the case.


We survived, in our little house; we survived because of good old fashion stubbornness. We did not get tagged; we paid with cash and regular debit cards and felt like old fools when everyone else rushed through the check out with their speed pay or the Nurse had to actual look up our med records instead of just scanning us. “I do not want to be reduced to a bar code, I’m still a human being”, I would rant. Yes we survived; but what kind of world did we survive into? No government, no National Guard, no military of any kind. Who will clean this up, when will help come? What are we going to do now? That was the questions I saw on her face. And I did not have an answer…………I’m so sorry; I did not have the answers…………ENOUGH! This is a nice area, the lake breeze is comforting and these trees offer nice shade, I think I will camp here tonight and explore around town, tomorrow. Funny thing, even when the night is darkest, there is always a tomorrow.

Go to Day 981