The apocalypse and well pumps

I blame a childhood where we were within the smaller concentric rings of nearly assured destruction from nuclear holocaust. The optimistic ten percent among us could expect to be wandering around burnt for up to two weeks before succumbing.

So we were packed off to elementary school and junior high school with 2 weeks of canned food and survival stuff - the grimmest sort of camp. My dad bought us dog tags so that our remains could be identified.

Families filled shelves in their basements with food and blocked off window with newspapers. As if that would help against a nuclear bomb. As a 10-year-old kid, I desperately wanted to live somewhere in the country where people didn't live with fierce anxiety that all was going to pulverize in front of their eyes. Like the Ozarks.

And its true. People here in the Ozarks never did go through that violently fearful era that I remember. Perhaps it is no surprise that I wound up building a cabin in the remote hills once I could have a little control over my life.

Which is why I wanted to have a hand pump. Just in case the old bad scenerio happens. I have however, been talked into an electric pump and a pressure tank. This is what people do nowadays. If I don't have electricity, my options for getting water are greatly reduced.

**When I got to sit at Kennedy's desk in the Oval office when Bill Clinton was in office, the first thing I did was look for the "red telephone" but all I found was a regular office phone.