Y2K Neighbor

During the late 90's a guy bought the camp next door. I introduced myself and we got to talking. He was from the Washington D. C. area and worked as a computer consultant for the government.

He and his family pretty much kept to themselves. They didn't make any effort to get to know the neighbors. No biggie. They had a right to privacy. They only came to the place occasionally anyway.

Then fall of '99 he stopped by in the evening. He said he had a question about the property boundary marker. What he really wanted to do was tell me that he bought the camp as a retreat for Y2K. He was a computer guy and he was worried about everything getting fixed in time.

Unfortunately, he had the misfortune of taking to me after a long day of hanging out with my writer friends. If you know anything about a gathering of writers, you know alcohol might be involved. It was. I must admit to feeling a bit tipsy. In fact, I was at that point where the little devilish imp on my shoulder was talking to me making suggestions.

When the neighbor said that he had the place for Y2K, I said, "Great! Neighbors can provide important proteins."

He almost ran away from me at that point. Never did talk to me again.

Sure enough, during Y2K, I could see his lights were on and that they were hunkered down at the camp. Soon after Y2K, place went up for sale.

I don't know what kind of disaster he was expecting. If the problem was confined to D. C for a week or two, he might have been fine up here. Had the power gone out, he and his family would have been in trouble. The septic system is located uphill from the camp. He needed electric power for a sewage pump. Without it, things soon would back up into the camp. His water was gravity feed, which is nice, but the water line wasn't buried below the frost line. The place had been designed as summer camp. The steep driveway is impassable in the winter. In fact, my kids used to turn it into a bobsled run. In the winter, the easiest way to get to the place is across the frozen lake.

For his sake, I'm glad Y2K turned out to be a false alarm. While the place was far removed from D. C. it wasn't a good long term bug out location, even though I probably wouldn't have eaten them.

-Sixbears