Story Market Day
- Thread starter ComCamGuy
- Start date
ComCamGuy
Remote Paramedical pain in the ass
Parts 9-12 already in planning stages
Hope 9 starts with a new character list. And if not too much work, the post number introduced?
Griz3752
Retired, practising Curmudgeon
Had I been as smart as I sometimes think I am, I'd have saved post and page numbers.
As it stands I do a lot of word searches and rereading
Landcruiser
Contributing Member
I keep Banking on a post edited condensed version being available at some point in the future, where it's just the stories and none of our questions and commentary.... but I don't want it enough cut and paste it myself....
Griz3752
Retired, practising Curmudgeon
Very little else to do
Griz3752
Retired, practising Curmudgeon
Well I'm sure there are many quite knowledgeable about publishing on TB2K but I really know nothing about shepherding such projects across the finish line so I'll just STFU.
Enjoy the tranquility but , like many many here, I have payment methods and SHIP TO at the ready.
Have to go start dinner
ComCamGuy
Remote Paramedical pain in the ass
it will be a downloadable E-book and I will have a coupon code for my loyal readers
ComCamGuy
Remote Paramedical pain in the ass
For all of you who poked, prodded and pushed, Part one is now published. the link below will take you to a central hub where there are links to the different places who have picked it up. As more places pick it up, their links will be added. So Far, Apple and Smashwords are the first two to post live.
All of this would not have happened without all the people who have read or been reading since the start. We are humbled by your praise and your continued reading.
books2read.com
And now that is out there and off my plate, Part 9 will get underway while we work on the edit/rebuild of part 2.
All of this would not have happened without all the people who have read or been reading since the start. We are humbled by your praise and your continued reading.
Available now at your favorite digital store!
Market Day Part 1, Bekka’s Story by Richard Siers, Kimberly A Yearyean-Siers
books2read.com
And now that is out there and off my plate, Part 9 will get underway while we work on the edit/rebuild of part 2.
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ComCamGuy
Remote Paramedical pain in the ass
For most people, the earthquake and tidal waves were the biggest, most devastating event of their lives. For Stephen, they felt like almost a welcome distraction from the shitty-ass week he was having. While the ground shook and the water pounded the coast into oblivion, he was fifty miles away, standing in the middle of what once was his parent’s living room having a fight with his siblings.
“It still isn’t fair!” Samantha said for the fourth or fifth time.
“None of it’s fair, but it is what it is! We need to figure out what all you two are bringing with you.” Steven said, trying to remain calm in spite of his brother and sister’s antics. With the way they were acting, you would think they were ten years old, not nineteen and twenty-two, respectively.
“I don’t see why we can’t just stay here?” Gabriel poked a well-worn subject.
“Stay in Southern California? Sure. But where are you going to live? Mom did a reverse mortgage on the house to cover the bills and keep you guys in school. Unless you know where to shit eight-hundred-thousand dollars or know someone who would loan one or two unemployed professional students that kind of dough, you have to move out of here by the end of the month, which isn’t far from now.”
“I still don’t understand why she had to do that. Dad’s life insurance should have taken care of the house when he died.” Samantha stubbornly stated.
“Because it all went to cover the medical bills. We went over all of this a dozen times the last couple days. I keep talking but you two don’t want to listen!”
“So, we are supposed to just pack up our lives and move to Washington with you, just like that?” Gabriel asked the rhetorical question, already asked and answered a dozen times.
“YES, DAMNIT! You guys have no income, not enough savings, nowhere to stay. You guys come with me. I have a good job, I’ll have somewhere for us to live. We can get you guys in the local college after Christmas, then work from there.”
“Who made you the boss?” Samantha again.
“Mom did.” The room went quiet as Stephen’s statement chilled the room.
“Mom made me promise before they wheeled her into surgery that I would take care of you guys, that we would look out for one another if anything happened. I don’t know how, but I think she knew.”
“Couldn’t you get a transfer down here? We could stay in the house, and it would all be ok?” Samantha tried another tactic.
“I can’t transfer here anytime soon, and even if I could, I don’t have the kind of money or credit necessary to pay off what Mom got from the house already. Besides, I don’t think the bank would let me anyway. They could put six houses on this plot and make a ton more money than they would with my measly paycheck.”
Stephen would have continued but he heard or was it felt something. He listened. The AC wasn’t running and they had the windows open. There was a weird whirring sound it took him a moment to place. Birds. Before he could say anything, it sounded like all the dogs in the whole neighborhood decided it was time to howl. He was about to say something when the weather service alert tones went off on his phone.
“It still isn’t fair!” Samantha said for the fourth or fifth time.
“None of it’s fair, but it is what it is! We need to figure out what all you two are bringing with you.” Steven said, trying to remain calm in spite of his brother and sister’s antics. With the way they were acting, you would think they were ten years old, not nineteen and twenty-two, respectively.
“I don’t see why we can’t just stay here?” Gabriel poked a well-worn subject.
“Stay in Southern California? Sure. But where are you going to live? Mom did a reverse mortgage on the house to cover the bills and keep you guys in school. Unless you know where to shit eight-hundred-thousand dollars or know someone who would loan one or two unemployed professional students that kind of dough, you have to move out of here by the end of the month, which isn’t far from now.”
“I still don’t understand why she had to do that. Dad’s life insurance should have taken care of the house when he died.” Samantha stubbornly stated.
“Because it all went to cover the medical bills. We went over all of this a dozen times the last couple days. I keep talking but you two don’t want to listen!”
“So, we are supposed to just pack up our lives and move to Washington with you, just like that?” Gabriel asked the rhetorical question, already asked and answered a dozen times.
“YES, DAMNIT! You guys have no income, not enough savings, nowhere to stay. You guys come with me. I have a good job, I’ll have somewhere for us to live. We can get you guys in the local college after Christmas, then work from there.”
“Who made you the boss?” Samantha again.
“Mom did.” The room went quiet as Stephen’s statement chilled the room.
“Mom made me promise before they wheeled her into surgery that I would take care of you guys, that we would look out for one another if anything happened. I don’t know how, but I think she knew.”
“Couldn’t you get a transfer down here? We could stay in the house, and it would all be ok?” Samantha tried another tactic.
“I can’t transfer here anytime soon, and even if I could, I don’t have the kind of money or credit necessary to pay off what Mom got from the house already. Besides, I don’t think the bank would let me anyway. They could put six houses on this plot and make a ton more money than they would with my measly paycheck.”
Stephen would have continued but he heard or was it felt something. He listened. The AC wasn’t running and they had the windows open. There was a weird whirring sound it took him a moment to place. Birds. Before he could say anything, it sounded like all the dogs in the whole neighborhood decided it was time to howl. He was about to say something when the weather service alert tones went off on his phone.
Knighttemplar
Veteran Member
You can run kindle on linux.
Sportsman
Veteran Member
Which distributor provides you with the highest royalty?For all of you who poked, prodded and pushed, Part one is now published. the link below will take you to a central hub where there are links to the different places who have picked it up. As more places pick it up, their links will be added. So Far, Apple and Smashwords are the first two to post live.
All of this would not have happened without all the people who have read or been reading since the start. We are humbled by your praise and your continued reading.
Available now at your favorite digital store!
Market Day Part 1, Bekka’s Story by Richard Siers, Kimberly A Yearyean-Siers
And now that is out there and off my plate, Part 9 will get underway while we work on the edit/rebuild of part 2.
ComCamGuy
Remote Paramedical pain in the ass
They are all the same since I went with draft2digital. That means you can pick the one you are used to dealing with, plus gives it a wider exposure
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ComCamGuy
Remote Paramedical pain in the ass
Later
The next hours were surreal. They had all felt earthquakes before and never really paid attention to them. These demanded their attention. The power pulsed off and on at weird intervals. Sirens sounded all over; car alarms, fire trucks, cop cars, ambulances? They weren’t sure. Ine thing they did know; this was different than anything before.
Samantha and Gabriel tried to find out what all was happening from their cell phones but the signal was weak and unreliable. Stephen didn’t bother with his. Instead, he went to his stuff and pulled out a small battery-powered shortwave receiver. While he was digging in his bag, he saw his handheld GPS. He decided to top off the battery in it and his battery pack as well.
The information Samantha and Gabriel did get was horrific, and terrible, and unbelievable even as it was fragmented, chaotic and incomplete. Stephen was trying to get something better. The little roll-up antenna was usually good enough in the middle of the wilderness, so he hoped it would be enough down here. He wished mom hadn’t gotten rid of dad’s big antenna from the roof or the old vacuum-tube shortwave radio hooked to it. His little handheld would have to do.
He went into the backyard, searching for a good tree limb to toss the line for the antenna over. The little shortwave would usually pull in news and weather in the mountains. He slowly worked his way through the frequencies until he found one that held more than frantic gibberish. He wished he hadn’t.
He wasn’t sure how long he stood there listening to the descriptions of the devastation and the news from up and down the coast. What he did know? It was daylight when he walked out there and it was almost dark when Samantha and Gabriel came out to find him.
“I don’t know what the hell is going on. The cell signal won’t stay connected long enough, but all the news guys I can find makes it sound like this must have been the huge ass Hollywood movie quake, so it’ll be at least a day or two until things settle down.” Gabriel said when he finally caught Stephen’s attention.
“It’s going to be a lot longer than that.” Stephen said as he wiped a tear he just now realized was running down his cheek.
“What’s wrong?” Samantha asked him, clearly disturbed by his words and tone.
“Hollywood disaster movies aren’t big enough for what happened today. The quakes are still going on and …they aren’t sure how many waves there were. Three? Five? Seven? But each one was at least a hundred-fifty feet or taller.”
The three of them stood there silently trying to absorb. It was Gabriel who broke the silence.
“Did they hit LA or San Diego?”
“Yes.” Stephen said.
“Both of them?” Samantha asked?
“More. It sounds like it hit the whole coast. I’m hearing reports that the earthquakes and tidal waves hit the whole coast. San Diego, L.A., San Francisco, Portland, Seattle. All of them. Flattened, flooded and burning.”
“****! What do we do?” Gabriel blurted out.
“We pray.” Samantha said.
“Great idea.” Stephen said. He reached out for Samantha’s hand as she reached for Gabriel’s. Stephen’s sister was always the spiritually focused one of the family, especially after junior high school. It was what she was studying for her degree in. It wasn’t that Stephen wasn’t religious. His faith was strong and deep, but for Samantha it was ever-present and all-encompassing most of the time.
As Samantha’s hand clasped his own, he felt a sense of calm come over him. Gone was the near panic he felt as the words poured into his head from the earpiece on the radio. He also noticed Samantha was calm now, gone was the whiney little brat from this morning. Gabriel also seemed to steady up now as they stood there in the backyard, hands clasped, heads bowed.
He wasn’t sure what words Samantha was saying, but he knew it was a prayer for safety, guidance and clarity, or at least that’s what poured out of his own heart heavenward.
“Amen”
“Alright, Stephen. What do we do next?”
“Same basic plan. Let’s get what we need packed up into your truck. With the way everything is going to come apart down here, we can’t waste time. I don’t know what will be available as we go north, so we need to make some additional preparations. It’s too late tonight, but first thing tomorrow, we need to get some stuff for the truck, like oil, oil filter and crap so we can make sure it’s good to go. Gas cans would be good. Full gas cans would be better. Sam, can you take Mom’s car and hit the grocery store? We want stuff to cover us if it takes longer to drive north. We can’t just drive up the coast like I was planning, so it will be farther between stops and we don’t know what we can get.”
“I wish we could take Mom’s car. It’s a lot more reliable than Gabriel’s old ass truck.”
“Mom’s car was leased, so it’s not ours to take. Besides, I have no idea if there will be charging stations anywhere around where we will end up going through, and we can fit more in his truck.” Stephen answered.
“I know, but…”
“Yeah, I’d love to be able to take them both, but it doesn’t work. I’ll try to put together a list of food priorities for the shopping. Tonight, we better work on getting your stuff in order as much as you can. Let me know how I can help.”
“Well, you can do dinner while we pack some stuff.” Gabriel said.
“That I can do. We may as well use up as much of the stuff in the fridge since the power is acting up. Baked potatoes, with plenty of sour cream, butter, green onions and plenty of Machaca.”
“I assume you want another milkcrate of Machaca packets when I go to the store.”
“All they have.” Stephen smiled. He already had a huge box of the little packets of Machaca, a Northern Mexican type of dried and shredded meat, supposedly beef. He learned to make a ton of things with it as a Boy Scout, and it was a staple on his long hikes since it was light weight and packed well. He mixed it into mac and cheese, put it on potatoes, mixed it into rice, he put it into everything. The biggest issue he had was finding it. With as far north as he was, they considered Taco Bell fine Mexican cuisine.
“I’ll be in and start food in about ten minutes.”
Steven watched them walk inside. He had one more thing to do. He pulled out the GPS. He had to get in touch with Barbara and let her know what was going on.
The next hours were surreal. They had all felt earthquakes before and never really paid attention to them. These demanded their attention. The power pulsed off and on at weird intervals. Sirens sounded all over; car alarms, fire trucks, cop cars, ambulances? They weren’t sure. Ine thing they did know; this was different than anything before.
Samantha and Gabriel tried to find out what all was happening from their cell phones but the signal was weak and unreliable. Stephen didn’t bother with his. Instead, he went to his stuff and pulled out a small battery-powered shortwave receiver. While he was digging in his bag, he saw his handheld GPS. He decided to top off the battery in it and his battery pack as well.
The information Samantha and Gabriel did get was horrific, and terrible, and unbelievable even as it was fragmented, chaotic and incomplete. Stephen was trying to get something better. The little roll-up antenna was usually good enough in the middle of the wilderness, so he hoped it would be enough down here. He wished mom hadn’t gotten rid of dad’s big antenna from the roof or the old vacuum-tube shortwave radio hooked to it. His little handheld would have to do.
He went into the backyard, searching for a good tree limb to toss the line for the antenna over. The little shortwave would usually pull in news and weather in the mountains. He slowly worked his way through the frequencies until he found one that held more than frantic gibberish. He wished he hadn’t.
He wasn’t sure how long he stood there listening to the descriptions of the devastation and the news from up and down the coast. What he did know? It was daylight when he walked out there and it was almost dark when Samantha and Gabriel came out to find him.
“I don’t know what the hell is going on. The cell signal won’t stay connected long enough, but all the news guys I can find makes it sound like this must have been the huge ass Hollywood movie quake, so it’ll be at least a day or two until things settle down.” Gabriel said when he finally caught Stephen’s attention.
“It’s going to be a lot longer than that.” Stephen said as he wiped a tear he just now realized was running down his cheek.
“What’s wrong?” Samantha asked him, clearly disturbed by his words and tone.
“Hollywood disaster movies aren’t big enough for what happened today. The quakes are still going on and …they aren’t sure how many waves there were. Three? Five? Seven? But each one was at least a hundred-fifty feet or taller.”
The three of them stood there silently trying to absorb. It was Gabriel who broke the silence.
“Did they hit LA or San Diego?”
“Yes.” Stephen said.
“Both of them?” Samantha asked?
“More. It sounds like it hit the whole coast. I’m hearing reports that the earthquakes and tidal waves hit the whole coast. San Diego, L.A., San Francisco, Portland, Seattle. All of them. Flattened, flooded and burning.”
“****! What do we do?” Gabriel blurted out.
“We pray.” Samantha said.
“Great idea.” Stephen said. He reached out for Samantha’s hand as she reached for Gabriel’s. Stephen’s sister was always the spiritually focused one of the family, especially after junior high school. It was what she was studying for her degree in. It wasn’t that Stephen wasn’t religious. His faith was strong and deep, but for Samantha it was ever-present and all-encompassing most of the time.
As Samantha’s hand clasped his own, he felt a sense of calm come over him. Gone was the near panic he felt as the words poured into his head from the earpiece on the radio. He also noticed Samantha was calm now, gone was the whiney little brat from this morning. Gabriel also seemed to steady up now as they stood there in the backyard, hands clasped, heads bowed.
He wasn’t sure what words Samantha was saying, but he knew it was a prayer for safety, guidance and clarity, or at least that’s what poured out of his own heart heavenward.
“Amen”
“Alright, Stephen. What do we do next?”
“Same basic plan. Let’s get what we need packed up into your truck. With the way everything is going to come apart down here, we can’t waste time. I don’t know what will be available as we go north, so we need to make some additional preparations. It’s too late tonight, but first thing tomorrow, we need to get some stuff for the truck, like oil, oil filter and crap so we can make sure it’s good to go. Gas cans would be good. Full gas cans would be better. Sam, can you take Mom’s car and hit the grocery store? We want stuff to cover us if it takes longer to drive north. We can’t just drive up the coast like I was planning, so it will be farther between stops and we don’t know what we can get.”
“I wish we could take Mom’s car. It’s a lot more reliable than Gabriel’s old ass truck.”
“Mom’s car was leased, so it’s not ours to take. Besides, I have no idea if there will be charging stations anywhere around where we will end up going through, and we can fit more in his truck.” Stephen answered.
“I know, but…”
“Yeah, I’d love to be able to take them both, but it doesn’t work. I’ll try to put together a list of food priorities for the shopping. Tonight, we better work on getting your stuff in order as much as you can. Let me know how I can help.”
“Well, you can do dinner while we pack some stuff.” Gabriel said.
“That I can do. We may as well use up as much of the stuff in the fridge since the power is acting up. Baked potatoes, with plenty of sour cream, butter, green onions and plenty of Machaca.”
“I assume you want another milkcrate of Machaca packets when I go to the store.”
“All they have.” Stephen smiled. He already had a huge box of the little packets of Machaca, a Northern Mexican type of dried and shredded meat, supposedly beef. He learned to make a ton of things with it as a Boy Scout, and it was a staple on his long hikes since it was light weight and packed well. He mixed it into mac and cheese, put it on potatoes, mixed it into rice, he put it into everything. The biggest issue he had was finding it. With as far north as he was, they considered Taco Bell fine Mexican cuisine.
“I’ll be in and start food in about ten minutes.”
Steven watched them walk inside. He had one more thing to do. He pulled out the GPS. He had to get in touch with Barbara and let her know what was going on.
223shootersc
Veteran Member
Thanks, CCG!
ComCamGuy
Remote Paramedical pain in the ass
Just did some more checking and the price for printing on demand would put part 1 @ $31 a piece, with no change in what we get on the back end. I guess 760+ pages makes it a bit steep
Griz3752
Retired, practising Curmudgeon
So, when consumed w/ real coffee in real quantities, there might be follow-on issues?
feralferret
Veteran Member
Not directly. Kindle discontinued Linux support several years ago. I run it in a Windows virtual machine inside of Linux. You might be able to get it to work in Wine, but I'm not sure.
feralferret
Veteran Member
CCG, thank you!
Got the book on Smashwords as I already had an account there.
Got the book on Smashwords as I already had an account there.
Griz3752
Retired, practising Curmudgeon
Yes, everything is relative but I'm not going to wait to experiment.
On a side note, over the last few years there's been a lot of kvetching about food deserts in Urban America. Guess who by?
I live in Midtown Memphis and guess how many Hispanic grocery stores a quick google found?
5
And I doubt if any have started in the last year, backed up by Govt grants of public money. Plain old hard work, save and invest.
2morrow is DW's Book Club and I think 2 of those are within 3-5 miles of that location so I'm thinking I'll have Machaca Huevos or something Monday AM.
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ComCamGuy
Remote Paramedical pain in the ass
Remember, its a form of dehydrated meat so make sure there is enough liquid and time so you can get the flavors.
that’s why sprinkleling it into the rice while cooking gives it a chance to develop
Armadillo3
Member
Never heard of Machaca before, and I have eaten in some very strange places in the world, from the Middle East, Asia and Central and South America, Canada and thru Europe. Have to try some other unusual foods now that I have time to play around in the kitchen and some travels.
ComCamGuy
Remote Paramedical pain in the ass
Reaching
He held up the GPS unit. Most would only see a GPS receiver, something to keep someone from getting lost in the backcountry. With this model, there was a much more important function.
Where he worked was far away from cell phones and radios. He had a work satellite phone most of the time, but that was for work, and he didn’t have it here anyway. One of the big GPS companies was making models that could send and receive text messages. Because he was always so damn hard to get in touch with, Barbara convinced him to get one so they could text back and forth while he was in the backcountry. He suggested a satellite phone, but she said the monthly cost wasn’t worth it.
With this unit, and hers, they knew where each other were when they were apart, not that they were those sorts of mushy people. She was a wholly practical sort of woman, not like some of the others he had dated. Barbara knew what he did for a living and knew what that entailed.
He wished she was here with him now. He could use her calm focus. Right now, he felt like he was just spinning in circles. But she wasn’t here. She was out at the cabin with the guys. At least out there, they were safe. He just had to get back home and talk to Doug before he found out.
Hell, he’s going to need to talk to his boss and see about moving Samantha and Gabriel into a house with him at the main camp. He couldn’t see either Doug or Mathew letting him get away with his plan of commandeering the old, abandoned Ranger cabin and having six people living out there. It was a wild ass idea when it was just going to be him, Barbara and the guys. At least that he could have sold it easier since Barb and the guys were all multi-year seasonal hires.
It was all Doug’s fault. Doug convinced their boss to let him stay there full time in his cabin, even though it wasn’t officially on the books as an operating location anymore. He hatched his own rogue location idea soon after. He already knew it wouldn’t take that much to put the old Ranger cabin at the back of his patrol area back into shape.
He was wrong, and knew it the first time he went out there after having the idea. He took Barbara back out for a second look and to pitch his idea. She liked it but told him he would need more help if they were to be ready by winter.
The four of them worked their asses off, burning up any and all spare time they could. He bent a lot of rules and fudged some things but they were able to get it ready for its first real big test. When the seasonal hires were let go for the winter, instead of going back to their winter jobs, they all gathered supplies and were going to live out at the cabin through Christmas. That was where Steven was supposed to be right now.
He had been checking in with Barbara every night. Just a quick text. He knew they were out there, and everything was working fine. There shouldn’t be any issues on their end from the quake. He just had to let them know about his end and the added delay on getting home.
He held up the GPS unit. Most would only see a GPS receiver, something to keep someone from getting lost in the backcountry. With this model, there was a much more important function.
Where he worked was far away from cell phones and radios. He had a work satellite phone most of the time, but that was for work, and he didn’t have it here anyway. One of the big GPS companies was making models that could send and receive text messages. Because he was always so damn hard to get in touch with, Barbara convinced him to get one so they could text back and forth while he was in the backcountry. He suggested a satellite phone, but she said the monthly cost wasn’t worth it.
With this unit, and hers, they knew where each other were when they were apart, not that they were those sorts of mushy people. She was a wholly practical sort of woman, not like some of the others he had dated. Barbara knew what he did for a living and knew what that entailed.
He wished she was here with him now. He could use her calm focus. Right now, he felt like he was just spinning in circles. But she wasn’t here. She was out at the cabin with the guys. At least out there, they were safe. He just had to get back home and talk to Doug before he found out.
Hell, he’s going to need to talk to his boss and see about moving Samantha and Gabriel into a house with him at the main camp. He couldn’t see either Doug or Mathew letting him get away with his plan of commandeering the old, abandoned Ranger cabin and having six people living out there. It was a wild ass idea when it was just going to be him, Barbara and the guys. At least that he could have sold it easier since Barb and the guys were all multi-year seasonal hires.
It was all Doug’s fault. Doug convinced their boss to let him stay there full time in his cabin, even though it wasn’t officially on the books as an operating location anymore. He hatched his own rogue location idea soon after. He already knew it wouldn’t take that much to put the old Ranger cabin at the back of his patrol area back into shape.
He was wrong, and knew it the first time he went out there after having the idea. He took Barbara back out for a second look and to pitch his idea. She liked it but told him he would need more help if they were to be ready by winter.
The four of them worked their asses off, burning up any and all spare time they could. He bent a lot of rules and fudged some things but they were able to get it ready for its first real big test. When the seasonal hires were let go for the winter, instead of going back to their winter jobs, they all gathered supplies and were going to live out at the cabin through Christmas. That was where Steven was supposed to be right now.
He had been checking in with Barbara every night. Just a quick text. He knew they were out there, and everything was working fine. There shouldn’t be any issues on their end from the quake. He just had to let them know about his end and the added delay on getting home.
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223shootersc
Veteran Member
Thanks, CCG!
ComCamGuy
Remote Paramedical pain in the ass
In the Forest
The electronic sound from upstairs startled them. They were all sitting around the huge ancient radio in the living room, trying to get more information. The scene looked like something out of the thirties, all the way down to the smooth curved wood of the radio console.
Stephen bought the radio years ago at a yard sale because it remined him of the one his father had but it didn’t work. He brought it out here anyway. He told the others it just looked right. Randolph told him if it was out here, it aught to work, and set out to fix the radio before they were going to stay out here.
He screwed around with the radio for a long time before doing a heart transplant on it, replacing the inside electronics with the guts of an old 1950’s Hallicrafters. It wasn’t original, but it was close enough. While he was at it, he repaired the cabinet. He liked the smile he got from Stephen when he gave it back to him.
He was always doing things like that. Randolph’s other job was carpentry when he wasn’t working seasonal hire working the backcountry. He still hoped to get a full time Ranger position, but it hadn’t worked out yet.
Right now, he was sitting there watching Benjiman work the dial, trying to find another station, hoping a new station might have more, or at least different, news about the wave and the quake. The station they were listening to right now just repeated the same things over and over.
Barbara paused as she was going up the stairs.
“You might have to rotate the antenna some, don’t forget.”
“Yeah, that’s next,” said Benjiman without looking up from the dial. “Tell Stephen we miss him.” He added, full of saccharine-laced sarcasm.
“Yeah, he’s the only one who can find half the stations on that damn thing.” Randolph added.
The electronic sound from upstairs startled them. They were all sitting around the huge ancient radio in the living room, trying to get more information. The scene looked like something out of the thirties, all the way down to the smooth curved wood of the radio console.
Stephen bought the radio years ago at a yard sale because it remined him of the one his father had but it didn’t work. He brought it out here anyway. He told the others it just looked right. Randolph told him if it was out here, it aught to work, and set out to fix the radio before they were going to stay out here.
He screwed around with the radio for a long time before doing a heart transplant on it, replacing the inside electronics with the guts of an old 1950’s Hallicrafters. It wasn’t original, but it was close enough. While he was at it, he repaired the cabinet. He liked the smile he got from Stephen when he gave it back to him.
He was always doing things like that. Randolph’s other job was carpentry when he wasn’t working seasonal hire working the backcountry. He still hoped to get a full time Ranger position, but it hadn’t worked out yet.
Right now, he was sitting there watching Benjiman work the dial, trying to find another station, hoping a new station might have more, or at least different, news about the wave and the quake. The station they were listening to right now just repeated the same things over and over.
Barbara paused as she was going up the stairs.
“You might have to rotate the antenna some, don’t forget.”
“Yeah, that’s next,” said Benjiman without looking up from the dial. “Tell Stephen we miss him.” He added, full of saccharine-laced sarcasm.
“Yeah, he’s the only one who can find half the stations on that damn thing.” Randolph added.