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 With A Whimper by Oldmudrat

   Chapter 2: February, 2016

   My great-grandfather, on my mother's side of the family, was a strange
man.  Daniel William Pitt was a strange man.  Well, not really strange. 
Maybe peculiar would be a more apt description.  He was 104 years old when
he died and had lived on the same plot of land for sixty of those years. 
He did not believe in modern conveniences with the exception of radio and
television.  The only reason he had electricity in his house was for those
two 'damn fool boxes', as he used to call them.  Only later did he add a
phone and computer, at my urging.  Going to college I missed our talks and
with the phone and email we could keep in touch.

   Shortly after his wife died in childbirth, he bought up almost 600 acres
of land on the east side of the Tennessee River where the river briefly
visits Mississippi.  He built his house on a steep limestone cliff that
dropped one-hundred-ten feet to the river.  For ten miles either side of
his house there was no place that a boat could make landfall.  The only
road in from the state highway was ten miles of dusty, rutted red clay or
ten miles of gumbo mud depending on the season.  A car would never make the
trip.  A four-wheel drive vehicle was the only chance, no matter the
season. It helped keep visitors to a minimum, which suited great-grandpa
just fine.

   On those 600 acres were stands of timber untouched by chainsaw for over
fifty years.  Steep hills with swift flowing streams in the valleys. 
Swamps that were the home to alligators and more snakes that you could
shake a stick at.  And a shallow vein of coal that no one knew about except
him.

   On that tall riverside bluff he built himself a log cabin.  Not one of
those simple cabins, but a large rambling structure.  Which was pretty
strange in itself, because great-grandpa Daniel lived alone.  Most of the
time.  His only trips off his land was twice yearly trips into the nearest
town, Iuka, Mississippi, to restock supplies that he could not obtain any
other way.  Those trips were short...  get the supplies and get out of
town. Fast.

   Do not get the impression that great-grandpa Daniel had not see the
world.  He was a veteran of WW2.  As a Marine he hit the beaches at Tarawa,
Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.  He was still in the Marines, having been promoted
to Master Sergeant, when he fought his way from the Chosin Reservoir in the
Korean War.  After that little 'police action', he got out of the Marines
and started looking for a place out of the line of fire.

   Great-grandpa Daniel was firmly convinced that the world was going to
hell in a handbasket and it would all be over very soon.  He held that
conviction for fifty years.  It turned out he was right.

   Maybe great-grandpa Daniel was not so strange after all.

   I never understood why he took up with me.  I was nine-years-old when I
first saw the Old Man.  My father was his grandson.  The two of them never
really got along.  But once a year dad would load up the family mom, me, my
older brother Daniel, and my older sister Willimenia and visit the Old Man
for a week.  Great-grandpa Daniel never refused those visits.  He usually
found things to do on other parts of his property whenever we were there.

   I mean my dad and mom were not very subtle about the main reason for
their visits.  As the Old Man's only living relatives they stood to inherit
his 'fortune'.  The land itself was worth several million dollars by that
time.  Brother Daniel and sister Willimenia were also obvious in their
attempt to suck up to the Old Man.

   Me?  Maybe I was too young to bother.  I spent the weekly visits
exploring the surround woodlands.  That's how I happened to come upon
great-grandpa fishing at a creek one afternoon.  There was a fishing pole
stuck butt-first in the muddy bank and a line floated lazily on the water.
But great-grandpa was sound asleep, a open can of beer at his side.  I sat
there until he woke up and asked me if I knew how to fish.  I guess that
how our friendship started.  That and I did not give a shit about his
money. For a nine-year-old, who thought he was probably adopted I mean how
could I have the same genes as the rest of my family, they were all
assholes discovering a grandfather was the bestest thing in the world.

   The best days of my life were spend on the river and in the wood with
him.  Once I got my driving license my visits were pretty much when the
whim took me.  He was always glad to see me and had something new to show
or tell me.

   It was great-grandpa Daniel who payed for my college education.  My
asshole of a father figured two years at a technical school would be enough
education to get me a job.  But I wanted more and the Old Man knew that. 
So he financed an education at the University of Tennessee and later
medical school at the University of Mississippi.  I had a job, sometimes
two, all through my training, but the Old Man always sent along a little
something extra every couple of weeks.  He came off his property and
traveled two hundred miles, the most he had traveled in many years, to see
me receive my Doctor of Medicine degree.

   After residency training I started practicing medicine at a large
hospital only an hours drive from him and made frequent visits.  I brought
Jules to meet him.  As we left that time, he whispered to me, "You've got a
good, James.  Treat her right.  You hear me!?" I could only say, "I know
and I will."

   And then the Super Flu struck.  His isolation proved no protection.  He
stopped answering the phone and did not reply to the frantic emails I sent
him.  I assume he was dead, but I was too occupied trying to save lives and
failing to go find out.  Now there were no more lives to save.  Now I was
going home.

   =+

   All these memories came back to me as I stood on the side of the highway
looking back at the city where I had lived for the past four years.  An
empty city, except for the dead.  A thick pall of smoke hung over the
western suburbs.  Fire would spread unchecked now.  There were no firemen
to combat it.  The stench is hard to describe.  How can you tell someone
how the decomposing bodies of almost sixty-thousand people smell?  You
cannot.  It has to be experienced.

   With a last look back, I climbed into the Ford F-250 four-wheel drive
pickup that I had 'liberated' off the dealer's lot and started the drive
home.

   End Chapter 2

   More to Come