Timothy Birdnow

Ah, the simple life!

I went down to the Ozark Hilton Friday, ostensibly to make sure everything was buttoned down for the coming winter. Or at least as buttoned down as a place made out of debris can be. A rat pushed through the eaves (and the drop ceiling in the living room) and has been inhabiting my tool shelf. I'm going to have to do something about that little love child. At least he isn't really tearing things up like the last squatter tenant I had there.

For new readers of this website the Ozark Hilton is my affectionate name for the cabin I built out of trash and debris I collected throughout the City of St. Louis. Deep in the hill country of south central Missouri lies a 20 acre patch of land and there sits the Ozark Hilton, the finest shack in the area.. I'm not kidding about that; a drive around the back roads reveals cabins of far lesser quality than my own, and they are clearly inhabited year round. There was a guy who parked two school buses next to each-other and was living there, but he fell on hard times and had to drive his homes away. Be that as it may I'm the rich city slicker at the top of the hill! I have no electricity, no running water, not even an outhouse; I set a toilet seat on top of some cinder blocks to do my business. It's a wonderful system because it is self-cleaning, with the animals removing the waste by my next visit. I heat the OH with a barrel and some wood.

It's, um, rustic.

It is so named because when I first bought the property 16 or more years ago I visited it with my father and we went to a local bar in the small town 15 miles away. A local asked us where we were staying and we said we were camping, to which he replied "oh, you boys are staing in the Ozark Hilton, are you?" The name stuck.

At any rate, I headed to the poshest digs in the county on Friday. Only one problem; time was not on my side. See, at this time of year it gets dark by 4:30 and you have to have all your chores down by then, because you need to get a fire made, cart in enough wood to last through the night, unload the truck with your stuff, and fill all the oil lanterns and get them lit. I like a fair amount of light, so I wind up firing up about ten of them. They all have to be cleaned (the glass globes are usually dirty with soot) and filled and lit. In cold weather the lighters I leave down there freeze up, too, and I have to warm them against my body, usually tucking them into my waistband. I have to do all of that before 4:30 this time of year.

Well, I developed diarrhea and wound up making five pit stops on my normally 3 hour trip. I had to make do with all manner of restrooms, from clean to filthy to one outhouse that was freezing and stunk and which I have become far, far too familiar with over the years (it seems to be a regular stop for me.) It was almost four o'clock by the time I arrived at my lovely cabin in the oaks.

It didn't help that a freezing rain slowed traffic and made the roads slick.

As a result I had to make all haste. Firewood had to be lugged inside, all the lamps lit. It was cold in the cabin and I manaded to warm it rather quickly (my barrel stove does heat the place pretty fast, although it only heats one of the two rooms; the living room just has to remian cold in winter) but it is a lot of work getting it going and not smoking you out. The system I have in place is minimal, with a stovepipe barely poking out of the side of the place, so there is little draw. I cover the barrel top with a Weber kettle grill lid, but the new barrel I put doewn doesn't seem to fit the barbeque pit lids I have, so I have to just brace it up and lean stuff against it to hold it in place. The barrel tends to smoke.

It was after dark when I finally finished lighting my lights. I went to settle in but found the door into the main room had sagged on it's hinges and I couldn't get it to close properly. It is vital to close that door or cold air blows across the cabin and across my tender flesh. I solved the problem by stuffing a bunch of plastic grocery bags and an old pair of pants in the gaps. It worked pretty well, but I couldn't open the door to use the restroom (which consists of another door to the outside which requires no flushing.) I had an empty gallon jug which had contained water, so I made do.

At any rate, it was warm enough but the fire kept me busy. I used to bring books down, but my vision has degenerated and I can no longer read in the low light level of the Ozark Hilton, so I usually bring a portable dvd player and a battery, one of those kind you can jump your car with. Watched a couple of movies between my fire tending. I had hoped to find a disc down there somewhere, as I lost a disc from my Firefly complete series collection, but it was nowhere to be found. The rat probably swiped it for his own nefarious ratty purposes. He likes to steal my stuff; he loves my lighters, and if he can get them he steals them to use as a base for nest building. He takes all kinds of other stuff; candles, empty bottles, what have you. I had an opossum skull I was keeping as a trophy; it's disappeared, and I know that little Obama has added it to his collection of stolen artifacts. I put out some rat poison a few weeks ago, and not only did a rat eat it but he dug the bag full of poison out and ate that too. I hope this isn't the same rat I keep seeing, because if it is I'm going to be the one who has to move out. A rat that can swallow a pound bag of poison is not someone I want to tangle with.

But I didn't seem him/her this weekend, so much the better. Likely he was hiding, huddled down in the cold.

I wish I could have just huddled down and not have to endlessly feed the fire. At one point my knee decided to zig when I wanted to zag, and I fell on my face, cutting my forehead above the right eye. I am no stranger to accidents down there; I shattered my ribcage falling off a ladder, impaled my foot on a rusty nail, was stung half to death by a swarm of yellow jackets, had numerous wasp stings, cuts, etc. I now have cell service, but how do I explain my location in an emergency?

I've had other close shaves and dangers. I have caught the cabin on fire more than once, and had a tough time putting it out. It once happened in winter and my water was frozen solid! I used to use a kerosene heater in the cabin, but once I woke up with a spike driving into my head and stepped outside to vomit - and magically felt better! Carbon monoxide is no joke. I have never used that contraption since (it burned too much expensive fuel anyway.) The dangers of the simplle life are myriad.

Which is precisely why we invented civilization. There is much nostalgia in living simply, but the reality is it's a huge pain in the posterior. A simple thing like turning on a light is difficult to the natural man. I find it a pain, and I'm using store-bought lamps and petroleum-based fuel. Before coal oil the prefered light fuel was whale oil, and it didn't work so well. Prior to that a guy used olive oil or some other vegetable oil, and that had to be produced by farmers. Oh, and it gave very little light. The cold blast kerosene lantern was an amazing invention, far better than those old whale oil jobs. (Better, too, than the older lanterns; I have an old fashioned hot blast lantern, which burns the exhaust from the lamp. It's nowhere near as bright at the cold blast, which sucks air from outside and blows it on the wick to increase the amount of light.)

We may not like it, but civilization makes our lives so much better than it would be in a state of Nature. Nature is cold, hot, hungry, sickly, and laborious and anyone who believes otherwise is kidding himself.

I enjoy getting out in the wild, but I enjoy it because I can return to the comfort of my 21st. century life. I very rarely stay more than one night at the Ozark Hilton, and for good reason.

Let's not forget security. I've never had any trouble down there, but I did once hear something BIG outside the cabin, something that made a cooing sound that turned into a full blown roar. Never have figured out what that was, but I assure you I have never encountered something like that in St. Louis. I've also heard coyotes and I suspect wolves. Oh, and the scariest was a few weeks ago, during hunting season; I went out of the cabin to use the latrine and there was a light on the other side of the hollow! Hunters were camped there (not on my property) and I could probably have had a conversation with them had I hollered. It scared me; you just don't know. I had to rely on Divine protection, because I certainly wasn't packing. The best I could do down there is hit someone with an ax.

Every time I go there I am reminded of the value of this civilization which so many of our people dislike. I dislike it too, in many ways, but I understand it's value, because I voluntarily walk away from it on occasion just to remind myself what it's like. And I bring all the comforts of home with me, or a great many of them. A true state of nature would be far less entertaining.

We should all give thanks for the civilized life. I fear some day our soft and squishy generation is going to find out what it means to be without, when God finally gets fed up with our ingratitutde. One big solar flare would do it, knocking out the power grid and all electronics (which, in this day and age, means everything). It happened in 1859 with the Carrington Event, a coronal mass ejection that would have wiped out our modern civilization were it to happen today. There are other, myriad dangers, be they an asteroid strike, an interstellar dust storm, or a nuclear war or pandemic. Those last are more than a possibiility, with Mankind playing with forces he does not really understand. CRISPR technology could lead to the easy bake oven version of the Black Death. This while civilization is overspecializing, becoming too dependent on the technology which is allowing us to fashion our own guillotine.

If it comes down to it we may all wind up in places like the Ozark Hilton. Thanksfully, for me it probably won't be for long as the medication I need to survive won't be available. I could wind up one of the lucky ones.

I doubt the young generation of snowflakes and participation trophy recipients will last long under these conditions.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 12:26 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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