Vaughn C. Hardacker

Vaughn Hardacker here: I have made my dislike of winter well known in several earlier posts. This winter, especially the months of February and March, have been truly rough. Three weeks ago I lost my internet. When I contacted the provider, Trailrunner, I was told the problem was due to a contract dispute with the company that provides the last leg of the network, not a technical issue—some history. In the past, my ISP was Consolidated Communications. They were terrible, so I switched to Trailrunner. With Trailrunner, I experienced a lot of the issues that I had with Consolidated, but their support people were a lot better that those of CCI. When I received an email from the CEO of Trailrunner explaining the problem was a contractual dispute with the provider of the last link of their network. They utilize Consolidated’s tower to provide wireless to the router in the end user’s location. Consolidated turned off their towers, believing that if the outage went on long enough, Trailrunner users would sign on with them. (Consolidated has routinely used this tactic with other companies.) After two and a half weeks, Trailrunner sent out a technician to replace the SIM Card in the router, so I got a temporary link to the internet via AT&T. I won’t go into detail about how high I jumped when I learned that I was still dealing with Consolidated—albeit by proxy.

So, the Internet issue was resolved. On to issue number two (It has been my experience that this kind of crap happens in threes.),. On Friday, February 28, Jane, my partner, brought to my attention that there was no heat in the living room. This has happened in the past. When it did, I went to the basement, opened a valve, and purged the line. We have baseboard heat, and periodically, I had to open a valve and let steam out of the line until water started to run. This time, the valve malfunctioned because it wouldn’t shut off, and boiling water ran out of the boiler and wouldn’t stop. I ended up jury rigging a hose system that took the water to our sump pump. I called a local heating contractor. He showed up on Saturday the first. He looked at the system and turned off the water feed to the boiler. I went upstairs to let him work. An hour later, I went down, and he said, “I got some bad news. You need a new boiler.” I asked for an estimate. He had to work one up, so we spent the weekend in temperatures in the low teens and no heat (It was a toasty 37 in the living room). Have I mentioned that our hot water also comes from the boiler? Well, it does. I took some sheets and blocked off the dining room, Kitchen, one bedroom, and one bathroom. We have a pellet stove that keeps them warm. The estimate came on Monday—$ 12,260 to $14,250. So here we are still living with no heat and imposing on neighbors who let us shower at their house. The neighbor started a gofundme for us, and thus far, we have received about $3,000 in donations. I am trying to arrange for some grants and/or a loan.

Are you ready for #3? This past weekend, we had a storm with thirty-mile-an-hour winds. I got up early on Saturday, and my snowblower wouldn’t start. At this point, I was considering writing a story about committing suicide and doing some real-life research. I looked to the heavens and asked: “What have I done to you, Lord?” He, or she, must have taken pity on me. The snowblower turned out to be ice binding the auger. Once I chipped that away, I could at least do the driveway. I was told that Maine has a program where you can get a home repair grant. I went today to see about applying and was told, “Yes, we have such a program. However, we have no funds and we don’t know when, or if, we will get some. And then we have a waiting list…”

So unless a rich relative comes to the rescue—and I don’t have any anyway—here I sit.

Does anyone out there want to adopt me?

https://gofund.me/a904e45e