First Published on 4/1/2015
I’ve got an old fourteen inch pipe wrench. Most plumbing in Big House has been converted to polyvinyl chloride from old cast iron, but I still have that rusty red wrench handy, just in case. I don’t stand around daring old pipes to leak, but I’m ready here and now if they take a notion.
Frederick “Tommy” Rinard the plumber who has done all our (Pap’s and my) plumbing for thirty five or forty years now rents and works my farm. He’s always around when I need him to take care of problems with leaks and water supply. Always around, except when he’s not.
He’s not around at the moment because he smashed his knee with a fall on frozen ground while loading big bales and then developed nasty gall bladder problems while recuperating. This morning, if the delta faucet blows off my kitchen sink and sprays water all over the kitchen, I’ll need trusty rusty pipe wrench to turn corroded old valve in the basement to stop the flood.
Except, I could call good friend, Bill Wicks of Wicks’ Plumbing. I spend a lot of Saturday evenings with my feet under his kitchen table eating great suppers his wife, Mary fixes. I can’t think of any plumbing problems he’s solved for Big House, but with Tommy out of commission, I’m sure Bill would jump on my problem as soon as he could get to it.
But he might not get to it for a little while. He’s good at what he does, works far and wide around the area, stays busy. He may be servicing a pump in Ashton Woods when delta faucet blows. If I call him he’ll soon have wind whistling through the pipe joints clamped down on his old van rack, hurrying to get here, but still that’s close to an hour away at best. A bunch of cold water can spray my kitchen till he pulls up.
Not to worry. I’ve still got my pipe wrench out in Old Jeep’s tool box. Ten minutes to go grab it, beat it around to free up the adjuster screw and get on that valve. I’m ready. I can do it myself. I may need professional help later, but I can shut down the leak when it hits.
I’ve got an old Ruger, .357 magnum revolver. I wander around my farm with a pistol in my pocket a good bit. Groundhogs, and feral cats are both subject to .22 caliber damage. Occasionally I carry a bit of extra pistol when bears or coyotes have been seen nearby. That’s where .357 comes in.
I also keep them handy because the world is moving in. A world I don’t know so well, haven’t had so much experience with. A world which fills evening news with stories of crime and violence. And yes, a world, some of which wants to take away my protection from the varmints, both two and four legged.
By all accounts, Sheriff Bryan Ward runs a good department. I hear few complaints about services of his deputies and stories in this newspaper document activities to deter and prevent crime.
Steven Reckart is a top notch Chief of Police in Moorefield. His department, noted for use of technology and surveillance, is doing a great job of keeping streets of Moorefield safe, homes and business which line them secure and protected.
Both departments, coupled with resources available to our beloved WV State Police Detachment far to prevent crime from happening and to find perpetrators who have committed crimes.
Still, good intelligence before and good detection and apprehension after a violent crime don’t get the entire job done. There’s those moments when the crime is in progress. The moments when you are directly threatened. The moments when you’re worried about immediate threat to life or those of your loved ones rather than about why a policeman isn’t handy to protect you or whether a policeman will catch bad guy after he maims or hurts you.
It’s for the moment my faucet blows off that I keep my wrench handy. It’s for the moment when life is threatened I keep gun handy. My family’s lives are much more important to me than House’s kitchen floor. You can take my wrench if you just got to have it but please don’t tell me I can’t keep my gun handy.
