Glimmer of Hope (Land of Tomorrow Book 1)

Part I, Chapter 4

Tim signaled him from the booth and Reggie moved to sit next to him. Reggie put on the headphones and pulled his own sheet of paper from his jacket pocket.

The clock on the wall was right at noon when Tim flipped several switches and a light on the wall went from red to green.

“Good afternoon friends and neighbors. This is Tim Reynolds of WKPO and you have tuned into our weekly discussion with Lieutenant Governor Reggie Philips where he talks about the issues that are important to you. Good afternoon, sir.”

“Good afternoon, Tim, it’s good to be here and thanks for inviting me back.”

“My pleasure, would you like to talk about a few of the topics that have come up at the latest Jackson Purchase County Cooperation Council?”

“I certainly would, thank you. For those of you who do not know, this council is made up of all the county executives and mayors from within the Jackson Purchase area. They all work together to cooperate on our common interests and I can frankly tell you this initiative has been a grand success so far.” Reggie thought it best not to talk about the fistfight between two of the county executives that occurred at the last meeting.

“Let me go over a few of the key issues decided,” Reggie continued. “First, the moratorium on the use of fuel remains in effect. No consumption of gasoline, diesel, natural gas, or kerosene is allowed without authorization until further notice. Any violators will have their supplies confiscated.”

Tim raised his hand and Reggie nodded, “Reggie, why is this such an important issue, I mean won’t we get more fuel soon enough?” Reggie gave Tim a smile and a thumbs’ up gesture.

“Actually we have no idea when we will ever get more fuel. We have every resource we need to survive for a long period of time, but the fuel we currently possess may be all we have. Eventually horse and manpower might replace gas engines, but we’re not ready for that yet and we’re going to need all the fuel for this coming year’s planting and harvesting. We also need the fuel for emergency and essential vehicles. We’ve been fortunate that we’re going through a mild winter and spring should come early. Electricity and wood will have to fulfill our heating needs for now.”

Reggie was off his agenda, but went with the flow anyway, “I also want to remind everyone that electricity and water will not be a concern due to the continued operation of the TVA hydroelectric dam at Grand Rivers. The hours of electricity and public water operation are still limited to six hours per region each day.” Although he had explained the rationale for this move many times, he decided to cover it again because people were always upset by the rationing. “The reason we have applied these limitations is in order to minimize wear and tear on electrical equipment and the dam turbines. Currently we only operate one third of the turbines at any one time.”

Reggie paused remembering an argument he'd had yesterday with an irate citizen over the limitations. “Folks, we don’t know when, if ever, things will get back to normal, and we need to conserve and take care of the resources we have. Need I remind you of the horror stories we’ve heard about in other places? There are people out there starving and freezing and dying of sickness and violence. I think we’ve got it pretty good all things considered.”

“Indeed we do, Mr. Lieutenant Governor” said Tim with a slight raise of his eyebrows, “Perhaps we should move on.”

“Right you are Tim, thank you. I want to remind everyone also of the importance of fulfilling your responsibility by paying the levied taxes. Again the preferred means of payment is a gallon of fuel per family per month, but other items can be substituted in lieu of fuel if necessary such as batteries, light bulbs, medicine, salt, canned goods, harvested food, or farm animals. I would also ask families that are better off to help their neighbors if there is a need. We don’t have the resources to tax according to people’s prosperity at this time.” Reggie decided to hold off on mentioning the threat of seizure by force that the committee was considering. Let everyone think cooperation was universal, and maybe it would be.