When I was fifteen years old, I went with my parents to visit my Aunt June, who lived out beside a lake. We spent almost a week there, and I remember it as one the greatest times of my youth. That was twenty years ago, and Aunt June is long deceased, but the cabin is still there. I talked to my folks about driving up to stay at the place for a while. I could work on cleaning it up, see about possible renovations, and also get some peace and quiet away from home and work. They reluctantly agreed, after telling me the place didn’t have air conditioning, and they weren’t even sure it had power after all this time. Since it was the middle of fall I didn’t think that a lack of air conditioning would be that big a deal, and packed my gear to go stay at the cabin for a few weeks. My folks were right, and there was no power at first, but thankfully the place had an antique water boiler in the basement. I had never used a water boiler before, it is a simple machine that does exactly what you think it does. The best thing about it was that the water boiler didn’t require electricity, it was connected to an old natural gas tank. The natural gas quickly heats the water in the boiler, which can then be used for bathing and cooking. The place might not have had heating or AC but at least it had hot water, which was better than nothing.