The old Quonset hut across from the only bar our town had ever known changed our lives that winter.  We could never pin-point exactly what it was, but only knew we’d never be the same.  Some folks say it was God’s way of getting back at the town for allowing the heathen and their godless ways to take foothold.  Some say it was just plain ole fate for letting a mass infestation of rats and other vermin laden with all kinds of disease to go about their business right where we lived and where our children played.   What ever it was, and for whatever reason, the resulting plague swept across the nation like a summer thunderstorm on the great plains.