The summer I sang the lead for Annie it was 1999. My father was in

serious preparedness mode. Not since I was five, and the Weavers were
under siege, had he been so certain that the Days of Abomination were
upon us.

Dad called it Y2K. On January 1, he said, computer systems all over
the world would fail. There would be no electricity, no telephones. All
would sink into chaos, and this would usher in the Second Coming of
Christ.

“How do you know the day?” I asked.
Dad said that the Government had programmed the computers with
a six-digit calendar, which meant the year had only two digits. “When
nine-nine becomes oh-oh,” he said, “the computers won’t know what
year it is. They’ll shut down.”

“Can’t they fix it?”
“Nope, can’t be done,” Dad said. “Man trusted his own strength, and
his strength was weak.”

At church, Dad warned everyone about Y2K. He advised Papa Jay to
get strong locks for his gas station, and maybe some defensive
weaponry. “That store will be the first thing looted in the famine,” Dad
said. He told Brother Mumford that every righteous man should have,
at minimum, a ten-year supply of food, fuel, guns and gold. Brother
Mumford just whistled. “We can’t all be as righteous as you, Gene,” he
said. “Some of us are sinners!” No one listened. They went about their
lives in the summer sun.

Meanwhile, my family boiled and skinned peaches, pitted apricots
and churned apples into sauce. Everything was pressure-cooked,