update.
Still don't know why the harness was unplugged, no dead batteries or shorts or anything. After more research, I decided that the rear heater core was plugged, so about 3 hours ago, I pulled off the hoses, connected my own and flushed it out...sure enough, lots of nasty rusty slimy guck came out. I hooked it back up and I have heat! the low on friday here is 9 degrees, boy is my son gonna be happy.
btw. when I first did it, it would only have heat at or around 2000rpms...cool air at idle...I'm thinking that the line was full of gunk too, and it just refilled the core with it again. I drove back here about 30 miles, and it was pretty good heat. probably 10-15 degrees colder than the front, but definatly heat.
I will probably take it apart this weekend and flush it again, just to make sure its clean, then apparently I need to do the rest of the system too.