Those were some interesting numbers from that poll. Apparently, the majority of respondents share the same thought as I – that the ‘Big Event’ will be economic. Not zombies, not the Rapture, not Planet X, not chemtrails….just a good ol’ fashioned economic crisis.

Of course, no one really knows what the next apocalypse is going to look like, so I’d rather err on the side of ‘overprepared for an economic collapse’ so I don’t wind up ‘underprepared for WW3’. Succinctly, if you’re prepared for a nuclear war you are probably, de facto, prepared for all the smaller stuff than that….blizzards, power outages, etc.

I have had an interest in preparedness (although I didn’t know thats what it was) since my early teens. (Directly traceable, I believe, to having started reading post-apocalyptic fiction for some extra credit book reports)  It wasn’t until I was in my early twenties that I could do anything about it. And, being a young stupid kid, my immersion into preparedness was pretty much the same as most n00bs – lotsa guns. In the painful decades since then, I’ve moved away from the fun stuff like guns and camo to the mundane stuff like food and toilet paper. Don’t misunderstand…both are needed for a well-balanced approach to preparedness….but in all the crises I’ve been in , we used alot more food and TP than we did M855.

I was emailing someone the other day and I mentioned that there’s a point where you can ‘plateau’ as a survivalist and your focus goes from acquisitions to maintenance. Your’e pretty much done acquiring things and you’re now at the stage of maintaining those things. Preparedness is a commitment, man….sure, there are some things you can tuck away and forget about, but there’s alot that needs to be maintained and taken care of on a regular basis if you want to not waste your money. (For example, running the generator once a month to make sure it’s always ready.) I wouldn’t say I’ve plateaued… there are still a few big ticket items I need to acquire, but if the world ended tomorrow I would not feel at a great disadvantage with what I have now. But…always room for improvement, y’know?

The things that hold me back? Easy: money and motivation. (and, really, the two kinda go hand in hand.) If money were no object, I’d be living in my own private county right now. But my motivation wanes from time to time and without motivation I’m less inclined to take the steps and do things necessary to get the money. Frankly, it’s always easier to do nothing than it is to do something…and I’m sadly notorious for taking the easy way.

This is probably the main reason I so enjoy disaster movies and books – it puts my overactive imagination into overdrive and I start wargaming things in my head…and next thing you know I’m in the attic with a clipboard inventorying Hardigg cases and making lists. Hey, whatever gives you motivation. Me, my motivational imperative has always been security. Not physical security, per se, but rather security as in being able to absorb the punches that life likes to aim at my family jewels. My goal is to be secure enough that a job loss, debilitating injury, or other insult to my well-being will be an inconvenience rather than a critical hit. To that end…survivalism.

Something new to play with, blogwise………

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I’ve apparently reached a stage in my existence where my standard uniform of jeans and a t-shirt is not always the perfect ensemble. But…it’s ridiculous to pay retail for clothes I don’t even want to wear unless I have to. So…yay for used clothing. Got four shirts and a wool sweater for $24. That frees up more money for ammo.

Speaking of ammo, the big event at the moment seems to be YouTube doing some ethnic cleansing in the continuing culture war. I think it’s absurd, but I’m not sure they don’t have the right to say whom they’ll host or not. I’m reminded of the last great gun culture war back in the late ’80s/early 90’s…back when gun owners were urged to buy shares of TimeWarner to try and influence their trajectory. That didn’t work either.

But, make no mistake, it is a culture war. Guns are the convenient excuse to get everyone on board but invariably the gun community tends to trend towards the right side of the political spectrum and the real issue is about quelling those voices from the right, guns is just the convenient rally cry to muster the troops. Kinda like how the Civil War was ostensibly fought over slavery but was really about something else.

How do you play defense and win at a culture war? I’m not sure you can. You can not lose, though… which is almost as good as a win. You not-lose by dragging out the issue until the other side gets tired/bored/distracted or loses support. (Same technique used in Algeria, Vietnam, Korea, Colonial America, Colonial Africa, Colonial everywhere.)

Eventually the Tide-Pod-eaters who we can’t trust to cross a street safely will  move back towards video games, sex, cars, and spring break. As a political bloc they are virtually worthless for anything except media fodder. A 10/22, a brick of ammo, and a Saturday afternoon would probably go a long way towards encouraging them to think for themselves. Something more about the fun of shooting and being outdoors rather then about political indoctrination (not that political indoctrination is uncalled for, just that there’s a time and place for it….an 8am Monday morning on the first day of learning to shoot is probably not it.)

In a place like Montana it’s pretty hard to find someone who is anti-gun AND has never shot a gun before. (Mostly transplanted Californians and East Coasters, I’d imagine.) I should post an ad somewhere offering to take kids shooting for free if they’ve never had the opportunity. You know there was a time when lotsa high schools used to have smallbore rifle teams. We should bring that back.

Indoor shooting practice at school back in the day. High school shooting teams were not rare and these kids didn’t grow up to be mass murderers.

Local Missoula Junior Varsity Indoor RPG Team. State champs last year……

In a country where they get their knickers in a twist over pocket knives, this probably has more than a kernel of truth in it…..

There’s an old saying that every man needs to have five kinds of people in his life – a forgiving priest, an understanding mistress, a loving wife, a friendly banker, and a good doctor.

I was doing a little business the other day and it occurred to me that my circle of acquaintances encapsulates the survivalist version of that…cops, gun dealers, gold/silver dealers, a couple medical professionals, and a few other ‘useful’ people. It was brought home to me when I was given this:

See, one of the people I know runs a business where he resupplies and maintains emergency equipment for businesses. One of his tasks is to pull expired components from the first aid kits in the vehicles of a large regional company. What happens to those expired items? Well, they get thrown in a big box and whoever wants ’em can have ’em. Since bandaids and gauze pads dont really ‘go bad’ I took ’em for supplying some tertiary-level first aid kits.

But….it’s useful to know people who are in such businesses. I still need to establish relationships with a good realtor, and a doctor. But…I’ve got a pretty good grasp on a rather eclectic mix of other useful folks.

Networking, baby…………..

By now we’re all familiar with the ‘handbook-as-novel’ concept in preparedness literature. You create a ‘how to’ guide and turn it into an illustrative story. It’s not a bad way to create a story, although you might wind up getting a little too heavy into repetitive detailed descriptions of gear (cough*Metalifed Python*cough).

Dean Ing, an author with some chops, wrote a book called ‘Pulling Through’. It was interesting not so much for the story, which was your average family-hunkering-down sort of yarn about a nuclear war, but rather for the fact that, literally, the second half of the book was a treatise on how to prepare to survive World War Three.

The story follows a bounty hunter who scoops up his latest charge just as nuclear bombs start exploding around his California neighborhood. He takes his charge to his home, which he’s had somewhat prepared for this sort of thing at the urging of his preparedness-as-fad sister. Eventually the rest of the extended family shows up and the story mostly chronicles the days they spend in the basement waiting for the worst of the fallout to subside. During this time they deal with inadequate ventilation, unexpected guests, escaped convicts, improvised lighting, improvised sanitation, improvised everything.

Dean Ing’s previous works are usually of a technical nature and Ing himself , in the second half of the book, paints the picture of himself as someone who has come to survivalism as a logical response to the threats of the time. The book came out around1983 which is right about where the new wave of survivalism was at it’s crest.

Is it a good read? It’s not bad…. it is quite realistic with people suffering the types of injuries and insults that you would expect in such a situation. People die of radiation poisoning and there’s plenty of descriptions of how that sort of misery looks. Gunplay? A shootout with real consequences, a standoff or two. Sex? Nope..a little hinted romance at the end, but that’s about it. Having read Ing’s other books, male/female pair bonding is not his strong suit.

What Ing’s strong suit is, however, is writing about technical things. In his personal life he’s been a hobbyist of airplanes, race cars, and other highly technical goodies. In short, he’s a good technical writer who, on occasion, can crank out a good book. (FYI, two of my favorites of his are ‘Spooker‘ and ‘Flying To Pieces‘.) The second half of ‘Pulling Through’ is Ing telling the reader about his experiments in surivivalism regarding technology and improvisation that he and his family have undertaken. Additionally, there’s a large chunk of that section of the book taken up with reprinting the instructions on how to make your own ‘Kearny Fallout Meter‘…an item which factors heavily in the story part of the book.

Good fiction makes you think and Ing does throw out more than a few situations in the book that make you wonder what you’d do in a similar situation. But, to be fair, he also throws in some oddball and esoteric details that show what a techie he really is.

Like a lot of books i like, this one is out of print. It turns up at the usual sources from time to time, though. This book isn’t really everyone’s cup of tea. It isn’t as epic as others, with virtually all the story taking place over the course of a week or two and mostly in one location, but like ‘Alas Babylon’ it was written by someone trying to urge people to take nuclear survival seriously. It’s not a great book, but it isn’t a bad one… it’s a good choice for people who are a bit nostalgic for the days when we all thought WW3 was just moments away.

I’d be curious to know if he stuck with his interest in survivalism some 35 years later.