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.

People who don’t understand the difference between: “Take me shooting” vs “Go shooting with you”

It’s the difference between “Cook me dinner” and “Have dinner with me”.

Case in point – my buddy texts me and says “Go shooting with me”. Ok, great. We go to the range, he sets up his targets and shoots, I set up my targets and shoot. He works on his gun, I work on my gun. We have some informal target practice. But we each have a good time and get to spend time doing our own thing.

Contrast that with “Take me shooting” which, when someone says that, means “Take me to the range, and make me the center of attention where everything is done for me and you get to accomplish nothing you want to accomplish. Hand me guns and ammo, you set up targets, watch me shoot, and make sure I have a good time.”

Now, I don’t mind taking people shooting if Im aware ahead of time that thats what Im doing. But saying “Let’s go shooting this weekend” and then have me be your personal instructor, target puller, brass catcher, gun fixer, and program director is not what that phrase means. When you say ‘lets go shooting”, to me, that means Im going to get to spend some time behind a gun and work on my own stuff as you work on yours and we’ll do some stuff together.

This is why I keep my circle of shooting buddies small. And why I usually go to the range alone.