The gear survivalists leave lives on after them, and the tinfoil is interred with their bones……

Got a text message from a buddy the other day.  A person he knew passed, the wife wants to sell the house and move to be near the grandbabies, and the guy was a survivalist with a buncha gear…and everything must go. Would I be interested?

Well….yeah. I mean, I have a secondary location that needs to be stockpiled, right?

So whats on offer? Water storage tanks, smaller water containers, hand tools, holsters, water purifiers, kerosene heaters, camp stoves, coleman lanterns, kerosene, propane, radios, etc, etc. And, naturally, this potential money sink is taking place the same weekend as the big Missoula gun show. I foresee a lot of money leaving my hands this weekend. However, if theyre good deals then the short-term suffering may be worth it. I’ll be heading out there this evening after work, so we shall see what winds up coming back with me in the truck.

It’s always an interesting experience when a survivalist dies and you get the opportunity to go through their stuff. How much of a true believer were they? What was their particular flavor of apocalypse? Were they well-rounded or gun-heavy? You wind up trying to reconstruct a life by the things they left behind.

I like to think that if I die there won’t be a huge garage sale or anything like that simply because I’ve already made plans with the people in my life to make sure they get what I’ve accumulated. If I have to shuffle off this mortal coil, the last thing I want is all my gear winding up in a bargain bin somewhere. I want it going to the people I care about who can use it and, in some way, have a safer and more secure future as a sort of legacy from me.