Bubba Dangerinthefield Don’t Get No Respect
Wednesday, April 7th, 2010Author Essie Feldhacher
As a rural dweller of many decades, a ‘y’all come back’ type people-person willing to give acceptance, respect, and even friendship to about anyone and anybody, I’ve found it disconcerting over the past few years to keep tabs on the general class distinctions in a supposedly classless nation where we’re in-word-only considered a civilizations of equals. IMO, ‘tain’t so, McGee’ and more times than I have kept track of, I have pointed people in the direction of DESIDERATA as a point of reference in hoped development of some people skills among the rank and file in the tough days ahead: http://marilee.us/desiderata.html
Recently a citified friend posed the following query – unfortunately, with true sincerity and seriousness, never entertaining for an instant that I could consider it…offensive. But after awhile a person comes to be aware that when ONE person asks a question – many more wish to know the answer/solution in how to deal with a little-understood and much maligned segment of society known as Bubbas. So I realized it was time to begin an Attitude Adjustment Phase with my friend, instead of taking the Hank Williams’ Junior route with a two-by-four or tire-iron upside-the-head!
See, I grew up watching Rodney Dangerfield, from his salad days on, an entertainer who made his comedian fame under the premise: ‘I don’t get no respect.’ Well, alas, there are a great many rural dwelling Bubbas who CAN be some real Danger-in-the-fields if you go about dealing with them ALL WRONG, and as a social phenomenon, alas, Bubbas ‘don’t get no respect’ either.
Some otherwise highly intelligent folks are plumb ignorant of how much harsher their lives would be without the efforts of Bubbas, so I saw it as a potential opportunity for a Bubba Woman to offer a bit of Enlightenment but Sugar-Coat the Bitter Truth with humor to make it do-down-easier.
HE WROTE: “Let’s say ‘you-know-what-hits-the-fan’ and I wanna buy a souped-up, pig-fart fueled, tractor motor from Bubba to build my Mad Max armored vehicle. Now, Bubba is not too bright but he is BIG and MEAN. If I want to buy his motor and keep my life intact, I’ve got to convince him that the US 90% ‘junk’ obsolete coinage is real silver… and if he doesn’t get this basic truth – I get shot (or worse) for trying to Trick Him and Rip Him Off. Now let’s say, Essie, I own .999 rounds, bars or bullion and I want to buy his motor (and keep in mind that we are assuming Bubba CAN read) I will have Zero Problems convincing Bubba that a bullion piece IS real silver… because it is marked ‘pure silver’ or ‘.999 silver’ is written right on the round or ingot…. as also is the weight of the piece. Thus, even a moron will get the basic truth that my rounds and bullion silver are real silver! I will get my motor free and clear. And soon, I will be enjoying my weekends, driving at high speeds, taking on the post-apocalyptic highway barbarian hordes. Are you picking up what I am putting down, Essie?”
*****
Ah yes, Sweet Pea, picking up loud and strong, like clear-channel, late-night radio in the old days, indeedydo! Frankly it’s quite hard to miss the put-downs escalating from coteries of pampered, soft, easy-living people, comforted and cosseted citified types who’ve not progressed beyond the impact of the movie DELIVERENCE from some years ago, and think Fly Over Country is an Abomination instead of the Backbone of this Nation, a gruesome geographical area that must be transcended in order to link the Only Important Areas of the United States: East and West Coast. A response was in order, with an application of calming and balming oil to still some potentially troubled waters. What’s amusing is the questioner considers this ol’ gal a smart femme – and I know I’m actually an Uber Bubba so can speak for “My People”.
ESSIE RESPONDED: “To clarify, basically silver is silver, just different forms and fineness, all of it capable of being melted down and rendered into whatever percentage is deemed right for the purpose. Against that day when it might be used for barter again, we tell people to have an old copy of Yeoman’s Redbook that lists every jot and tittle you need to know about USA coin strikes over the years since initial coinage in 1792, that may be obsolete, for they are comprised of sufficient silver (40% clad to 90%) the “bad money drove out good” and people (heavily rural types!) squirreled them away and let others get excited over the new cupro-nickel issues. Yeoman’s Red Books, printed every year, in numbers that rival Carter’s Little Liver Pills can be found on-the-cheap at yard sales, flea markets, or very likely a Local Coin Dealer (LCD) will give you an outdated one gratis when old Redbooks have been part of an “accumulation” offered for sale to the LCD. That’s one way to prove what’s what to the ‘dummies amongst us’ who, BTW, tend to be youngish, accustomed to using debit and credit cards, have never even seen clad Kennedy fifty cent pieces circulate, and have no visual awareness of Obsolete USA Coinage like Franklins, Walkers, nor Barbers. In addition, I would suggest you keep old copies of COIN WORLD, particularly, that covers world PM coinage to a larger degree than Numismatic News. By picking an issue carefully – there could be a wonderfully printed insert, or at the very least, dealer advertisements with images and descriptions of gold and silver coins of the realm, be it USA or foreign nations. The printed tabloid when bartering would serve as a handy-dandy resource to help convince the uninitiated regarding the validity of what you present at the time of barter. To go a step further, even, printing off silver hallmarks from the Internet can help verify sterling silver flatware and other antique items. Some of the Replacement Services for sterling flatware have great visual images to get a key on some of the older sterling that isn’t plated and paper and cartridge ink is a solid investment if you’ve some of that non-traditional potential ‘bullion’ as well.”
(Not surprisingly, people who’ve come to a certain mindset and have held it sufficient time for it to become engrained like a bad habit, don’t come ‘round easily.)
HE WROTE: “That too, might work…. But then, what if you lose your ‘paper proof’ or it gets wet? Then it’s crying time at Bubba’s Pig Fart Motor Emporium and Spatula Store.”
(I didn’t bother to chide my friend to “dry it out” nor suggest going to the time, trouble and expense of having applicable pages laminated if dampness was a major concern.)
ESSIE RESPONDED: “Actually, the ‘Bubba Factor’ might work in your favor. The Bubbas in Bib Overalls, as compared to the stupid Bubba’s (covered in tattoos who haven’t worked an honest day in their lives, don’t know how to till and plant the Good Earth but manage to Raise a lot of CAIN – and could turn into Zombie Mutant Bikers in a heartbeat) The vast majority of hard-working, inventive, and amazingly intelligent Bubbas tend to know American coinage. They see it at farm auctions all the time – and what it brings. Plus, often there was a Clabber Girl tin baking powder can that had stuff saved out by Grandma and Grandpa, up in a cabinet, got down every once in awhile for everyone to look at and admire on a slow and restful Sunday afternoon while kinfolk took turns cranking the handle on an wooden ice cream freezer loaded with salt and ice, and a mixture heavy with cream that had risen to the top when fresh raw milk poured from buckets and allowed to set long enough for cream to rise to the top. As it does with fresh milk – and among mankind as well IMO. I was thinking, my friend, that IF we could drag 100 Supposedly Ignorant Bubbas into a room, and bring in 100 Citified Sophisticates (who know the feel of a hand-held Game Boy, but never suffered the blisters obtained from making use of a pitchfork to move manure…well, I’d bet My Stack Against Yours that when it came to identification of Obsolete United States ‘Junk Silver’ Coinage that the Bubbas would win in this kind of Scholar Bowl Competition). In addition, sweetie, junk silver obsolete USA coins were marked with denomination (which most people are familiar with) so it’d be a matter of convincing it was 90% silver and denominated in dollars or portions thereof, and not just one-time but permanently Legal Tender, with most familiar enough to count out change regardless of whether it’s silver coinage or clad. BTW some bright fellow (you?!) perhaps a city slicker with more time on his/her hands, who doesn’t live on rural acreage where work is NEVER ‘done’ could make a pile of money if they’d come up—right now, before there’s a desperate need — with Decks of Identification Cards like they gave Military Personnel in the early days of the Iraq War to carry with them and gain familiarity so they’d be able to visually identify Saddam Hussein and His Bad Guys. And, of course, dear, the deck would need to be laminated to make ‘em water proof heh, heh. As for Bubba’s Hog Fart Emporium, ol’ buddy, quite a fictional biz name you selected there, dude….We’ve raised many a porker in forty years, and I never did notice too many ‘windy’ swine. But my beloved Rottweiler is a whole ‘nother matter. She’s always as ‘gassed-up-as-a-brand-new-taxi. And Chinese pugs are noted for being little killer beasts with some quiet and deadly ‘deliveries’. BTW I’m waiting for British Petroleum to contact me and start negotiating for my Rottie’s ‘gas rights….’
(As intended I had hoped that humor and a light touch would reach him whereas snarling and screaming about the idiocy of Anti-Bubba Types would alienate and offend. I believed Humor Is The Best Medicine and Attitude Evolver.)
HE WROTE: “Ha ha ha…. God help me, Essie, I just love your logic and way with words! You’ve given me a lot to think about.”
ESSIE RESPONDED: “Good, my friend. Then it was worth rollin’ out of bed this morning, LOL. Frankly, my friend, sometimes I get a mite bit tired of hearing Bubba Types assailed all the time. Good grief, hasn’t anyone watched anything but DELIVERANCE? Or that television show about some ‘Earl’ fellow that portrays rural folks at their worst? There are some good entertainment venues: how about SON-IN-LAW the comedy where a farm girl brings home a hippy? Or FOR RICHER OR POORER with Tim Allen where he and his wife go hide out from the IRS with the Amish. Even FIELD OF DREAMS puts a different and true spin on Country Living – which so many claim is their Bug Out Destination. In all honest, dear, by the day it seems more and more people talk about ‘bugging out’, going to Canada, hitting the small towns if TSHTF. I read that claptrap and think to myself, ‘And WHAT, pray tell, makes y’all think WE are dyin’ to be charmed by your look-down-your-nose and overbearing stereotypical insulting attitudes….?’ Sometime when I’m not pressed for time, I need to tell you about why farm-kids-make-good, and why it’s called Brain Drain in Rural Parts when we lose these (literal) geniuses to high-paying, high-living cities. But you were partly right. A Bubba can be your Best Friend…Or Your Worst Enemy. Thing is, it’s entirely up to you. Your choice to offer up some polite respect. Or…not! What you give Bubba is basically what you’ll get….”
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Desertrat says:
April 7th, 2010
4:25 pm
Back around 1943 I figured out that the drawback to plowing behind a horse is that the view never improves. It does, however, provide perspective later in life to accurately describe politicans.
But a dozen or so years of growing up around farming and ranching before getting involved with college and citified life before moving back to an uber-rural area has shown that it’s far easier for a farmboy to learn city ways than for the converse. The complexities of city life are mostly about minutiae and triva. Rural life may be less complex, but each facet is of far greater importance.
faithnotwork says:
April 8th, 2010
3:35 am
As a city-boy transplant, and developing Bubba, I appreciate more and more of what you are saying. I know where my food comes from, I know what hard work is.
Funny, this reminds me of a friend in similar circumstances that had some cityfolk visitors come to her farm. The women showed up in heels and nice clothes to see the barn and animals. Her recounting the visit left us crying with laughter.
Also found that the country Bubba’s know a thing or two about life. They know people and how to get things done. They give so they can help their neighbor, and they (we) dont necessarily take kindly to strangers that are here to just take what they can get. Bubba’s know that driving a hard bargain means nothing if its not helping someone’s family. Its not about making money, its about living the right way.
lynne says:
April 8th, 2010
8:58 pm
I think it was the cartoonist Jeff Marlette that did a book called Faux Bubbas. We saw it with the “Urban Cowboy” craze and the when Clinton and Gore. Nice safe little “Ethnic Identity” city boys could claim without the downsides of doing manual labor or getting cut in a knife fight.
We see a few of those city folk that buy some land “in the country” and then realize it’s next to a dairy farm or a pig farm. Then they want that smelly old farm to go away.
Essie Feldhacher says:
April 9th, 2010
3:50 pm
Wonderful responses, dear friend. I laughed over your analogy, Desertrat. Yup! The view behind a mule or a bob-tailed workhorse doesn’t change BUT even that has a silver lining. Follow behind THAT long enough in your youth, ‘staring it in the face’ (and stepping lively around an occasionaly Road Apple) and it rather prepares one to face middle-old age and confront a …wrinkled face…in the bathroom mirror, LOL! And Faith that cityslicker showing up in high heels for a farm tour is hilarious. She could’ve been put to good use, if it was planting time, to give her a walking stick, point her to the far side of the field, fib and cross your fingers behind your back and for encouragement tell her she’d lose 25 lbs and 2 dress sizes if she walked back and forth at least ten times then follow behind and plop a seed in each indentation! Lynne, you are so right about the Urban Cowboy. Still fries my gizzard a bit to recall how I was so made fun of for wearing cowboy boots in the mid-60s (so comfortable and good protective footwear and with a tad of a heel made me decently taller) and a decade and a half later the sissiest of the citified were prancing around in “my” Western Wear…BUT as you pointed out, building a nifty McMansion across the road from a farrow-to-finish hog farm, usually purchasing the property in the cold months when odors are thinner and flies non-existent in northern climes. Then they want that hog farm GONE…Oh, but pass the pork chops, PUH-LEEZE, done-to-a-turn, thanks, but NOT expensive in the meat rack! Over in Linda’s uploading on this site, or maybe it was on W&G – she’s such a prolifica camper – and talking about people and the divisions – well, I think that is another ‘class’ division – city vs. country – as the Media for quite awhile now has worked to paint rural dwellers with the dirty brush, color ‘em STOOPID! – almost like it’s…intentional???
Desertrat says:
April 10th, 2010
7:58 am
Essie, another arena of conflict in the city/country war, aside from the hunting issue: For decades I’ve had a benchrest on my porch for my 100-yard range. Every now and then some doofus will run whining to the local law to complain about evil noises. The usual reply of, “So what?” seems to be off-putting…
oldmanriver says:
April 10th, 2010
4:24 pm
We always called them “goat ropers”, city people that moved out to the country to their dream farmette. They just tend to be a pain in the rear and drive the price of land up. They always had a few head of livestock, a mini tractor that they never used to really do anything. Drove a great big truck, all hat and no cattle. They never had to make a living off the land or try to pay for anything with it. They didnt have any idea what it took to be a successful farmer. They think that its all about machines and looking good doing it. They should actually try to “live” off their farm for one year. Im not talking about growing a garden. I mean putting kids through school paying bills, the whole ball of wax, 99% would not be able to. It was all subsidized by a job in town or a retirement package. It was like they wanted to be uber rednecks. Gave decent hardworking rednecks a bad name. My grandfather farmed his entire life of 90 years and never owned a truck for his personal vehicle. But you have all these wannabe’s driving souped up 4x4s with huge engines with horsepower up to the eyeballs to do what….pull a trailer for their 2 horses and 5 head of goats. Then they want to give you advice..why dont you do it this way? you know I was an engineer for xyz company , we would have never done it that way. Really you wouldnt have? How about you give me the cash so I can do it your way and then we will implement your plan but yes I will be over with my skidsteer to dig out your driveway because physically you are unable to engineer yourself out of that. (Engineers seem to be the worst ones as their entire life is only on paper. I have truly only met 3-4 engineers who could actually hack it in the real world and on paper) You cant buy a decent farm truck anymore, adjustable seats,electric windows, carpet..carpet..in a farm truck…really? Really??
BigTee says:
April 10th, 2010
10:29 pm
I agree with oldmanriver!
Essie Feldhacher says:
April 11th, 2010
8:43 am
On the run this ayem, Desert and Old, but man y’all said a mouthful. For awhile when Jeff Foxworthy came into the fore everyone wanted to be a “redneck” but now that phase seems to have passed. Seems no one is ever truly content Being Themselves In Life (the true answer to happiness) but personality-wise wanna hop on the same newfangled behavior along with collecting Cabbage Patch Dolls, Beanie Babies, and now those ‘fake’ pets – fergit what they are called. Never hafta deal with a pet’s death, I guess, just re-supply batteries and never have it pee on the carpet, lick your hand tenderly, or look at ya with loving eyes and give a blissful dawg sigh of content.
Yeah, many of the highly intelligent on paper/not in real life, we have decided “can’t walk and chew gum at the same time”. They’re gonna be in a sticky mess when TSHTF….
Desertrat says:
April 11th, 2010
1:16 pm
Careful, there, OMR.
In one of my other lives I wuz an injunear. Google up “California Acqueduct”. I designed and did the cost estimating for the same sort of animal for Texas, back some 40+ years ago. Sixty-some reservoirs, 330 miles or thereabouts of canal to take water from Texarkana to Lubbock. But, like I told folks early on, the cost would be above market for the water.
But the engineering stuff made it easy for me to design the elevations and roof trusses for the house I built myself–on my wife’s floorplan. Made it easy for me to be the local sand’n'gravel fella in my area, delivering bench-run gravel which wasn’t clay-coated.
Car racing and gun trading and coin dealing and playing mechanic and gunsmith help make life easy, same as a kid’s traipsing along behind Grandmaws when they’re working in the garden. Doctoring screw worms, vaccinating for Blackleg and hauling hay…pulling a breech-birth calf in near-zero weather teaches some reality lessons, as well.
The world’s just a big ol’ playground, mostly, and I’ve enjoyed the heck out of it. Still do.
Essie Feldhacher says:
April 11th, 2010
2:31 pm
You ol’ boyz after after my heart, LOL. We live in a ‘different’ kind of house, DesertRat, and I got to know an ol’ boy from Texas (now long since passed) and he was big for his age and started out at 13 years old fibbin’ his way into becoming an ‘engineer’ (on an old-time railroad Engine) said Hell YEAH he had EXperience and landed the job. The first time he crawled up, hadda to have been funny as he figured out how to go forward and reverse. But he was smart – and leaving to get shed of his nasty stepmama was probably the best thing he ever did. He went on to become a TRUE engineer and he was all over the MidWest developing and overseeing the building of ICMB silos and calculating concrete streses and such. He oversaw the suspension bridges out in the West/Southwest. And once ended up in JAIL when a suspension bridge fell in and they blamed HIS design until it was learned some flunky drove a fully loaded supply truck onto the bridge (after flatout orders NOT to do anything to get a thrum type vibration built up in the bridge) and it collapsed on everyones’ noon hour and they went out and saw the bridge gone – and the guy who’d backed the truck out onto it had to have had a holy-cow-moment and skeedaddled and he is probably STIll RUNNING. Ol’ Sampson said the “next smallest” thing he’d designed compared to our dwelling as $8.5 million dollars (and THAT was when a million dollars was more than 1/2 Step Ahead of Poverty. As an Engineer, you may know what Sampson was talkin’ about, but he was proud as a peacock over designing this house, and he had engineers coming from far and wide to view it, and one of his claims to fame was that with ALL the govt contract ICBM stuff he’d done in his loooooong span of a professional career, our home had the “highest negative moment” (when the ceiling was poured.) Something about the load of concrete and steel, weight, blah, blah. I dare say, our house probably has the ONLY Redoak Beams and Whiteoak ship-lapped SUSPENDED ceiling in the world, with the riglets poured into the extremely high test psi concrete. He was amazing – loved the old boy – spent hours with him, helping him around the building site in his walker….I was a mere pup then – but Sam sure thought I was a world-beater…heh, heh. His last name was Miller.
oldmanriver says:
April 11th, 2010
2:49 pm
LOL Sorry Desserrat, I was painting with a pretty broad brush. I have had the unfortunate experience of dealing with some engineers who were not very good at designing things, they usually left at 4 pm and it was up to me to try and get what they had designed to run through the night. Well what they had on paper and how things actually were out in the plant were two different things. But I will say that the good engineers I have known were solid gold and didnt mind the 3 am call of someone yelling about the POS they had installed didnt work and threw some clothes on to come in and help get things straightened out. Those types I never complain about and Im sure I vexed them as much as they did me but it was all in good fun.
Essie Feldhacher says:
April 11th, 2010
2:58 pm
My daddy was a homebuilder of the old-style kind. He sat with people, drew blueprints, tailormade everything. Some people came to him (usually wealthy big city folks building vacation/retirement homes on the Lake) and they had architects draw up stuff. He was constantly pulling the architects’ chestnuts out of the fire. Doors that went nowhere and similiar stuff – literally. Something that would appear it’d work on paper doesn’t work in reality. Uh..kinda like ETFs? LOL. But I know what you are saying. Dad was never rude about it, just calm, quiet, but firm, and explained in exacting detail why something wouldn’t work and I’m sure the architects appreciated his demeanor and manners – and that they were spared ridicule over he “showplaces” they designed that he built. A young friend whose family are the elite homebuilders in the area where I live now says it is basically the same thing all these years later, heh, heh. The “list” of interest one of you boyz rattled off sure fits exactingly ’round here, too.
Desertrat says:
April 11th, 2010
6:30 pm
A billionaire developer bought the resort town of Lajitas (locally referred to as LaHideous) and hired some engineering outfit out of Austin. They tried to make water run uphill in drainage ditches, and had sewer lines in place above potable water lines–among other things. Lots of entertainment value for the locals who worked on the effort.
lynne says:
April 11th, 2010
9:25 pm
I don’t think most country folk feel a need to defend themselves. We know we are up against it. But we don’t mind the ‘slickers’ getting caught up in the works.
grossyi says:
April 13th, 2010
4:23 am
What makes your city friend think that I would sell my pig fart mobile to him for a handful of silver? I built it because I have a need for it that doesn’t involve cruising post appocolyptic roads for shits and giggles.
Sorry, we’uns ain’t big on couth.
Essie Feldhacher says:
April 13th, 2010
10:44 am
Good hearing from you Gross Man. We get kinda earthy and ‘gross’ (some would think) also! We may not be big on ‘couth’ but know our way around ‘civility’ in how we treat others iffen that is what WE get from then to level the mental/psycholical/mannerly “playing field” of life.
I must admit – I wondered about his desires for a pig fart driven Road Machine to cruise post-apocalyptic roadways, too. Sounds like time to hole up, stay home, and not go road-trippin’ lookin’ for excitement to ME, LOL. Do they have no idea peeps what the unprepared, starving thirsting (even unmedicated?) populations will be doing and that as they hop the interstate sytem, it won’t be at all like heading up an entrance ramp now? Eh…probably not. They all think they’re gonna be John Wayne, or Audie Murphy. They don’t mentally project how bad and how dangerous it will get and how fast it can and will happen and that roadways won’t be open-roads as they are now – but very likely littered with barricades whether natural calamities, out of gas, crashed vehicles creating obstacles, or intentionally created barricades of all sorts. Crowds can be bad enough now – a horrendous spectre…then.
We just had company over who left a few minutes ago, and as we were talking about it, the friend was shaking his head over the those in cities who have a bug-out-bag “And A Plan” – but a self-centered “plan”, mind you – and one they think is unique and clever very, very workable, and they don’t think it through and dwell on the mechanics enough to realize if they’ve thought of it, so has every other jackanape, survival type or Zombie. As he says they will swell up like Tom Turkeys, or a Peacock in full preening plummage and say, “Well, if TSHTF I know this ‘abandoned land’ and I’ll go hole up there, shoot me a deer or something. Or I know this State Park. I’ll head for that…” and live happily ever after. Never shot a deer. Don’t know how to dress one out. Won’t have brains to tie-off the gut before they stab into it and get e-coli smeared everywhere, etc. He snorted and said yeah, them and anyone else, too – thinking ahead (but in an illogical manner) and they’ll discover someone IS paying taxes on that “abandoned property” and is gonna protect it.
In recent days a young city acquaintance on a forum, age thirty, whose long-time girlfriend (many years) vamoosed, who went Paintball playing (first time) over the Easter Weekend shared on forum “If TSHTF – I’m DEAD!” He was “taken out” in the paint ball game in no time playing a game and realized it it was live lead he’d have been a screwed pigeon f-a-s-t. It made him woefully aware of(a few) shortcomings. BUT I am sure, not to the point of getting out of a condo and away from one of the roughest and toughest meanest street cities in the USA, or really becoming aware of the degree of his…survival/prep ‘deficits”. I responded him with congratulations for “facing the fact” that he’s actually a “dead man walking” in society. Congratulated his post as “public service” to get others to realizde they are no better than he is and will not “live long and do well”. He didn’t respond – not surprisingly. I think he’d hoped for assurances that he’d be okay what picayunish prepping he’s done thusfar.Or that Mama Essie would say, “Y’all come here, hear?” Uh…not! But I did tell him he’d have a lotta, lotta company facing exactly what he’s starting to realize in his better moments what is his fate. They say misery loves company. Um…even unto death? Grim as it is when ‘it’ hits I think the suicides will be to the degree to make persons…aghast…as some decide to end it by their own hand rather than wait for unleashed and crazed society to do it for them.
And on that churlish, brutal, honest point, my dears, have a GOOD day, as I know, like I intend to, ya WILL!!!
lynne says:
April 13th, 2010
4:34 pm
Yep, Essie on a couple of other sites folks said they were gonna start a revolution and the total sum knowledge they have is playing the Video game Left 4 Dead and watching Red Dawn. So I started asking questions of how much food and water they had and what were they going to do when the authorities turned off the water and power? It got real quiet and then a couple of them asked me to stop asking questions. I ruined the “Fantasy”
Desertrat says:
April 14th, 2010
10:19 am
For me, poverty is when folks are building house walls of waxed cardboard, and little kids are selling their sisters. Been there; saw it. The US version of poverty has folks with cars, beer, cigarettes and TV.
With this much of a distorted picture of reality, and a society as complex as ours with its multitudinous divisions into tunnel-visioned, narrowly-focussed areas of expertise, I pretty much think that true hard times will be a helluva lot harder than most folks can deal with.
As in the 1930s, country folks have better odds…
CheriVNB says:
April 27th, 2010
10:07 am
Rat, Essie, LBT and others:
I love this site because it really makes me think. Not so much because I haven’t had fleeting thoughts along these lines, but the continued discussions remind me to stick with it, the prepping. I don’t have dreams of self-sufficiency, just bearability. My husband says I am depressing and full of doom and gloom. He is full of DENIAL!
Through out this discussion I am reminded of the IMPORTANCE of true friends and knowing who you can count on. (Don’t worry, I don’t mean I’m gonna come a knockin‘…) Good advisors and confidants are hard to come by.
I grew up in the country, my father was a builder/contractor, he built houses, bridges, shopping centers, hydro electric dams, whatever needed to be built. I moved to the city for college and my first job, as a engineer. I work in the medical field on imaging equipment, X-ray, MRI and Ultrasound. It has always saddened me to see my “smart” colleagues “live for today, the hell with tomorrow” or just “let the good times roll“. Smart people act dumb too.
When CA real estate started inflating in early 2001, there was no denying the writing on the wall. We bought the most (tiny by some standards) land we could afford as far from, but still commutable to the city we worked in. When the bubble burst I switched to a more stable job, my husband lost his construction job and is now a long haul trucker. In between we “forgot” our plan as the “economy” ignored reality too. I doubted my instincts and just lived like maybe all the “Polly Annas” knew something I didn’t. Today the local news was speculating on how people are “starting to believe” in the stability of our economy again. Would those be the people who after loosing their homes, and relieving themselves of debt, now feel optimistic about THEIR less encumbered futures? Or like the Greeks and Romans, have they just purged and now will belly up to the buffet table of OLD spending habits and debt accumulating ideas? Adaptation to conditions requires accurate assessment of the situation… Where is an independent media?
Everything exists on a scale, from nothing to something. There are no absolutes. Cities foster personal dependence, rural living fosters personal independence. Cities have scale/magnitude on their side, sheer numbers. Watch Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto, gory but simple enough to contemplate scale and degrees of agression vs. technology. If TSHTF as hard and in the ways some predict, there needs to be those who can rise from the ashes. History shows reward going to the smart and overly aggressive.
People who think they are smarter than others, under estimate other people and their will to survive.
Do live for the simple pleasures in today, the ray of sunshine, a gentle breeze or the affection of your loved ones, there can be no regret or shame in that. ~C