Burning Skillet: Southern Fried Infrastructure (Grid Down Prepper Up Book 2)

by Ron Foster

  “Darn! There are not enough hours in the day to get everything done as usual. I was sort of hoping that we could put that off for a bit but you are right; we need to get on the stick and get that done.” Carl said as Wilma looked forlorn that the business of just living had to be started up in earnest so quickly.

  “You know Carl, you and Wilma could help us all out a lot by staying over here at the marina and finding out what you can about everyone living around here. Steve can drive your car and help us with the trailer if you don’t mind being without your own ride for awhile.” Tina said and tilted her head meaningfully towards Wilma who was now looking towards the ground idly while wistfully drawing small lines in the sand waiting with dread for the time she would shortly have to leave the only blissful moment she had known for a long time.

  At first Carl was rather hesitant to take the kindly advisement and wanted to argue that he and his wife wanted to do their fair share like they always had but he relented and saw the wisdom in it and said “ Wilma, what do you think? Do you want to help me sit around here a little longer and gather some intelligence for the group?” Carl said making it sound like a military action rather than an act of kindness or not wanting their help because they were so old and failing.

  “You sure you don’t need any of our help?” Wilma said visibly brightening but still unsure of the offers’ true intent or meaning.

  “I would appreciate it if you and Carl just stayed around observing and listened out for some news. There is so much that we don’t know or understand around here that might be useful for our survival. I would kind of like for you to find out or overhear anything about what people thought about us in general or what the true worth of all these paper goods we have for trade are actually valued at.” Tina said sitting down next to the frail old woman.

  “We can do that! Folks expect old people to be nosy sometimes and don’t take much offense when asked pointed or off color questions by them.” Wilma said perking up at the thought of this new useful job she was being offered.

  “Try to get yourselves actually physically down on the boat docks and visit with folks if you get a chance. We need to try to figure out how many people are living over here and if there is any kind of formal leadership guiding group decisions. Someone organized everyone over here and put up the curfew signs etc.; try to find out who that was.” Travis said thinking Tina’s idea had more merit to it than it did on the surface.

  “I don’t like too much the idea about me and Wilma being stranded here though if something goes wrong while you’re gone or you get delayed. I know we only have one key to that house but could you leave the backdoor open in case we have to walk down there and get in ourselves?” Carl asked.

  “Smart observation and precaution! I will leave it unlocked for you and your bags will be in your bedroom at the beach house. Travis, what do you think about us leaving them a can of that nacho cheese sauce and them getting a runner to go fetch Molly and Bo down here for a bit of bartering while we are gone?” Slim asked thinking that having a few friends other than Harvey and Billie Lee to look after them might be a good thing.

  “Ah man, that cheese stuff is like pure gold I bet! I haven’t even wrapped my head around what kind of recipe we can come up with to utilize it best yet. I was sort of thinking we hold it in reserve until the right time.” Travis objected.

  “No time like the present I must say! I am sure Carl and Wilma will make a good deal by themselves or they can wait on us to get back for a group vote to finalize the trade.” Tina said looking warningly at Travis that she thought it was a good idea to leave them with something more to work with and do than just sit around and listen to gossip.

  “Ok, but I am not up for fish flour biscuits and cheese, ok?” Travis said laughing, still a bit squeamish and not quite ready for whatever culinary treats or otherwise Molly might dream up for using that tasty canned cheese rarity.

  “Hey, we got us some of that hushpuppy mix! They are going shrimping tonight, how does shrimp, hushpuppies and nachos cheese sound?” Tina said with a “YUM” look.

  “Sounds pretty damn good to me but that is valuable trade stuff as well as our next meals if we can’t find or catch anything else for ourselves. Besides, I don’t think we should be showing that much wealth around here so soon.” Slim objected and everyone paused their festive attitudes to consider this operational security concern.

  “I know you all probably already have heard me say this a dozen times before and get tired of my stories but you remember I told you that if you only have a few dollars left in your pocket in a bar, you buy the richest man in there a drink and make friends? Pretty much always assures you of another drink or two and if it doesn’t, it will always be remembered when you get back to the bar and meet him again.” Travis said sagely.

  “And your point is?” Steve said never really understanding Travis’s feast or famine ways of approaching some situations as an all or none proposition lots of times.

  “We can try the potlatch approach this one time and by that I mean these strangers will see us as giving away something that they know we all hold to be pretty valuable and we are doing it to just make friends in a way like two Indian tribes meeting to make a treaty or settle hunting rights disputes. A lot of times, a show of tribal wealth or strength at these meetings or so called pow wows are used to establish pecking orders in a friendly community way that can benefit all. Now a 5 gallon bucket of about what? 25lbs of hushpuppy ready mix and a giant can of nacho cheese would go a long way to greasing the wheels and peoples psyches pretty good around here as a gesture of good will and intentions.” Travis said watching everyone’s reactions.

  “Now that makes good horse sense to me! I don’t mind donating some food trade goods for a bit of bribery and influence if you wanted to look at it that way!” Slim guffawed as Steve and his wife looked at him and Travis skeptically.

  “I don’t know, Travis, I think I would just as soon try to trade it. I mean we got to get something for it in return more than one shrimp dinner. Don’t seem fair to me somehow that we should give so much ourselves to this proposed wealth sharing party. How many buckets of that mix have you found so far, anyway?” Carl asked.

  “We got ten buckets total, five of which are still on a pallet on the truck.” Travis said reminding everyone that they needed to get finalized here with discussions and start moving and retrieving or they might only end up having just five.

  “I think we can spare one bucket that being the case, but remember how I told you all to figure on how far the stuff we find can go.” Carl said raising his eyebrows and making everyone groan.

  “Not the List!” Slim said horrified that they were now going to get stuck here longer than expected as Carl unfolded a piece of paper out of his pocket that he had copiously copied down the list of required goods needed for every would be miner hoping to cross the Canadian border during the great gold rush.

  “I thought Wilma hid that dang book of his?” Travis whispered hotly to Tina.

  “She did but evidently he hasn’t gone looking for it because he already made himself a handwritten copy of it, it seems.” Tina said hushing him quietly to hear what was next.

  Everyone had had about enough of the dreaded list and Carl pointing out its contents all too often to them when it came to allocating measures of rationing food. Carl had on his office shelf a fascinating book about the Klondike gold rush he kept in his library normally that they had all read but Carl was trying to use it as a survival book or bug out bag list of some sort without the means of a trading post or a way to acquire the goods otherwise on that stupid list of his. Carl had an almost religious fervor about it the way some preppers spend their first one hundred hours or so of learning how to prep looking at everyone’s bug out bag list and comparing. Travis thought that making of preparedness lists and equipment requirements is what does it to us all when joining the movement or expending way too much money better saved but we one and all dutifully donated to the p
repper gods of justified expenses we later in life regret on our road to prepperdom or enhanced self-sufficiency. Shit don’t matter, how you use your shit matters and figuring out a means of getting more shit with less expense and risk as you eventually become wiser is the only thing that truly matters in the end.

  ‘Knowledge weighs nothing and can’t be stolen from you’ is a well used prepper credo. Many people dismiss this fact and try to buy their way towards survival or think that they need the latest greatest giz-whiz that ever happened in order to survive an apocalypse better than the rest when starting out on the trail to personal and family preparedness. The worst of these types of mentalities live to troll the newbie or established prepper websites and try to enforce the notion you can’t survive unless you have a this or a that and it has to be this brand etc...

  “B.S.! Not only no, but hell no! Just not true! Now I admit I have seen it, done it, been there like all the rest of the preppers and have myself personally made tons of bad purchases in the beginning no matter how much knowledge I came to the table with from growing up country or doing a stint in the military! The thing is, I found out eventually it was my just living the country life and using that basic knowledge to ask the right questions or seek out new answers from now being a prepper made me more resilient and self sustaining. Not stuff! Not expensive ass shit I had to pack in on my back like an armored war horse and rider. If you want to live, check out some old country folks just getting by and not on the government dole and you will see what it takes to just get by in this world without wandering around with your hand out or depending on anyone or anything but yourselves and your own damned ingenuity or knowledge. Yes, life’s easier with giz-whizs short term but long term? It’s like a person using a high interest credit card to buy groceries with you can’t afford the upcoming payment for. The end will come as soon as your juggling act of paying bills drops a ball once and you would have been better off with thinking about buying some permaculture plants and a single shot shotgun than a tricked out AR rifle and a bunch of ammo. Cripes, people! Are you going to war or feeding yourself? If you need all that extra ammo that isn’t good for hunting nothing but humans and everyone else is doing the same, what kind of world is it you are preparing for any way? What’s the matter with us? Are we going to protect ourselves from others taking our food supplies we don’t have now because we invested in ammo instead of the makings for another egg roll even if we could duplicate that delicacy with squirrel meat or rabbit if we had invested in the knowledge of trapping game or raising chickens as part of our lifestyle? Neither hobby, lifestyle nor reading material require an AR, a bullet proof plate for your back pack or, lord forbid, considering buying a grappling hook. That is the problem with us preppers, each and every one. We all think we can come up with the ideal thing no one has thought of but us yet to prep for a scenario we can envision or imagine occurring under certain circumstances and we buy crap to fulfill those fantasy dreams. What ain’t a fantasy is day to day living. I think I saw it in a book called Possum Prepping regarding walking around sense, that is what you got in your noggin the same as any common giant wood rat looking possum does then you haven’t got diddly when it comes to surviving under real world terms. The way the author explained it was I reckon, is that a possum has everything it needs with them at all times being in the city or the country to survive. That is its biggest survival skill, it’s adaptable to many conditions and its diet is opportunistic but I ain’t going there about their nasty eating habits.

  “Now, Ladies and Gents, my food rationing advice so far ain’t gone over with you all none too well at all, I know this, but hear me out one more time again because I got a new angle here. Thing is this list I am flopping out here once again for your inspection is something more than mere words on paper and you will learn my meaning about how to use it soon enough. That is if you all can be patient with me a bit longer for a moment. Now then, after they get past all those hundreds of pounds of flour you need per man on the list they mention 25lbs of preserved fish per man along with mentions of tools needed for four people which I always found strange until I studied that book more.” Carl said scrutinizing everyone getting out of their agony of having the list pointed out to them for the thousandth time and starting to watch him with more interest as their own mental calculators began working.

  “Instead of us just giving away full containers of product like Tina sort of did with the toilet paper and such, why don’t we donate half and sell half?” Carl said with his full mouth expensive denture grin that said he was going to use that piece of dental work to regain some of his money he spent on it.

  “So, what are you thinking of charging for a measure of mix or dollop of that nacho cheese? We still haven’t established what anything is worth around here and everyone seems to be experienced traders but us because they have been doing it so long between themselves.” Tina asked.

  “I like how you are thinking Tina and I don’t have a clue what the hell we should charge for bits of this or that but I figured I would use this list to establish some mutual parameters, you might say.” Carl said chuckling now because he had noted all eyes were on the often times hard to look at list he had pinned down by the weight of an empty mason jar to the weathered boards of Harvey and Billie Lee’s bar like reception counter.

  “So what are you saying?” Tina said eyes flashing at the obvious cat and mouse game the old man was playing.

  “Well, I drew your attention to the 25lbs of fish, did I not earlier?” Carl said with a smirk on his face.

  “So we try to trade the rest for 25 lbs of fish? That doesn’t make any sense. We can’t eat all that in a day and the surplus would end up just being another gift to the folks around here if we didn’t use it for bait or let it go to waste.” Tina said vexed at the game as well as trying to guess its meaning.

  “It’s like Travis’s credit card thing. We offer the extra meal and cheese on credit for future payment to fulfill a need they think they absolutely got to have now. They won’t be counting their labor or their luck if fishing gets bad, they will only be thinking immediate fulfillment and advantages over normal survival living without it. HA! I think that I am going to call this my Wimpie burger survival theory. Do you remember Wimpy from the old Pop Eye cartoons? You know Popeye’s side kick fat guy that dressed up kind of sloppy and said “I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today?” Carl said.

  “Oh come on now, you all are not that young to have not watched it one Saturday cartoon morning! Bit of Trivia, I bet you don’t even know his full name, it was J. Wellington Wimpy! He was that hefty fellow in the comic strips and cartoons usually munching on a burger and reaching for another. Popeye's friend! Don’t you remember his bowler style hat and tie? He mainly played the role of the "straight man" to Popeye's outbursts and wild antics. Wimpy was sort of soft-spoken, very intelligent, and well educated, but he was also cowardly, very lazy, overly parsimonious and utterly gluttonous. He is also something of a scam artist and rarely got around to repaying you for that hamburger you helped him buy today but you loved him anyway.” Wilma said explaining the entertaining character.

  “So what’s this got to do with anything?” Slim asked wanting to be off and go get the goods out of the trailer before a group of some other scavengers found the same thing they were acting like they already had put away.

  “I am getting to that! Hold your horses! I was just saying we show them the list, talk about it for a minute and see who wants to owe us some fish for the future maybe to get some hushpuppy mix now in trade at our price.” Carl said starting to lay out a plan for consideration.

  “Ok, I sort of get it. Give now, collect later but in our favor right?” Tina said smiling at the irony of it.

  “Exactly!” Wilma said catching on and being supportive of her husband and his witty ideas no matter how troubling they were sometimes.

  .

  9

  A TON OF GOODS

  Stampeders pose with their gear on
Dyea waterfront in 1897.

  National Park Service, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, George and Edna Rapuzzi Collection, KLG To prevent mass starvation in the remote and inaccessible Yukon Territory, the Canadian government required every stampeder bring a year's supply of goods before crossing the border.

  As people headed to the Klondike, few of them had any idea what they were getting themselves into. Fueled by dreams of gold and pure ambition, they set sail on an adventure most were not properly prepared for. Without modern communication systems, stampeders had to rely on hearsay and advertisements to let them know what they needed in the north.

  O 55746a. Gift of the Rasmuson Foundation.

  The Canadian government determined each person going to Dawson from Skagway or Dyea needed three pounds of food per day for a whole year. Food alone would weigh in at a minimum of 1,095 pounds (~497 kg) or just over half a ton. But for a prospector, adding necessary clothes and equipment to the food could easily double the total load, and thus came to be known as a "ton of goods." If purchased in the U.S., the goods were subject to customs duties payable to the North-West Mounted Police who also enforced the amount of goods required. Just between February and June of 1898, the Mounties collected $174,000 in duties. In today's money, that is about $4.9 million dollars!

  Every person traveling to the goldfields of the Yukon Territory were required to take along one year’s worth of supplies. Every dealer of goods was ready to tell them exactly what they needed, and would sell the products to them at a very high price. There were also many how-to books for the prospector. Many were written by people that were never in the wilderness, let alone the Yukon. List of items needed by miners distributed by the Northern Pacific Railroad: