Smoking Skillet

by Ron Foster

  “Yea, those things were a royal pain! You had to stand in the hallway and the family could listen to your phone call with your friends from school or a girlfriend or God forbid if you were a girl your boyfriend called! Used to be the built in the wall ones and the phone stands that just hung.

  You kids just think them cell phones are the neatest thing that ever happened! Hell, I remember party lines, hell I remember no phones except pay phones and growing up when five cent, ten cent, twenty cents to call somebody when your allowance is only sixty cents a week! Made a lot more sense just to walk on over and talk to somebody if you had something to say than spend money. And back then you were kind of on time getting back to the house at night because you couldn’t afford the quarter pay phone to call your parents to tell them that you would be late. They rarely heard from you until you come in unless you happened to be over at a friend’s house and it didn’t cost you call to ask for more time or something.” Carl said.

  Travis and Tina affirmed they too remembered those things growing up and then commiserated with Slim by saying that was kind of like working in a stage coach factory when the model T car or high speed trains came out. Lots of changes can be seen in a lifetime and a lot of it is based on new technology economically impacted and influenced lifestyles but this war on them and the power grid they had experienced had pretty much wiped out all traces of life as they and everyone else had known it.

  It was bad enough to have to be starting from scratch all over again day one to be self reliant and they might had a chance eventually by getting good at getting by and finding or raising some kind of food everyday given enough time, but that was the one thing nobody had. Time flowed faster as every can of food was precious and irreplaceable now and the dread of only having one can left on the shelf loomed over their lives every single day.

  Change was one thing to get used to, loss of technology another, but to be watching the pantry shelf empty itself at a alarming rate daily and knowing that you were going to die sooner than later because of this fact was another.

  They had to keep making changes everyday with less and less just to survive one more brief moment. Eat less, ration, hunt, spend time scavenging, defend themselves while doing it and the tiny amount of goods they had less of every waking morning wore at their nerves, minds and failing bodies no end.

  For the scattered survivors that remained, the majority of whom had already realized for themselves it's not just water and canned meat that you needed to survive – it was the fact that positive attitude goes the longest way in ensuring your chances of survival. Many people had already given up on everything in despair. After a flood people wait for the waters to recede, after a hurricane people wait for the power to come back on and repair their homes and then pick up debris out of their yards, but there would be no picking up the pieces of much of anything after this disaster. What was gone was gone and couldn’t be replaced. Not in this lifetime it seemed anyway. There was nothing to look forward to except more loss.

  Any kind of stores to loot had become mini war zones day one of the disaster and got worse weeks after as looters and survivors contested what remained of modern food security and emergency supplies they needed. Water and fuel was beyond scarce now and anarchy had set in as the majority of the citizenry was working on their last gasp in life.

  Everyone could well imagine how people would act when - not if- their home town started running out of food and that day started for old and young, rich and poor, sick, disabled or well all at the same moment when the president made his state of the nation address. Yes we were still a nation, a formidable force indeed but one that can’t feed its own people anymore.

  Never before in history has such a situation or anomaly ever occurred. Empires rise and fall yes, great famines occur, but society normally has an established government and distribution system of food somewhere to fill the void or the vacuum created when one of the big bread baskets of the world somehow fails.

  This modern world however had unprecedented transportation problems, economic woes based on worthless paper fiat currencies which were based on nothing more than the man in the moon you might say. Was a worthless greenback American dollar better than a multicolor Russian Ruble paper or North Korean note now?

  Nuclear armed but starving some super powers still existed. Some countries had bioweapons released on them by the North Korea and Iran before their annihilation but it was hard to discern who was hit hardest because normal diseases and plagues were taking their own tolls as masses of unburied bodies polluted the streets and waterway.

  Everyone sat around discussing the state of the world and how they had survived so far before Carl dropped a bombshell on Travis and Tina and asked them did they want to bug out to Steve’s fish camp in the Florida panhandle.

  It was explained to them the place wasn’t much, just a big one room Cyprus board cabin on the shores of a big wide creek but there was fish to eat and game to hunt.

  The discussion of its merits and security issues were talked about long into the night as were living arrangements.

  Steve and his wife could stay in their RV until winter when the need to be next to a woodstove would bring them into the cramped cabin but it was setup with bunk beds already and slept 6, Slim was delegated to having a pallet on the floor then but perhaps they could add on to the structure or build something before it dipped to freezing temperatures it was said.

  Community was what was needed to survive and Steve agreed with Carl that having Tina and Travis around greatly improved all their chances of being successful and more self reliant.

  Travis and Tina agreed that this was sound logic and were quite happy that they now had a firm bug out location to go to and friend’s familiar with the hunting and fishing in the area.

  It was all settled then, in a day or two they would all head out for Florida and from now on would be traveling and living together while sharing the dangers of the road.

  Travis and Tina went home and over the next day or so they got themselves organized to leave this place for good. Security and safety measures for the trip as well as the arrival were talked over with the group as well as concerns for unknown road conditions.

  One thing that worried all of them were the big questions of would they find the fishing cabin empty or perhaps squatters had taken it over and disputed their claims on it.

  Steve didn’t have the gas to go much further than the fish camp before running out and if they had to abandon the idea of all them staying there and move on it was going to get intense.

  Travis was taking his car and Carl was going to take his but let it be towed in back of the RV for the trip.

  The two cars had extra range and fuel over the RV but if they were forced to move on by conditions they couldn’t control somebody’s vehicle was getting left behind and most likely that would be the RV.

  All this talk of running out of gas got Travis to thinking again and he discussed the need for everyone to be ready to be able to bug out bag on back out of any situation even if they did have vehicles to depend on.

  This was quite a worrisome thing to think about or consider when at first everyone was commenting happily on how lucky they were to have a RV full of camping supplies like cast iron Dutch ovens and such already nicely loaded up in it in the driveway.

  6

  Playing In The Preps

  Travis had been prepping all along and preparing for shit to hit the fan for many years now, but he had not really been planning on any one thing particularly specific to happen, that is until the sun flares began exploding at almost a magnitude of almost ten points a few years back that had grabbed his attention and had him sort of concentrating feverishly on long term grid down events.

  This was whole different sort of prepping than he had been used too but thankfully he already had most of what he thought he might need, Well that wasn’t quite right either, what he might need and what he could afford to buy were vastly different. He had been doing this preppi
ng and preparing thing so long he had himself sort of a miraculous realization one day that always shocked and amazed him. He realized now that he had approached this prepping thing sort of all wrong in some ways, first he had planned way too much on bugging out, and then he worked on bugging in longer. Now, he realized he needed to just look to the essentials he had and using all sorts of new skills and his hard gained survival knowledge figuring out ways to improvise or adapt what he had on hand in comparison to what he was leaving behind.

  He had plenty of gear to survive with but figuring out what the minimum amount of long term survival gear he would exactly need in a dire emergency to sustain himself was mind boggling to say the least.

  Thinking about bugging out with just that small amount of gear, clothes and guns while being possibly being forced to walk any distance was worse. He needed to repackage all his gear to suit the current conditions as he envisioned them and his own self imposed weight restrictions to make sure he would make it if he had to hump a rucksack for any distance. Anything could happen on the way to his bug out location to cause him to lose his vehicle and a whole lot of stuff would get left behind he needed to think about doing without.

  Gear can kill you physically as well as mentally toting it around on your back. It can kill you just as quickly as it can help you if you are bugged in or out and if you spend too much time gathering it all up and taking forever packing before leaving that can get you also. Figure out what are now the most essential items that you can carry a great distance comfortably on the trail, pack it up and don’t add to it.

  The worth of an item usually becomes readily apparent when you consider how much it weighs and whether or not you really need it to minimally survive should you get worn out carrying it on the trail. The first item of field gear to go in order to lighten a pack is usually an entrenching tool of some kind. Think twice about what utility it serves though if you are considering casting it to the side. Packing what you really need to survive is bare essentials A shovel can dig fish bait, bury waste, create a fighting position, chop wood, be improvised as a frying pan, be a defensive weapon etc. but depending on circumstances something lighter like a few rat traps is a better replacement.

  If you take things in order of your first needs at making your first camp you will assess what is necessary or useful right off the bat and pair a bag down to what you consider essentials and the lowest amount of weight you can comfortably carry five miles or so day after day. It won’t be a whole lot let me tell you unless you’re an experienced hiker and have good degree of fitness and pack strap biting into your shoulders tolerance.

  Travis eyed his gear pile and thought about how many times he had already considered all this camping and survival stuff and prayed that he didn’t ever need to leave another prep behind or remove a piece of equipment from his pack. But if he needed to lighten the load one more time he would.

  The first thing he decided he needed for the trail whether he was walking or riding to a bug out location was water. Water was very heavy to carry with him backpacking but he also had to consider how long it was that he would have to walk to a place that he could resupply at when he run out. There were numerous muddy streams spaced here and there on his route traveling the interstate to most everywhere around here so he figured he was always pretty much a half day or less walk from a water source. That was good; he could carry less water than say a desert like environment.

  He was by choice and practices a canteen guy, no camelback bags or possibly leaky bladders for him or his wife stuffed in a backpack. In his opinion there were way too many problems with them things and were just one more thing to worry about going wrong or failing and compounding a problem.

  The bladder affairs were hard to fill in the field from a stream, hard to clean, bulky and they were much more fragile or apt to spring a leak than a good solid thick walled military grade plastic canteen he mused. He knew he could go on and on about his dislikes and thought of an eye opening bad experience or two with a bladder system failing when he had tried a couple.

  A system like that was good idea, usually badly and cheaply executed unless you got one of the really expensive ones and he was still not comfortable with the concept to ever give them a try. He had his van at the moment to transport lots of gear and extra water but he considered the big what if he broke down or ran out of gas and had to walk for miles?

  He had thought about this type of dangerous fiasco scenario many times before and he was never really happy with his conclusions or thoughts he had come up with on what quantity of water was best for hydration carry.

  Should he carry two one quart canteens on his pistol belt, or maybe one two quart shoulder canteen and one belt canteen, how about all three? Maybe stick a 1 quart in his pack He would handle choosing which essential gear he would need by mentally unpacking his rucksack and making camp for the first night he reminded himself and then once again began to begrudgingly set about playing that tedious mental game of trying to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

  He hadn’t gone on a forced road march with a full pack since he left the Army over 20 years ago. However, he knew all about what the feeling of being dog tired and having your shoulders hurting carrying a backpack was all about. He was a bit lazy and hazy about ever having to do it again and what that load would be with him being so out of shape now.

  Every ounce counted, every ounce would be felt the first step walking and just carrying minimal basics would take its toll on him and Tina enough without any cool prepper extras thrown in. A slow and easy pace towards their destination with a light pack staying the course was their best bet to not wear themselves out anymore than they had to but that was like trying to look into a crystal ball and be guessing the future. Well worn broke in boots and extra socks was a given. Take care of your feet so they can take care of you. Extra military socks, the kind with silver fibers built in to reduce foot odors and draw moisture from the foot plus a small blister first aid kit.

  He decided on for gear carry what suited him best and went with old style military load bearing equipment. (LBE) to transport what gear including water he would have on him at all times.

  (1) One military canteen with cup stove and cover on his web belt

  (2) A good fixed blade knife capable of some heavy field work. His knife of choice was a Cold Steel Trail Master.

  (3) His 9mm pistol on a thigh rig suspended from his web belt. He liked how that road but he also experimented with a traditional holster he could remove and use just on his pants belt. For driving comfort he opted for the thigh rig.

  (4) Two quart shoulder strap canteen. He liked the capability to have more water for extended bivouacs and not have to leave camp.

  (5) Two Ammo pouches. One for his pistol’s extra mags, another for extra shotgun shells. He would carry the single shot shotgun and store his 22 rifle in his pack. Tina could store extra 22 bullets in her extra LBE ammo pouch and carry her Henry Survival rifle in hand as a primary defensive weapon.

  (6) Poncho rolled over the back of their web belts for handy deployment when needed. They could snap the two ponchos together for a field expedient tent if necessary and that meant they both had a means of shelter available at all times.

  They would always have this basic gear with them even when they doffed the backpacks. With this minimalist setup if they had to drop packs and run from danger they still had with them the means to survive.

  Travis loved his survival vest he had carefully out fitted but for this journey he would stuff his cargo pants pockets and his military style shirt with a few survival kit type essentials to help with food gathering and fire making. The vest could get way to hot to wear over a long sleeve shirt even if the arms were rolled up. Always have a long sleeved shirt for protection against briars, mosquitoes etc.

  “I have got to get my head together and quit slacking reassembling stuff here, time to walk the walk and get serious about my minimalist prepping here!” Travis muttered to himself thinking abo
ut the beautiful mountain of gear he had accumulated over the years that now had to be sorted out and repackaged for the millionth time. Oh he had thought erroneously many times that he had the perfect set up more than once in all different kinds of configurations and finished weights but that was just it, every configuration he had come up with was based on a different thought or purpose to overcome at onetime or another. Environments change, trail conditions change and the reason to bring something with you or leave it behind changes. He wished he had a mule or a horse to carry extra gear like the mountain men trappers of old. Tina said she prefer something more like an old Conestoga wagon the pioneers used to move out west.

  A small fortune had been invested in all this gear and they hated to admit it but a bunch of it was unnecessary junk. Of course that all depended on how he and she was evaluating the situation today but Travis knew he still had way to much upgraded crap that he was loathe to leave behind.