After supper when everyone seems to be getting to know each other better Tim, Billy, and I talk about teaching the men and young men how to defend themselves and the others. Dayna and Charity as well as Billy’s sister Bobbi, all say they want to learn to fight just as much as the boys do. From what I have seen they may be better at it than the boys are. I also tell Tim that I saw a house today that I would really like to take a look in either tomorrow or soon. Tim says he saw what appeared to be an antenna on one of the roofs we passed today and he would like to investigate that to see if we can find a short wave radio. There may be other cities that weren’t as devastated as this one. I ask Dayna if there is a library near here. She doesn’t know what I am talking about. I tell her that it will be a building full of books. There are some books in the office we are using for a home so I show her a couple. Then she knows what I am talking about.
She says that there are such buildings around the city. Many of the books have been used for fires. However, there are still a lot of them left. She says if we want to we can go tomorrow morning. Tim and I make a list of the topics we would like to research. I ask Dayna and the others if any of them know how to read. Billy’s mom does and a few others say a little. They have never had anyone show them more than a little. We tell everyone that starting tomorrow they will be learning how to read and write. They don’t know why they need to, but they are willing. I try to explain to Dayna why reading is so important. She just says if I want her to be able to read then she will learn. That is as long as we take time out for the important stuff, like the forbidden fruit. I told her what Ma Horton said and she says she would have loved to have met her. It made her feel good when I told her Ma would have loved her as much as I do.
In the morning we do go to a library or what is left of one. It was not a large library when it was being used as one and now there is a very limited selection to choose from. We do find some very good books for the others to learn to read and I manage to find a couple of the topics I am looking for. I am sure there will be other opportunities to find the books I want, for now we will do what we can with what we have. We stop at the building where Tim saw the antenna yesterday and go looking for a short wave radio. We don’t find a radio, but we take the antenna down and take it with us in case we find a radio. The last stop for today is a house that I saw where there is a sign out front saying they used to sell guns and ammo here. The place has been ransacked and all there is left is some loose ammunition on the floor. Tim says we are about twenty years too late judging by the way the place looks.
I expected to see exactly what we are seeing. I also expect to see something that maybe the others didn’t see. Sure enough when I go into one of the rooms toward the back of the house the room doesn’t look near deep enough from the inside. I mention this to Tim and he tells me I’m imagining it. There is a window almost in the corner of the room, I tell Tim to look out the window toward the back of the house. The outside wall goes a good four feet beyond where the wall ends in here. I am looking for some kind of trigger or device to open a trap door when Dayna finds it beside the window. The door barely moves, but it opens just enough for us to get our fingers in and pry it open. There is a set of stairs heading downward. Following them we come to a small room that is totally sealed except for this way in. On the walls are what I expected to find, rifles and handguns of every description. Many of them are military weapons from World War II, Korea and even Viet Nam. There is also enough ammunition to start a small war. I am looking for specific guns and ammunition. I find a .307 with a snipers scope on it. That one I definitely want. There are a couple .243 caliber rifles with scopes, those are coming with us. Tim picks out an M16 military rifle and there are several cases of ammunition for that. Tim moves a couple cases of ammunition on a table and finds a short wave radio. We are glad we have as many people with us as we do. We load up the wagons with everything we can carry. Tim points out that this guy must have been a survivalist because he also has several cases of military rations from the Viet Nam war era.
We decide to lock everything up, to look as natural as possible, and plan to come back to clean the place out. On the way home Tim asks me how I knew we would find a hidden cache like this. I tell him I didn’t for sure, but Gunny knew several gun dealers that worked out of their homes and every one of them had a similar setup. Even many gun shops have hidden rooms where the more expensive, and sometimes less legal weapons, are kept for special customers. Dayna is so proud that we are bringing home what are considered rare treasures to these people. To me they are survival tools if we are going to make any kind of life for us and our new found family. Even her dad is excited for a change, he says he knows how to read and is happy to help the others learn as well. First though Tim, Billy, and I want to at least start teaching our young men how to fight.
The days turn for the worse weather wise and it’s better to stay inside and work with the young men for a few hours a day. After that we work with everyone learning to read. I have never seen more willing students. They seem to hang on every word that we tell them. I say we are teaching the young men how to fight, and it really did start out that way, but after the first half hour we have just about everyone in the family down here with us. We cleaned up the first floor of our home to be similar to a dojo. When the weather gets better again we are going looking for some weights and other equipment to help get these young people in shape. One of the young ladies, who joined our family, has a very nice bell that looks like she found it at a fire house or it may have even been one of those bells that people play and make music with sometimes. Either way she brought it down with her to practice and when we want to get everyone’s attention if they don’t respond she shakes that bell and that definitely gets their attention.
I must be conditioned because whenever I hear it I think back to the hours, days, and weeks of SEAL training. When someone had enough and wanted to drop out they would ring the bell signifying they were quitting. There were some great guys in that class, but not everyone is cut out to be a SEAL. The training is extremely physically demanding, but it’s the mental toughness that usually separates those who drop out and those who stay. That’s not to say those that drop out aren’t mentally strong, in most cases it’s a question of priorities in their lives. Being a part of any Special Forces group like that is a total commitment. For me it was what Gunny had talked about since I was seven years old and I just never even thought about doing anything else. I am starting to realize that if I had someone like Dayna in my life back then, I may have rung the bell myself. There is no way to know for sure, but I know when you are worried about staying alive more than completing a mission, it can cost the whole team their lives. Even a moment’s hesitation at the wrong time can be fatal for everyone. It’s not that I didn’t want to live before, it’s just that I didn’t worry about dying as much as I would now that I have someone who loves me.
As big and as strong as Billy is he doesn’t really know much about fighting. With his size and strength he doesn’t need to. So rather than embarrass him we act like we are letting Billy demonstrate with one of us while we talk them through the moves. He really seems to be enjoying himself. He told me last evening that we are the first people who have treated him as an equal. Tim and I joke around with him like we do each other and he seems to really enjoy that as well. I know we should probably treat him better than that, but if he wants to be one of us, that’s what he gets. Believe me he is very sharp witted and has at least as many comebacks and harassing things to say as we do and we have had a lot of practice. Those of us who can read spend most of our free time teaching the others. They are all excited about learning and will work as hard and as long as we are willing to teach them.
The second day of the rain we have another family show up and ask if they can join us. Naturally we invite them in. Some of the families are familiar to some of the others because they have seen each other around. Until recently though, everyone was afraid to trust one another. Besides it
’s easier to find shelter and the essentials when there is a smaller group. Our group really doesn’t have what you can call a leader, although most if not all the people look to Tim and me for guidance. We don’t take that responsibility lightly. We have both led missions with our SEAL team and know the importance of having someone willing to take charge when a crucial decision needs to be made. We have been discussing some possibilities with Dayna and Charity and of course we have also included Dayna’s father, Billy and his mother and some of the others that are their family’s leaders. We feel that we are going to have to make a very big decision soon and we want to make sure everyone can stand by what we are proposing.
On the third day of the rains we have our fighting practice. Dayna and Charity are enjoying using Tim and me for punching bags just a little too much. I have fought men that didn’t hit as hard as they do. Maybe when she sees the bruises she will take it easy on me. Today I am looking out the window at a truck that is parked across the street from the building. It reminds me of a truck that Gunny and I rebuilt when I was fifteen. I remember buying that truck for twenty dollars from a junk dealer and was so proud when I took Gunny to see it. He never said a negative thing about that beat-up old truck other than to ask me if I realized how much work it was going to be to get it in driving shape. We rebuilt that engine from the bottom up and with Gunny’s supervision I restored the body and rebuilt the suspension on that truck. Gunny was gone most of the time, but he left me detailed instructions of what to do and I followed them to the letter. When he would come home from a mission or whatever he was doing for the Marine Corps, we would go over what I had accomplished and I was so proud that he was pleased with the work I was doing.
Dayna comes over and asks me if I’m staring at a pretty girl outside. I tell her the prettiest girl in the world is right here next to me. Why would I even want to look at any others? She slips in front of me on the chair I am sitting on and wraps my arms around her. We really enjoy sitting like this even if the others tease us telling us to watch where we put our hands, there are impressionable young people around. This is really beginning to feel like what I imagine a family would feel like. It’s a good thing it quits raining during the night, we are starting to run low on some of the food items we have. When I can go out in the morning the first thing I do is check out that truck. I can’t believe I haven’t noticed it here before this. With four flat tires I don’t think anyone drove it here recently though. Tim, Billy, and I decide when we get back from getting food we will take a look at the truck and see if there is any way we can get it running again. We go back to the store a little farther from home and it is just like we left it. We gather as much of the food as we can load into our wagons and grocery carts. While we are here I decide to do something smart for a change and see what may be in the stock room.
We are all glad we did because canned goods are piled in cases from the floor to the tops of the racks in here. It looks like enough food to feed the family for the entire winter or summer, whichever season we are coming up on. The truck has to wait because we spend the rest of the day making trips and hauling cases of canned goods back to the home. We meet another small family and invite them to join us. This group has only four people in it. The leader is a woman of probably twenty-five and has three younger girls with her. She says they had a young man staying with them for a while, but she thinks he either joined the predators or they captured him. Either way she says they came looking for the four girls and they were smart enough to hide. They haven’t been able to find food in a couple of days because of all the rain so they are more than happy to join us. We only get a little while before it gets dark to check out that truck, it is in mint condition, but it has been sitting for at least thirty years. Tomorrow we are going to see if we can at least get it to turn over.
5
In the morning Tim and I don’t even wait to eat before we are outside checking out the truck. It’s a 1969, ¾ ton pickup with a slant six engine and a three speed transmission with the shifting lever on the floor. There is a toolbox behind the seat with a dent puller in it. That is very convenient, I use that to pull the ignition out and I can try to start it with a screw driver, which is also in the toolbox. As expected nothing happens, batteries don’t usually stay charged for twenty or thirty years if they are not being driven. I ask Dayna and her dad if they know of any garages or gas stations in the area. Dayna’s dad, whose name by the way is Tom, says he remembers cars and trucks and knows where we can find what we are looking for. He has been much more active and talkative the past couple of days. That could be because there are a lot of new people around or it could be just one new person, like Billy’s mom.
We head east for about ten blocks and sure enough there is a car dealership here. There are new pickup trucks in the lot and even on the showroom floor. All those tires are flat as well. We go back into the garage area and here we find tires that are on rims, but not on cars. They are soft, but not totally flat. Luckily this is a dealership for the type of truck we are working on so the rims will probably fit. I check around and find a generator in the shop that we are able to get running and a compressor that is building pressure in no time. We fill the tires full and check them for leaks. We find a small hydraulic jack on wheels so we take that with us as well. I always feel like we are stealing when we take things, I feel like leaving an IOU at least. We get everything back to the home with the help of a couple of grocery carts. We also found a five gallon can and filled it with gas from a tank they have in the garage. The gas in the truck may not be any good and there is a good chance this will not be either, but it is worth a try.
It takes us a good hour and a lot of laughing to get all four tires changed. They hold air so we are at least halfway there. Since it is a standard we figure we will push it to get it started, but first we have to clear the street of enough debris to get it going in. With that done, I climb in while Billy and Tim push the truck so I can jump start it. It coughs a few times, but doesn’t seem to be firing so we dump some gas right into the carburetor and try again. This time it actually catches and runs until the gas is gone in the carburetor. It takes several tries before we get it to stay running for any time at all. Our family is very impressed with our mechanical prowess and can see the advantage if we can get motorized transportation. Dayna and Charity are as proud of us as they can be. After our efforts to drive the truck we spend some time working out and on our fighting then have a nice celebration meal and either read or work with the others to teach them to read.
In the morning the truck starts up pretty easily compared to yesterday. We still have to push it, but it at least catches and is pumping gas to the engine. We decide there is no better time than the present to see if it will go far enough to be any good, so we decide to drive to the market we have been going to most recently. On the way we pass a couple of other stores and decide to check the stock rooms to see if anything has been missed. We are pleasantly surprised to find at least two pickup truck loads of canned goods in this markets stock room. I also find an excellent set of knives in the meat department. Just because we have nothing to cut up yet, doesn’t mean we never will have. The truck is working great, it runs a little ragged, but that is probably from condensation in the gas tank. While we are out on our third trip of the day we decide to stop at the gun shop and clean out the basement cache. Luckily it is still there and with the help of a couple flashlights and some of the men from our family we load everything in the truck and take it home. There is enough guns and ammunition here to start a small war and keep it going for some time. We realize that another thing we are going to have to teach everybody is how to shoot.
With the truck running we have much more mobility than before. We decide to check the stores that everyone thought were empty and we actually do find some cases of good food in the stock rooms. On the fourth day after getting the truck running we are driving through a residential area of the city where there are mostly houses. Tim tells me that he recognizes th
is part of town, his grandparents used to live in a neighborhood very similar to the ones we are now in. We don’t like going into people’s homes, but back in the 60’s a lot of these homes were owned by European immigrants and they were usually big on canning and saving foods. Sure enough we find canned fruits like peaches, pears, apricots, and several kinds of vegetables and even preserves in jars along with some canned foods in cans not jars.
Wherever we find them we make sure the seal is still tight and then load the truck with as much as we can carry. It doesn’t take long to fill the truck, but we plan to come back to check for more. As I said before, we feel like we are stealing, but it will only go to waste if someone doesn’t use it. Many of the jars and cans we find have broken seals from the time they have been here. I remember Ma Horton telling me once when we were canning tomatoes that she read an article that said someone once found canned fruit that was over fifty years old and was still fresh in the jars. Some of the jars we found today even have meat in them like beef chunks and we found several large canned hams in one of the homes. If they are still good that will be a real treat for us all. One of the books I wanted to get at the library, and I was lucky enough to find two of them, is the Farmers Almanac. The reason I wanted that book is so that we can see approximately how much daylight we have on different days of the year so that we can figure out if it is fall or spring.
2nd Earth: Shortfall Page 4