by Ron Foster
Sam had told Lori to just think about their position for a second and if roles were reversed and they stopped by to tell us that they were leaving with the only remaining store bought food they knew to be around. Lori was a little bit naïve in thinking first that they might be stopping by to drop us off something to which Sam had replied “Wouldn’t you be pretty pissed off if they didn’t?”
“Yeah, I see your point. I would be mad as hell and I can see if I was desperate enough I’d be thinking about making them give us something! Desperation makes people do bad and foolish things that they would not normally even consider.” Lori had concluded ashamed she could have such thoughts...
“So what is it that you think we ought to do? I don’t just want to tie a note on a rock and attempt to chuck it up between those trees in front of their porch.” Sam had asked anxiously awaiting her answer to help him dream something up.
Sam and Lori began having a lively conversation about what it is that you could possibly do to notify someone of something that you don’t really want them to know until you are a distance away from their house. It wasn’t like you could drive over and stick a note in their mailbox because who checks their mailbox grid down anyway? Plus trying to sneak up and put a note on their gate was a bad idea around a houseful of apocalyptic hungry rednecks!
So what’s a man or woman going to do? Sam started playing his favorite game of uses for things or Whaddya gonna do with a particular item to serve a new purpose. He and Lori started having themselves a little bit of fun with it and that memorable moment of leaving their place took on a bit of humor instead of the intense sadness they had previously been experiencing.
While Sam had been impatiently waiting for Lori to puzzle out a means of notifying the backwoods buddies up the road, he had been contemplating the same question and also thinking about that darn tree that they may or may not have cut down across the road.
Thankfully he still had alternate escape routes out of here open as far as he knew. Otherwise the conversation would have turned to what was it they could do to bribe or barter with them boys to get the tree out of the road.
Ha! That was a no-brainer to get them heathens to do something- he was trading them his whole house if need be! But how to tell them that before they were leaving proper was another matter. Sam started out his list of suggestions with why don’t we get one of those empty five gallon buckets we got and just sit it in the driveway with a note and maybe something else inside. Lori responded to his suggestion with Well you could put some rocks in it and sling it in their driveway and they would hear and find it quickly so the neighbors that you are worried about seeing us leave won’t get to the stuff at home before they do. Sam thought that that was an idea that needed discussing a bit more and agreed with her that as soon as both vans were out of there if I was those neighbors I would be seriously thinking about heading in the direction of my garden and my preps. On the other hand, throwing a bucket or a metal bathroom garbage can full of rocks making all that noise into their driveway would freak them out first and coming out of my van they might think it was a bomb or something. Not really but that’s the kind of survivalist persona about me I have been cultivating all these years. If they didn’t see me throw it, they would be worried about who might have done it and what threat does it present and taken some time looking into it. Well, noisy things that they could see and look at better might be the solution and we just attach the note to whatever we come up with, Lori had suggested.
Tell you what, I got an idea or two for something that don’t need examining to much or look too threatening to them to go out and see what it was and I think they would get the point and look at it immediately but we still have the problem with whether or not they or somebody else has cut a tree going down in that direction. I don’t want everybody and their brother out there gathered around whatever it is we toss that way standing around waiting to greet us on our way back from their little roadblock. What we need to do is let me go first and see if I see any signs of life out of them and the road is clear and then I’ll call you on the walkie talkie and tell you to come on up and you can just chunk whatever it is out of the passenger side window and then hit your gas and come on.
“Hey, I got an idea!” Sam said smirking.
“What is it? And don’t tell me you are going to give them back all those bottle rockets and fireworks you got off of them last Fourth of July! That would freak them out even worse as you know! That is unless they caught the noise as just plain fun fireworks instead of a D-Day invasion.” Lori quipped.
“No, but that does have some merit and if we have to put them in something to give it weight or whatever I know they would get the joke that we didn’t light them up!” Sam said laughing.
“So what was this idea you were about to tell me about, Sam?” Lori asked.
“Well, before I started thinking about how much something weighed, I thought about throwing that empty kitchen sink we got out there in the shed at them and putting in some kind of cute note with it. You know something like ‘I’m now giving everything including the kitchen sink! We are gone!’ but I got one better! Now I already know what you are going to say but hear me out on this idea. It won’t take me but five minutes takes two screws out of that toilet seat in the bathroom and I can try to ring their mailbox like playing horseshoes going down the road and we can attach the note to that!” Sam said smiling.
“What is it with you and toilet seat jokes? You didn’t actually lure that skunk into that water sink you had this morning, did you?” Lori asked, not sure whether Sam was joking about something or not sometimes.
“No, I didn’t do that, kind of wish I did now because I know exactly what to put in a five gallon bucket to send to them! They have been a bunch of stinkers, don’t you know?” Sam said making one of his corny jokes to lighten the moment.
“Ok, then, I am liking this! What are we going to write on the note?” Lori asked putting her poetic mind to it.
“Oh I don’t know, wish I had another day and another bottle of booze to think it over but I thought ‘you might need a lid cover because shit done hit the fan! House and contents are yours, we’re bugging out! Good luck and best wishes, Lori and Sam’.”
“Since I’m going to be in back of you and having to do this, I’m not going to be studying playing horseshoes with their mailbox. Is it ok if I just sit the messenger in their driveway or throw it out the window and honk the horn several times to notify them they have a message or a package from us?” Lori inquired.
“I kind of hate to miss the opportunity to paint something funny on that lid but we don’t have any time and need to get on the road.” Sam said trying to come up with something witty.
“I got it! If they are not hanging out in front, and you know they won’t bother me most likely if they were, I can place that toilet seat and lid in their driveway and get that little flag off that Iwo Jima statue you got and stick it in the ground in the toilet part!” Lori said thinking that the many patriotic and prepper messages they had given this family over the years would make them smile at the message they had left. Basically, we were saying ‘It’s gone down the crapper, we’re leaving the country!’”
Sam replied, “That’s a great idea! Tell you what, I got one of my own that they may or may not get. You know that big wicker basket we got that we pick vegetables from the garden in? We’ll take all those fireworks you were talking about and put them on top of a couple cans of Beenie Weenies and some Twinkies and draw a smiley face on a piece of cardboard and tell them that’s the ‘Hell in the hand basket’ I been threatening them with all these years that goes with it and leave them the keys to the house so they at least have a chance to get down here and do some looting before the neighbors get over here stealing and in this neck of the woods, having the keys gives you shooting privileges if they happen to see anybody breaking in.” Sam said with an evil glint in his eyes to which Lori said “I love it!”
Sam and Lori prepared their thro
ne of rejocement and basket of blasters and carried off the plan without a hitch. This made the first few miles quite bearable as their somber attitudes about leaving their home place were replaced by thinking of the quasi-friends now becoming fondly remembered friends instead of the possible marauders they had once agonized over.
Sam had waited at the entrance to the main highway they needed to traverse to get to the county road that would take them the back way to the river. The night before he and Lori had speculated on whether or not they would see any military troop movements and how to handle such encounters. Martial Law had been declared much earlier in this disaster and it was constantly stated on the emergency broadcast system radio that unnecessary travel was prohibited. There was talk amongst the Ham operators that going out of a proscribed FEMA district was also enforced on the main arteries leading into major cities without a pass. Lori and Sam had speculated on the bizarreness of such a federally mandated order but to Sam it made perfect sense.
Since 14 November 1979, we have been under a state of national emergency declared by the President pursuant to the International Emergency Powers Act of 1977. Almost no one seems aware of that fact or of the awesome implications which it carries. By the provisions of this act and its companion legislation entitled Executive Order 11490, the Oval Office is granted sweeping dictatorial powers which virtually suspend all constitutional safeguards, allow the disbanding of Congress, the freezing of all bank accounts and personal assets, the collection and rationing of all vital commodities, including food, the suspension of passports, full control of the media and private means of communication, including amateur and CB radios, the banning of all travel, public assembly or protest -- merely by the stroke of a pen and subject to the approval of no other authority except congressional review at intervals of six months. (Note: On 14 May 1980, Congress reviewed and failed to disapprove the extension of the state of emergency with all attendant powers.)*
[* As of 3 October 1981, we are still in a state of national emergency]
Sam had been in the National Guard responding to hurricanes when he was younger as well they were both stormy weather veterans of seeing the fleeing Floridians going down the marked hurricane evacuation routes in their area. Every few years like clockwork, a hurricane would hit the Gulf Coast and depending on where it’s predicted impact was they had watched the mad scramble of both people evacuating and first response units in multi-state power company and tree service trucks convoying down the interstate with National Guard convoys going hither and thither either delivering food and water or police units going down to maintain order. Alabama was one of the few states that had more National Guard per capita than anywhere else in the country at one time but it had been greatly decimated because of its overuse by its Federal Government bureaucrats insisting that they spearheaded and augmented the regular military in so many undeclared wars in the Middle East. The Governor of Alabama had gotten on the radio just two weeks prior to them leaving and had stated flatly that they were a sovereign state and refused to provide any more troops to the National forces trying to restore order.
He had stated most strongly that first and foremost the rights of the citizens and the Constitution of Alabama and the United States Constitution would be protected beyond Washington implemented so called executive orders. Therefore, all remaining National Guard troops under his command would be delegated to state duty and not be federally conscripted to work out of the state. He also stated that all federal military bases in the State of Alabama being sovereign themselves would have their borders recognized and not interfered with but he would not allow them to influence his constituency or interfere in any way with State military maneuvers.
The Board of Governors of the United States was in total disarray because previously when the United States had usurped their rights and put all National Guard forces under Federal control they had created a vacuum. This was but one of many Constitutional infringements that the populace in most states were now suffering from. Sam knew from his training that there were many levels of control and command to deal with in the event of a catastrophic infrastructure breakdown for the whole United States. The bill of goods that had been sold to the public had said first and foremost that all states must apply their resources to the Federal government’s efforts to protect us from foreign invasion in these dark times. This had been done under the guise of the Patriot Act and had been put across the table as a necessary cooperation factor to secure America from foreign enemies.
The oath that our military takes to protect from ‘ all enemies foreign and domestic’ had changed over the years to where the original Constitution voicing states rights over Federal rights got subverted under that funny little word called terrorism. It seemed our government added the word terrorist to domestic threats and put whole classes of Constitutionalist’s and states’ rights folks as well as militias into a class below the illegal criminal aliens forced upon the states and our military’s duties to protect our borders. Posse Comitatus had been null and void for many years and people were in shock when the first U.N. troops were invited to try to help quell the dissent and mayhem in the cities after our greatly bled and demoralized soldiers appeared not to be able to handle the problems occurring. The FEMA camps that the conspiracy theorists had all said existed were found out to actually be the only hope for many as they tried to find some sort of governmental agency support but these were places without Constitutional or moral standing. The politically correct or incorrect minions of illiterate society that had invaded the old Civil Defense plans were now in their element of incompetence and ‘Big I, Little You’ servitude. As the very basics of life now were controlled in some sort of militaristic penal enforcement. Civilian labor gangs such as were somewhat implemented during the creations of jobs by the Army Corps of Engineers back during the Great Depression now represented migrant farmer like conditions on Emergency Powers Act appropriated massive communal corporate farms. You worked, you ate and the concentration camp like conditions worsened with callous profiteers embezzling, graft etc. and sadistic manipulation of the masses until they self destructed also. The workers rose up, the military thought about coming in before the elite surrounding themselves with protection by them and the whole thing could not be sustained.
Army, Air Force, Marines, etc. in small ways and large contemplated or performed coups to try to regulate the unconstitutional orders they received to subjugate the civilians for government but when no supplies reached them, they became their own law or disbanded and went to their own homes.
Sam and Lori said that in this type of a world there was no right or wrong anymore it seemed and no way to recognize the bad from the good. The state that they were in had decided to declare its sovereignty and possible secession echoed the voices of but a few independent minded Constitutional loyalists. States rights first was the original chant while everybody had food and the energy to even consider defending their piece of civilization. Now, nobody cared; it was the law of the jungle. And yes, continuity of government would win out eventually and order would be restored but whose order and what new world order was up in the air as most people only tried to live day by day.
It was only an educated guess on Sam’s part as to how best they should handle what he now dubbed Martial Law Survival but it was the best they had to work off of. Sam advised her that if they did encounter any military units or police for that matter to attempt to just treat them the same as they always would, that is to be respectful about it and try not to appear too wary or intimidated by them in their nervousness of such an encounter. Sam said that caveat was not something that we wanted to bank on though. If for example, he observed they were very sloppily dressed lack military decorum, etc. then to try to bring the subject back to the way the military or police once were to instill the ideas of their training and pride over the rules being thrown out of the window in dealing with civilians. For a lot of years now, an “us versus them” mentality has tainted interactions between those
typesof organized forces and the normal civilian populaces. Work has been done on correcting such mentalities but has been exasperated by the politically correct la-la land leftists thinking that people have the right to be total idiots because they have some sort of special label on them that allows them to do these things that a majority of people object strongly to but fear stupid lawsuits or racist labels about..
6
BOAT ON A ROPE
“Well it looks like we are not the only ones that thought about putting a boat in here.” Sam said looking at a few vehicles parked in the lot at the boat landing.
“I don’t see anyone around do you? I was really worried we might have some campers or something still hanging out here to contend with.” Lori said scrutinizing the park area.
“We still might, keep your eyes open and your weapon handy, you never know these days. Matter of fact lets have us a little better look see around here before we start thinking about casting off.” Sam said looking around cautiously for any signs of life and testing the wind with his nose for the possible smell of a campfire.
“Do you still want to put the Pod in here or should we go further downstream?” Lori asked.
“Good question baby, I guess here is as good of a place as anywhere else unless these boaters are just putting in and taking out later when they are done fishing.” Sam said trying to speculate on whether or not people would do that sort of thing with this gas shortage occurring.
“Looks like they probably had a couple of Jon boats launch from here and some kayaks or canoes maybe.” Lori said looking around at the vehicles with roof racks and or boat trailers.
“That’s my take on the vessels out also. The vehicle owners could just be out fishing or hunting or then again they might be doing the bug out on the river thing same as us and heading out downstream. I am not too worried about the paddlers but I would hate for us to run up on any stranded boaters foolish enough to have found themselves stranded on the river bank in the middle of nowhere because they run out of gas or battery juice for a trolling motor.” Sam said apprehensively thinking that level of desperation might cause him and Lori some serious danger they might not make it out of.