by Foster, Ron
“Now that’s a lot of words and a lot of theories and I haven’t got a clue about that polishing the apple thing you just said but I don’t mind throwing in with ya’ll if something was interesting to apply my inventions to. Do you want to say it in a bit plainer language there buddy?” Donald said trying to figure out what exactly it was the strangers were getting at.
“Well it’s kind of like this: we got us a whole bunch of people and I don’t mean to scare you none but they want to relocate from Alabama. We live on a lake you see and that’s been pretty good living for a while now but there’s not the opportunity or the fantasy of living on a beach to look forward to. We need us somebody in administration that knows how folks think around here as well as have your innovative nature to make life easier with those invention things you make to kind of help us out.” Hobe said before Donald started objecting vehemently that he was fine just the way he was and that he didn’t know them from Adam’s housecat and to get to the point on what was they were proposing.
“Let me handle this, Hobe. What we’re doing is trying to feel our way through this new greet and meet thing we got going on here and offer you the opportunity to join our Trade and colonization movement. Kind of be an ambassador like. Now don’t freak out now, we ain’t going to colonize your little park here but we do have a lot of people that want to move down this way. Donald, you’re sort of a scientist of a kind that most people might not appreciate but in these days and times we need all the great minds we can gather and maybe you are one. Now hang on a minute and don’t be objecting before I get done talking, what we got back home is sort of a thing we call “The Skunk Works” where everybody that’s inventive or has an engineering like mind gets together and shares ideas of old and new technology to solve some everyday problems like running water or having a light go on in their house when they want it to. These things we once all used to take for granted but as you know most of that knowledge is lost or has to be rediscovered. How about if you were paid and provided for every day to do nothing more than think about providing these things. Would you do that? Now before you agree or disagree, let me tell you this: the only requirement would be is for you to show up every day, Donald, where our technology center was open and try to produce or reproduce modern society again. We have got to not forget that only five years ago instant communications, internet, clean water and sustainable food was not even considered to be a luxury. To reconstruct society we have decided that schools and industries must be recreated to provide this at the grass roots level of basic scientific knowledge and manufacturing. Does this sound like something that you want to be a part of?”
“Let me get this straight, you want to pay me to invent things and manage stuff? I can do that! Wait a minute a minute there has got to be a hitch somewhere. You already said you had you some folks to do things like that so why me?” Donald said scrutinizing them like they were poison ivy or something.
“Well you’re right, we got folks like that but nobody that knows what goes on over here. You are right to be suspicious but we are talking strictly business. Oh there are two things that need to be discussed before we go much further. One is we want to lease or buy your house. We need us some kind of warehouse and living quarters over here and it looks like you got the only suitable place.” Crick said and waited for the fireworks to begin.
“You want my house? Why you just got here and now you want me to move out of my house? What do you need a warehouse for anyway? There ain’t much room to store nothing with all that old stuff around there. You all figure out some use for it? There are plenty of empty warehouses and houses just up the road I can point out to you!” Donald spluttered confused.
“We need your place because of its location, big roof and the built in security around here. We had a minor run in with some pirates recently we need to tell you all about later but that’s nothing to concern yourself about at the moment. We need to store trade goods for short periods of time and you got the ideal setup. The second thing is we need to talk about that it will require you to travel some if that don’t bother you.” Crick said eying the furrows forming on Donald’s forehead and trying to decide if they meant he was leaning for or against the idea of giving up his place.
“Travel to where? Wait a minute, let’s get back to selling or leasing my space. It ain’t really all mine to do either as you know and I am sure Phyllis will have a lot to say about that but by squatters rights its mine and been mine for a long time now. I can remind her that there is legal precedence for that though. Did you know the first known full-time resident of the land now occupied by the Park was a Norwegian-born sailor named Theodore Tollofsen, known affectionately as “Teddy the Hermit”. He was left homeless here when his 26 foot boat was wrecked and cast ashore on the south bank of Grand Lagoon by a hurricane in 1929. Teddy decided to homestead where the remains of his boat had been left, and he remained there for 25 years until his death in 1954 at age 74. Still in all she can argue my claim however she wants and I ain’t got nothing over her or to bribe her with if I did decide to cut a deal with you all.” Donald said trying to wrap his head around just what kind of land claim he had in these apocalyptic days and times.
“I tell you what you got to influence her with and that would be your new top dog position working for us. You can start with oysters and ice. You said this campground had a convenience store right? I assume that means it has one of those big insulated ice coolers to sell bagged ice out of standing in front of it? Well I can with a bit of help find enough icemakers around here to hook them up in a series to produce enough to fill that thing one day and as for traveling I need somebody to represent us with the oyster tongers I told you about and that can pay a hefty commission.” Hobe said coming up with his own unique idea on how to compensate and influence the old man to give up his Old turpentine still house.
“Hot damn, I am liking this! Oh hell, here comes Miranda and Hogan, don’t say nothing about what we been talking about or mention any trade deals around them or they will have plenty to say about my place too.” Donald said rising as two unusual characters approached riding on of all things a couple of slick looking modern adult scooters.
“What’s with the scooters around this place? Does everyone have one?” Crick murmured to Hobe.
“I need me one of those damn things or a bicycle. If I take this job you asking me to do you need to find me one, better yet let’s try to build some!” Donald said overhearing Crick and then hushing everybody before they rolled up.
“Hey Miranda, Hey Hogan! I guess you heard already about the strangers and oysters. Can’t keep anything secret around here!” Donald said laughing before he introduced the pair who evidently had already talked to Randal and Morgan further up the road getting things ready.
“We sure did! I heard your stingy self was coming off some of those crackers you been hoarding Donald to go with the oysters.” Miranda said not too nicely.
“They my crackers and I trade them when I see fit.” Donald fired back.
“We found some olive oil Donald you might want to trade for. I heard tell that even when it goes bad you can heat it up and reconstitute it.” Hogan advised perking the man’s interest.
“Really? I will give it a go and try to clean it up but I ain’t promising nothing. You all couldn’t find no shortening huh?” Donald asked.
“No, and next time you send us looking for stuff come up with some location that is not so far out.” Miranda said sweating and weary from the long trip.
“Well them foot powered things ya’ll got saves me a lot of time and grief and gives you something to do. When I think about what may or may not be needed around here I can’t help it if somebody didn’t abandon a store close by or hadn’t been gone through yet. Hobe as you already know any kind of transportation is a big problem around here. And these two people are sort of like our messengers or go-to people if you need something done at a distance because they have those crazy foot powered wheels. Me and them got us a deal:
I think about what it is I need or folks around here might want and get the yellow pages out and send them off to try to find it as best as I can. You would think in a formerly modern society that city street maps and such would be an available commodity or at least you could find some general directions from the back of a phone book but they quit doing those kind of maps years ago. I’m not as accurate as I should be in their destinations but it usually works out ok. However, we’ve had us a pretty good relationship about being “The folks with the most” because I can find obscure things before they are even needed and look out for stuff like penicillin in the fish section of a pet store or snag all the birthday candles at a looted cake store for fire starters. It’s my knack you might say, it’s my calling to find stuff that someone might have overlooked like making sure to check break areas in office buildings for candy in the vending machines before somebody else thinks of the same thing. It gets harder every day to come up with this crap but I usually got me some kind of angle like collecting all the mosquito spray somewhere to trade for what others might have gotten that we haven’t gotten to first. By the way, if you live in Florida, mosquito repellent is a must! Do you all got any or can we put that down as a barter item for some more of them oysters and ice you got, better yet, whiskey!” Donald said with a grin.
“That old man can probably trade for your soul if he could figure out how to collect it.” Hogan said still not too happy about being sent out on a wild goose chase like they had gone on previously this morning.
“I see that old style military web gear that you all are wearing. Is that something that you found or did you already possess them when the grid went down?” Crick asked, hoping that they might have access to some kind of Army-Navy surplus store.
“Oh they already had those. We were what you called “preppers” back in the day. They had them all kind of new fangled survival gadgets and what not to help them get through this little calamity we’re in but for some reason when that stuff got worn out or used up they didn’t have what’s in this coconut!” Donald said smiling and pointing to his head.
“Quit puffing yourself up you old fart! I’ll admit you come up with some great ideas but you were right there with us when you couldn’t come up with guns and ammo when we had difficulties in the past. Now then, you want to try cooking down this olive oil? I don’t know if it works or not but I read in a forum once that you could do that if you didn’t put the heat up too high. If that works, maybe these strangers would like to think about trading us for some because I know where I can put my hands on quite a bit of it that people are leaving alone because they think it’s rancid.” Hogan asked.
“Well they might want to but be advised they brought some pig lard down with them to do that job with. These boys are traders from way up Alabama way and to hear Crick tell it, they might even have a can or two of Crisco shortening to barter if we got something exceptional they want. Keyword being exceptional. I told you to look out for some of that powdered shortening in cans like bakers use. Anyway, we are discussing private business right at the moment and if ya’ll don’t mind, I’m not trying to offend mind you, but could you make yourselves scarce for a little while?” Donald asked sitting back and regarding them while kind of preening like a peacock that nobody knew he might be an even bigger honcho of trade here soon. That was of course if the apparently wealthy in goods traders from Alabama and sitting in front of him came through on their promises of employment.
“Now Donald, don’t you be trying to blow us off so easy or so quick. We just logged four miles each way coming and going on that mission you sent us on and we’re here to see if there’s something maybe that these strangers might be seeking we can trade for ourselves.” Hogan said putting Donald back in his place.
“Yeah, I’d kind of like to talk to them for a minute if you don’t mind, Donald. So you all were preppers before the storm hit? That’s neater than hell. I was one too. Don’t you wish everybody was listening to us before the crap hit the fan so that they could have taken care of themselves a whole lot better?” Crick said while admiringly looking at their scooters.
“It would have sure saved a bunch of lives. Oh yeah about the prepper thing we used to live in Atlanta and we came down here for a vacation to meet some other ones and you might say we were one of the original founders and followers of the movement and had us a blog and did the YouTube thing and all that. We tried to get the point across to everybody in Atlanta and elsewhere for that matter about just what they were going to do when the grid went down and the highways exiting the cities turned into parking lots so we had these rides hidden in our trunks for just such an occasion. Check this out.” Hogan said collapsing and then deploying a small lightweight strong scooter he was leaning against very quickly.
“That’s neater than hell. I never saw a collapsible one before. How much does that thing weigh anyway?” Hobe asked examining the now folded up scooter that Hogan handed him.
“Hey man that’s pretty light! Maybe ten or so pounds?” Hobe asked handing it to Crick for his examination.
“Well, some manufacturers make them lighter and faster but they don’t make them any stronger than this one called the KickPed. It’s top of the line! See when me and Miranda started eying scooters as bug out transportation, I told her a Southern boy wouldn’t be caught dead on one and she reminded me my old ass would be dead trying to hump the distance we might have to go with a heavy backpack without one. Tell you what it was real easy to swallow my pride. So after considering it for just a second or two I said that makes perfect sense and instead of buying some lightweight child’s toy, I did a lot of research on which was the number one best selling kick scooter in places like New York etc. where people commuted to their jobs every day over curbs and potholes and such and we found these basically bomb proof and stable means of transportation. There is a lot of would-be manufacturers in the past that did silly ass bright colors or made them where you could do tricks and such but what sold us on this model was the company utilized their years of experience to manufacture the best made product available.” Hogan said evidencing his great pride in his well-engineered machine.
“You wouldn’t happen to want to sell that for gold would you?” Crick asked.
“Are you crazy, man? If you were stuck in a desert would you sell your horse? Your horse is the only way out of the desert or to get you to water. Look here.” The forty five or fifty year old man said. “What separates us from the rest of the group and the reason Donald and I got this strange business arrangement is because of that little trusty two-wheel steed right here. There are plenty of folks that are still young enough to run or walk where they got to go but me and Miranda’s philosophy is we’re going to out run them bastards and work smarter not harder! Ain’t that right you old worn out skinflint Donald? Now I hate to give him a big head or any more credit to him than is due but if it wasn’t for Donald sending us out on this speedy transportation I figured out how to get us, before the SHTF (shit hit the fan), I’m guessing neither one of us would be doing as well as we are. Donald says we need this or that and me and Miranda go out quicker than anybody else around here and go try to obtain stuff and keep them hurrah healthy boys who don’t mind mixing it up with trouble back here where they can’t get into very much trouble and protect what we found. Now I’m not saying that if we lent our scooters to those boys they in some ways might be better at it than us, I’m just saying we own these scooters and they respect that and our decisions. ” Hogan said making a poignant point about the strong young men and women they left back at camp and not considering that they would ever try to take their prized possessions from them. It would be an easy thing for one of the bigger men or women to walk up and demand that they give up the best mode of transportation around here by strong arming them. But that generation also realized they still had much to learn from the wisdom of a pair of preppers that possessed such and everyone benefitted from their suggestions to begin with.”
“That’s neat a
s hell!” Crick said considering what a useful contrivance a scooter was.
“How did you come up with that idea to begin with?” Hobe asked still regarding their fine lightweight means of transportation when most people with bug out bags had not even considered that yet. Hard to believe because as an easy and effectual means of speed and heavy transportation to lighten the load it was a great solution. Especially if one was carrying all that bug out gear most stupid people would try to load in their packs to begin with and end up leaving half of it on the highway a mile or so from where they started..