Cavalry horns ablaring .

K

Kevin the grey

Joined
Aug 26, 2005
Messages
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Its not really necessary to say what put me there . Battered and bleeding on the asphalt . It felt pretty darn good when the Cavalry showed up . Albeit it was a couple of police cruisers and I surely wasn,t treated as royalty . (But thats another story .)

Are we so wrong to depend on others for help when in dire need ? Haven,t our societies been set up like
that ? I am not saying whether this is a good thing or not . I ask that we do not debate the soundness of this approach .

What I put forth for discussion is whether we should blame people who depend upon social structures that were put into place for them . They are told there is rescue and then they are condemned for hoping to be rescued.

I personally am trying to live a simpler lifestyle that would be easier to sustain or at least less difficult to modify in case of emergency . That is me . What about city dwellers who have never fished , camped or enjoyed a day in the woods . Can you picture what a different life that is . They are much more dependant on city life and the comforts it brings . A disaster for them would be a minor inconvenience for many of us . Some of us wouldn,t be inconvenienced at all .

What a city dweller would find distasteful would be home to us . I know its hard to imagine someone who wouldn,t like sleeping in a tent . Someone who couldn,t sleep in a tent .
 
No it is not unreasonable to depend or expect the calvary to show up eventually. But, what happens if they don't (ever); hence part of the premise of the book "Dies the Fire".

My wife does not like sleeping in a tent. She's a Holiday Inn girl. So was my mother.

I think the foundation that is learned from growing up hunting, fishing, trapping, hiking, wood and plant knowledge, instills a basic respect for nature and mankind. City kids do not get this. And it doesn't have to be a very large city for kids to miss the connection with nature that we all have.

When I go to the ocean, I see a very powerful foe. The ocean has a haunting beauty. When I see a hurricane, tornado, or volcano, I see how fragile we humans are and our society is. When I see news reports of terrorism, I see people trying to tear down that fragile mask of society that most of us share.
 
I live in a city (Fresno) that is sort of unique in it's own way.
To the East we have the beautiful Sierra Nevada's , to the West the Coastal Ranges , lakes a plenty in this area , creeks and rivers to boot.
There is more camping in this area that one can possibly do (almost lol).
Then there is the city itself , Fresno is a big assed suburb with all the modern conveniences/nusances that make city so great/awful.
I have known a lot of people that have never seen snow !! Never seen snow ? can you imagine that... Never been camping , fishing or hiking , never seen a snake in it's natural enviroment , never poked a stick at a stink beetle or taken the hook out of a German Brown's mouth.. Never sat by a campfire and listened to stories from someone older and far wiser than one's self. Never had to "make do" with what they had.
I can go on lol but my point is made.
Cities are filled with spoiled , impatient people and the longer I live here the more spoiled and impatient I find myself becoming...:o

The sad truth is most city folks could not live without thier dependancies.
Imagine most people if they lost thier cable tv ! "what !??! no American Idle tonight !!??! *scream* "
Modern convenience has led us to become spoiled and un-self sufficient.
How many of us know how to farm , much less small scale veggie garden ?
I used to know how but it's been so long I am well out of practice.
How many people could provide thier own food if need be , much less food for the family ? Who knows how to butcher a chicken or a cow for that matter ?
Jeez for all of this said , how many people can even cook ? without having to have it come allready preaped in a package to pop in the micro or oven for a few..
What would most of us do with no fire/paramedic/hospital...
Imagine 200 years ago when someone had a heart attack (probably much less common) , they were pretty much SOL unless they lived near a Doc , even then ... However if there was a need for police they pretty much took care of it themselves I would imagine.
 
Only you can start a life of self reliance and prepairedness.
I was amazed when living in an apartment in the Chicago suburbs that no one in the surrounding buildings but me had a working oil lamp when the power failed. Listening to a battery powered radio and reading a book; I was constantly being interupted to answer the door and tell people why I had lights and tunes when no one else did.
Cooking is easy just follow the recipee (churches regularly sell recipee books of everyones' specialties) (good eats may make you gain weight though).
Campinng and other self reliant hobbies let you reherse simple living in comfort while pointing out areas of needed improvement.
Regular visits to the Dojo and shooting range help prepare one for defence. (Once the basics are pat join compeptive clubs and learn full contact sparring, combat shooting use of baracades, etc.)
Learn to preform your own repairs, the tools necessary will pay for themselves the first time you use them and the money saved is all profit.
Our goal should be to become proficiant in all things and truely masters of at least a few.
Enjoy!
 
Nothing of real substance to add, but I thought this is a good opportunity to throw in an amusing exchange between my father & my little sister's boyfriend.

Everyone calls him (my sister's boyfriend) "Boston", cause that's where he's from. He always said if you watch the TV show "Full House" and see all the houses packed next to eachother, that's about what his neighborhood is like. Sometimes they'd go visit some cousins "in the country". The cousins had a back yard of grass. Mom then begged the question, "And then fields beyond the yard?" "No, more houses. But they had grass." Once he was telling my Dad about how they took a field trip when he was in grade school, and he got to milk a cow. Dad said, "I'm surprised they let you do that. I'd a figgured they'd be afraid somebody would get kicked." "Oh, no... it was an inflatable cow."

An inflatable cow?? This is the closest thing city kids get to experience to take care of themselves?

There was also that time we all went out shooting, and he came along. Naturally he'd never used a gun much before, but he did a pretty good job. Even managed to bust a couple clay birds. But on the way home, we were riding in my father in law's jeep, when he ran over a squirrel. He stopped right away, and I jumped out. The thing was still trying to crawl away, but it was mangled pretty bad, and was just suffering. So I opted to put it out of its misery by stomping its head. Then I turned around to head back to the jeep, and Boston had gotten out too & was standing behind me. He had the strangest expression of horror on his face. He was in complete shock at seeing me brutally kill a wounded squirrel. :D

Now, I don't mean to pick on the guy too bad, because he's a really great person. We get along great. We're working on exposing him to country ways, but if he is representative of most urban youth, I can certainly see why you guys lament the status of self reliance in such places.
 
Kevin the grey said:
Its not really necessary to say what put me there . Battered and bleeding on the asphalt . It felt pretty darn good when the Cavalry showed up . Albeit it was a couple of police cruisers and I surely wasn,t treated as royalty . (But thats another story .)

Are we so wrong to depend on others for help when in dire need ? Haven,t our societies been set up like
that ? I am not saying whether this is a good thing or not . I ask that we do not debate the soundness of this approach .

What I put forth for discussion is whether we should blame people who depend upon social structures that were put into place for them . They are told there is rescue and then they are condemned for hoping to be rescued.

I personally am trying to live a simpler lifestyle that would be easier to sustain or at least less difficult to modify in case of emergency . That is me . What about city dwellers who have never fished , camped or enjoyed a day in the woods . Can you picture what a different life that is . They are much more dependant on city life and the comforts it brings . A disaster for them would be a minor inconvenience for many of us . Some of us wouldn,t be inconvenienced at all .

What a city dweller would find distasteful would be home to us . I know its hard to imagine someone who wouldn,t like sleeping in a tent . Someone who couldn,t sleep in a tent .
Click to expand...

If more people chose to live a simpler life, it would be a hell of alot better country!

We humans are hard wired to live in groups, and have done so ever since the cave. its our make-up. And the cavalry was around back then too. I remember reading about the skeliton of a Neanderthal that was found in a grave. The young man had sevear deformaties of the leg bones that was a birth defect, and would have made walking totally impossable. Yet he lived a life to adulthood. That ment they cared enough about him to bring back food to an individual who could not contribute to the tribe. That says something about our nature. I think its human reaction that in 9 out of 10 times somebody sees someone in need of help, they'll do what they can.

As far as city dwellers vs the country boy, I don't think it will make much difference in the long run. The smart ones will live, and the dumb ones who can't adapt won't. I've noticed some very facinating things dealing with people-its the individual that makes the difference. When I went through my time in the service, I saw city kids who listened to the drill instructor raptly, and learned well, and then I saw coutry boys who had a hell of a time because of bad habits learned, or they thought they knew it all. A city slicker out in the boonies is in as allien an environment as a country boy in the city. Witch one will have the more open, flexable mind?

I enjoy fishing and camping as much as the next person, and I freely admit I'm more of a city boy than not. But if it came down to a disaster, I think with some simple preperation, its going to be easier to survive on site, than try to make it out to the country. Washington D.C. is flanked by the Anacostia and Potomac rivers. Fishing is great, as is the pidgeon shooting with air guns. A grilled pidgeon over charcoal with some salt, pepper, a bit of paprika tastes just like a cornish game hen. Out in the suburbs its even easier. Theres the rivers, creeks, woods, all with fish and game. The Izzak Walton League I belong to has a target league with air rifles and rimfires that have alot of very crack shots. Some of my country boy friends could learn from them.

Survival is always going to be easier with a group of people with mixed skills, in an area with more resourses, natural or otherwise. Country or city won't make a bit of difference, if the people trying to survive are as smart as a box of rocks. What your country folk would fine distastefull, a city slicker may well take in stride.

Never get too conceited or believe in generalizations.
 
Just got back from a weekend taking the kids (6, 4, 2, and 0.2) and wife on our first real camping trip--out in the woods in the Arizona high country, near a creek in the heart of what used to be the Apaches' hunting grounds. After a couple of tornadoes took out the lights for a few days in the city where I was living in 1998, and then Sept. 11, I had resolved to get and keep my gear, etc., more current, but this was one of the first serious occasions to put both skills and stuff to real use. My 6- and 4-year-old boys took very naturally to hunting (for crawdads), and my wife, though not a camper, turned out very sincerely to love the whole outing. I had to scrape an awful lot of rust off of my outdoor savvy--it'd been a long time since I'd been out in the woods, too--but it was great, and we thoroughly intend to do it again, and more often. There were some new issues I'd never before confronted (e.g., how to keep all those little kids from getting corn-dodger crumbs all over the campsite, thus attracting the local skunk), but these were more than made up for by the great blessings that were there just for the beholding: a large grapevine heavily-festooned with newly-ripe Arizona wild grapes, right next to the campsite; a creek (Tonto Creek) near enough for water, but far enough downhill to present no risk of flood; stars and Milky Way once again visible in the sky with breathtaking clarity . . . . Oh, yes, I'm glad to be getting back into this--and bringing my wife and the kids with me.

And, Happy Joe, you'll be glad to hear that I (sort of) figured out the use of a kerosene/paraffin lantern for the first time on that trip. (Never had occasion to do so before--most of my previous excursions had been more along the lines of primitive and/or backpacking stuff--but this car campout was the ideal time to learn.)
 
jackknife-
Yes you are of course correct, and I shouldn't have made such generalizations. I'm sure he thought I was pretty funny that time he showed me around New York City. I'm certainly not accustomed to dealing with everyday stuff in a big city like he was, such as planning out travel routes by train/subway schedules. In an urban survival scenario, I'm sure he'd be much better off than me.
 
Kevin, a very thoughtful question, and good answers by everybody above. I feel very fortunate that I have a piece of woodlot that borders 100 sq/miles + of wilderness, yet my house is just 1 mile from the firehouse, with emt services, and a nearby 7-11.

What makes civilization is getting very hard to define these days. I love my computer but I've given up on reading the news, because news is as fast as email. I hate to hear the crap that's going on all over the world. I find myself coming to this forum more and more because of people here who are willing to discuss the basics of survival...not just knives, but attitudes and how to cope, situational awareness.
 
Coldwood ? That sounds like a small piece of heaven you have there . (Small being a relative term .)
I hope one day to have a similar place .

It is hard to explain to some folks that not being born to it can make it harder for some . I do respect that inteligence makes up for other shortcomings . Observation and experience cannot be discounted .

B:T:W: I agree with you . Surviving on site is better because it is familiar turf . To me there is no such thing as a city . It is just country they have paved over . The only reason I would take a skedaddle would be to get away from scavengers and oher people just trying to get by .
 
Self reliance is a pleasant fantasy. Most of us could never truly cut the umbilical cord in our quest for self reliance. And why would you? Modern living is a remarkably good thing!
 
I like my piece of woods and I also like that there's an emt squad and a 7-11 nearby. I make no pretences about being self-reliant, but it's something I want to pursue. I've lived and worked in cities, enjoyed it at the time, but looking at what happened to New Orleans last year, I'm glad I'm out of the city. I think happiness is being where you want to be and doing what you want to do, when you want to do it. There have been many times when I wished I was somewhere else, but not right now.
 
LOL. I only get gas and buy beer there. In '98 we had an ice storm that shut down power here for over a week. I went into the 7-11 one day and was amazed at the line of people. Some of them had serious looks of fear on their faces. They were out of food and supplies. Civilization is a thin layer that can get damaged easily.
 
97 ? Same thing for us . So many power lines down . Roads impossible to drive on . Supermarkets closed . No restaurants open . No electricity for three days . Freezer worked fine . Almost same temperature inside as outside .

Coleman stove near a window , wife and kid all scrunched up cozy in one bed .
Oh yeah natural gas service still worked . Pizza restaurants stayed open and made a killing .

Cops wanted me to abandon my home and move to a shelter . They were going door to door and just about ordering people out . Thanks but no thanks . I like people (most) . Getting lumped together in a shelter didn,t seem necessary to me .
 
Lots of interesting replies here.

I'm largely that city person a lot of you speak of. I grew up ignorant and oblivious to the outdoors. As a kid I'd play outside as much as anyone else, fighting my brothers with sticks, exploring the stream behind my house and such. Minor things really though.

I've been building computer since I was about that age, 10 or so. There has always been a big push for technology and computers in my house. Eventually I had a computer with two moniters running a lot of themes and programs I made myself, with a modified XBox that could do everything from play video off my computer through the network I made to get me the damn weather, plus a laptop on the side. Always had Gameboys, my parents would get me the new ones when they came out. We have way too many TV's.

That's changing though. That computer isn't in my room anymore, it's just sitting in the basement. The XBox is out too. My computer desk now has knife sharpening supplies and some pieces of wood I'm whittling. In th eback corner is a bowl where I mix my own dough to bake in the oven, creating my own bread. Where I once sat and watched hours of TV a day...I haven't seen a show in years now The only thing any videogame consoles are used for in my room is to play music CD's, and even that's something I'd do sparingly if I didn't have 2 or 3 TV's to drown out from other rooms. I spend time in patches of woods around here everyday, making fires under various conditions, making cordage, learning how to split wood with small knives, tracking animals and just enjoying nature period.

Point is, I decided myself to change from an ignorant city boy to someone living a simpler, more self-reliant life more in tune with nature. Even little things like th ebaking my own bread or making my own peanut butter teach me things I never knew about things I've consumed for nearly two decades. Anyone can decide to do what I'm doing, it's just that so many people are distracted by modern life that they don't even think outside the box. Life is so focused on getting your diploma, then getting a degree, getting a house and a nice car etc. My older brother has his own place and just got a brand new truck, works at Diebold and stuff. I'm happy for him, but at the same time I can see I don't want to live that way. It's idealistic, but I've gone from what I was to wanting to live in the wilderness. I guess it's all a matter of my determination.
 
Vivi..., guys, no one who has lived any length of time in whatever environment is "ignorant" of what it takes to survive there. The survival requirements of each place on the globe are different. You take a good 'ol boy from the bayous of Louisiana and plant him in Alaska, he'll have a time playing catchup with the rules of survival there, same as he might in New York City. Remember the old Tarzan movies? Maybe not, but one was where Tarzan went to NYC to find the kidnapped Boy. A more recent takeoff on the theme was the movie "Jungle to Jungle" where a boy raised in the jungle goes to the big city (a Tim Allen movie).

Just because your life training and experiences are attuned to a different environment does not make you ignorant. If you carefully think about it, you can list those survival skills in very broad terms, and they do apply elsewhere, but you have to learn to adapt them to the new environment.

Codger:thumbup:
 
for a person to grow up totally ignorant of the outdoors they would have to be a recent transplant to WV. Of course some of the people I work with come from inner city phili etc. and their ignorance of wildlife cannot be exagerated.

My roomate in college was tading gross out tales at the breafast table with me one day and he went into great detail talking about the biggest nastyiest squirrle he had ever seen as roadkill, right down to the rinnged tail and black mask on its face, He grew up in Cleveland OH but who cannot tell the differance between a racoon and a squirle?
 
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