The last two years have been difficult. I had gotten complacent, had become master of my own destiny, and leaving little to chance, charged forward, forgetting the most basic principles. I only walk the road, I do not decide its destination. The road goes everywhere, and the best I can do is to chose from the options given.
The road can be hard, and cold. At times it seems without friend, or familiar surroundings. Faces on the road often turn, and go their own way, with barely a passing glance. Having learned the rules of the road long ago, alone, there is no comfort to be found. Comfort is found in a companion, a kindred soul, who like ourself, has walked the road, and known its anguish, and joy. A friend with whom to share the trials life's road can bring.
The road, even speaking the name invokes a sense of melancholy, and longing. Do not cry for me when I am gone, for I am still out there somewhere deep in the night. Under a million lonely stars, with the full moon for a lover, and the highway for a friend.
I walk the road with my companion. For now there is dark forest all around, with pitfalls, and a stormy sky. Beyond the next hill, perhaps around the next bend, brighter skies, and easier times await. We forge ahead, my companion, and me. Hand in hand, we weather the storms. Sharing a secret smile, we continue, we have survived the hard times before.
One thing that amazes me these days is the number of speciality products available. One cough syrup company has so many different products, even the local discount chain doesn't carry them all. I went for cough syrup the other day, and it took me 20 minutes just to read through the selection. There are products for short people, with blue hair, who live in missouri, and go to church on every other tuesday.
Then there's my grandmother. (God loves grandmothers) This is a woman who lived through the great depression, the dust bowl, and learned to make do with what you had. When she passed away some years ago, she had 7 children, 13 grandchildren, 11 great grandchildren, and 22 great great grandchildren. God bless her prolific soul. Grandmother bought as little as she could, and saved nearly everything for use later. Someone had given her a can of canary yellow paint that was wrong, and couldn't be taken back, so they gave it to grandmother. As a consequence of that, anytime something needed re-painting, it got painted canary yellow. It wasn't long before everything in her kitchen, from the match dispenser to the floorboards were bright yellow. Grandmother was a study in efficiency.
A big part of survival is learning to use what you have, to do what you need. Many of us at some point in our lives have used a butter knife for a screwdriver, or flicked our bic when we needed a flashlight, but in a survival scenario, our use of whatever we have must go way beyond this. Example, you have an electric pet hair clipper in a black plastic box, the clipper quits working (in the middle of clipping the pet). Throw away the box with the clipper? Grandmother would shudder. Of course not, keep the box, and later realize you could use it to make a shaving kit for your bug out bag, complete with mirror glued to the lid. Go to the store and buy small trash bags for your bedroom,bathroom trash cans? Of course not, save plastic bags from the grocery store, and use them instead. They also make good car trash bags, fried chicken flouring bags, dog irritating devices, rain hats, spitunes, and packing material. Don't have a shovel? Use a knife, and coffee can. Don't have a ground cloth? Use an old shower curtain. Tea works as well as coffee, 3M oil does NOT make good cooking oil, however cooking oil will lube as well as any machine oil in a pinch.
While it is true that necessity is the mother of invention, It is also true that anguish rewards the stupid. Using what you have should be tempered with good sense. Screwdrivers do not make good eating utensils, and there is no good substitute for water.
