Novel Grid Down: 101 Ways To Survive Book One Reality Bites Chapter 2

"America -- This Will Remain The Land Of The Free Only So Long As It Is The Home Of The Brave." -- Elmer Davis

Grid Down: 101 Ways To Survive

Book One

Reality Bites

Chapter 2

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George Johnson was divorced. His wife had left him when he was in the Navy for an Officer. Their two children, George Jr. and Alicia stayed with their mother. The court gave her custody and told him he was free to pay child support. It was a rotten deal as far as he was concerned. He would rather have his children. He didn’t get to see them or talk to them much anymore. They were always too busy doing other stuff. He missed them.

Fortunately for him he bought his 10 acre hunting property before they were married. This was his salvation, his peace on earth. With 35% of his pay taken out for child support he was left with only $910 a month to live on. He was a retired Chief Mechanic. Luckily he had a plan. He had been preparing for the end of the world his whole life.

His property was in Northern Wisconsin. It was prime property in his eyes. It had plenty of oak trees to keep the deer in his area year around. But what was really great was his cabin. It was built into the side of hill with 10 yards of gravel and drain pipes to pull the ground water away from the cabin. It had double walled 10 inch logs, with sand filled in between. He smiled and thought, “Ole Ned Kelly from the 50 most dangerous men would be proud of him.” The roof was metal and was covered with 6 inches of top soil then grass seed was planted on top. He built it in late 80's as a hunting camp/nuclear fall out shelter. The front was hidden from view with a huge brush pile. He had his solar power panels set at the correct angle to catch the sun rays but you could not see them if you were just walking past. To see them you had to be almost on top of them.

George had a great life. His small 14 feet by 20 feet camp had everything he needed to survive. He had a propane cook stove with twin 100 pound cylinders which provided all this cooking needs for about 14 months. But being part Boy Scout he always refilled the empty cylinder as soon as possible. Always be prepared was his motto also. Nobody knew when the SWHTF (Sh*t Would Hit The Fan). He was smart and had a 30 foot well dug right under the cabin lined with 3 foot cement culverts. A 12 volt DC water pump provided the cabins water needs. He didn’t need much water just for the shower, toilet,

washing dishes and clothes. He had a small apartment size washing machine. He dried his clothes on a clothes line in the summer and over the woodstove in the winter. Not that he needed much wood for winter. 3 cords was more then enough to keep the cabin toasty warm. All his doors and windows had built in double steel 1/4 inch plates welded together. A trip cord was set to drop these into place from the inside. Once dropped down in place they could be bolted from the inside into the reinforced logs of the cabin. It could be secured from just about anything.

Above each door and window was a steel pipe with small holes drilled in it to spray liquids out to soak any person trying to break in with homemade lye. His wood stove had 8 inch heavy walls, with 1/4 inch thick piping that ran under ground out the back and up to a fake hollow tree. Amazing what a person can do with paint, glue and scraps of bark. The ground cooled the heat and the smoke was all but invisible when it came out the top. When it is sealed up the cabin would be invisible to the world. You could walk right by it and not notice a thing.

The only mistake he made was he allowed a woman named Kathryn into his hidden world. She was okay at first. Not anything great, but okay. He felt kind of sorry for her. After she had been living with him for a few months she invited her brother up to stay with them without even asking him. One day when they thought they were alone he overheard her and her brother talking. She was to first get in real good with him, maybe even get him to marry her and then to have her family move in and take over his property. It didn’t sound like they had any plans for him in this picture they were talking about. He thought, “Well that could only mean one thing for him.” He would wait see what they had in mind. He thought, “I have been getting kind of sick lately.” She did cook once in a while. He thought, “I will just take over all the cooking just to be sure.”

She was just plain lazy. She wouldn’t do anything around the cabin. She talked constantly about how much and how hard she worked. George hadn’t seen any evidence of that. The cabin was a mess. All she did was sit around and watch cartoons all the time or play video games. She wouldn’t even help him haul in wood for the stove when he hadn’t felt good. Every once in awhile she would bring up that he should get a will so he could leave her the property if anything happened to him. He hadn’t told her he already had a will. His property and everything he owned was going to his children. He chuckled to himself every time she brought up the subject of his getting a will.

She didn’t like it when he brought up the subject of his children. She didn’t have anything to do with them when they did call or visit. He didn’t know how she thought she would inherit everything if something happened to him. Even without a will everything would go to his children. Her and her brother weren’t too bright. As for marrying her, it was not ever going to happen, not in a million years. She brought up the subject of them getting married a few times and he flat out told her he was never, ever going to get married again. End of subject. He thought to himself, “And especially not to someone like you.”

After 6 months he had had enough, he was tired of waiting for them to make a move and he told her to hit the road. His main problem he had with her beside whatever it was she had cooked up with her brother was that she was content to remain ignorant. She had not graduated from High School. She had no desire to learn anything. She admitted to being ignorant and she didn’t feel she could learn anything. He tried to teach her things but, she just didn’t want to learn to improve herself. “You can lead a horse to water, and so on”, he thought. She had been in many failed relationships. He tried to help her.

Her brother was just as bad, straight out of Hicksville. He also was too lazy to work and just leached off his Moms’ Social Security. Unfortunately if the SHTF they would make a bee line to his place. He was not worried about them trying to get in because they wouldn’t; he had made sure of that. They didn’t know a thing about the defenses he had, or if he even had any at all. But with all the noise they would make trying to get in it could attract attention if anyone else was around. He was also worried if they would bring anyone else with them and if so, who and how many?

He changed after going through all that. He became adamant that his place was for his children and when the SHTF he would protect them at all cost. George Jr. was 18 now and Alicia was 15. George Jr. had been coming up for hunting season for the last couple of years. He had turned into a pretty good deer hunter. He had enjoyed the times they had spent together. Alicia had not been up for the last 3 years. She said she was way too busy and didn’t have to time. She was into the Goth scene and her Mother allowed her to get body piercings and tattoos.

He was still bitter about the divorce. The old saying that rules and regulations were only for the enlisted and not for officer’s sure came true for him. His wife was having an affair with Officer, a Lt. Commander. When he tried to press charges against him the military turned on him like a shark at a feeding frenzy. You see, Officer’s are above the rules in the military. Any E-7 that stood up to them was quickly reminded it is not about right and wrong but about Officer’s can’t do any wrong. He was sent to anger management classes. The military reviewed his travel records. They transferred him to a new Base. He was to be given no responsibilities and to be watched every second. He was not to be trusted with anything now. They even tried to force him into alcohol rehab. It was not alcohol that was the problem, it was the fact that his wife was sleeping with an officer and they were not doing anything about it at all. All they did was to keep him moving around and treating him like he had a disease.

In the end he was given a choice, take retirement or press charges against the Lt. Commander. He might win that case but he was told in no uncertain terms that he would be targeted and they would make sure he ended up in Leavenworth. He knew all about the corruption in the Military. He had seen and heard about bogus charges brought against those that didn’t play the game and go along with what they said. So, he took his retirement. He felt that he really didn’t have a choice in the matter. He had to be around to protect his children.

You can't live in the past he kept telling himself. He had been betrayed by his wife and the military. For the first few years he tried to get his head back on straight. He had to start thinking about the future. The past was dead and gone. He felt he learned a very valuable lesson in life. You can’t take anything for granted. Life can change in a blink of an eye. You also can't live in the past; there is only today and the future. He was determined that he would not be an embittered man and go around blaming others for his misfortunes. It happened, leave it in the past and get on with life. Bad stuff, unfair crap happened to people all the time. So, he concentrated on that. He would make whatever effort he could to stay as close to his children as possible. He was firm in the decision that he would not lose his children too. He still had his health and the cabin so he would be okay.

He met a woman named Marion. She was a widow and he visited her in town once a week. Her husband had managed a cattle ranch. In a freak accident he was killed by a bull. He was moving the animal into a new field. It was breeding season. The bull must have been mad about being taken from the cow that was ready to breed. The bull charged the poor man who was on a 4 wheeler trying to get him into the new field. The engine stalled on the 4 wheeler and the bull ran him and the 4 wheeler over. The bull, the man and the 4 wheeler went down in a confused heaping pile. The bull ran off. The man was left pinned under the 4 wheeler. The bull came back and charged him again. They think it was the second charge of the bull that killed him. The bulls hoof hit the man in the head which killed him instantly. The other workers tried to get to the man but the bull was just too fast.

Together George and Marion made a great couple. They helped each other through the emotional time of mourning. She helped him to understand that he was mourning the death of his marriage and career. She explained it would just take some time and to talk about it and not keep everything bottled up inside. He told her the same thing. She could talk to him about her husband too. They understood each other. He helped her to see life is for the living. She told him everyone needed someone to talk to. Someone that you could say whatever was on your mind to. Not the polite chit chat that most people go through, but the real honest sharing of feelings and thoughts.

He thought about what she said and came to realize that was something he really missed. Someone you could speak your mind to. He didn’t even realize how much and what he had lost with the divorce. He was really glad that he had met her and that they were together as a couple. She had a depth to her that his ex never had. He also came to realize that his marriage hadn’t been all he thought it had been. All his married life he had been gone for long periods of time. He thought about how little time his ex and him had really spent together. They had never just sat and talked by the fire like Marion and he did. They had always been busy with other things. His job and the children took all their time. He was starting to understand how much had really been wrong or missing with his marriage. Before the divorce he had just been too busy with everything to have time to think about stuff like this. None of this would have ever crossed his mind. He was coming to understand that in many ways he had a much better life now then he had before. This life was much more real and rewarding.

In the fall and winter he set steel traps and professional grade cable snares. It was a hobby, a supplemental income. Not that the furs were bringing in much money these days. He tanned the furs himself over the winter and sold them under consignment to the Native American smoke shop on the reservation. He put beaver pelts on a wooden hoop the old Mountain Man style. He steamed alder branches to make a nice round hoop. It was a favorite seller to the tourist and hunters who used them for cabin décor.

He also had coyote, fox, mink, muskrat, otter and weasels pelts. It was a great hobby for him. It also gave him something to do on the long cold winter nights. Plus, he was in the woods each and every day. What a way to enjoy life. He learned the deer patterns and found the bear dens. He helped out a few local farmers to thin out the deer herds that were destroying their crops. He hunted them on block permits issued to the farmers. He took 4 deer a year. It was his main source of meat. He also had beaver, raccoon, duck, geese, ruffed grouse, even smoked muskrat, smelt, walleye, trout and pike rounded out his meat supply. He ate better than he ever had before. He thought with a smile, “Yes, this was the good life.”

With his trapping and snaring skills he knew he could weather just about any economic storm that hit this country. He remembered a lot of the tales of the Great Depression. He sewed his own fur hats and mittens. He lined his coat with beaver furs. “God created the warmest coats in the world”, he thought. In those cold January days when the temperature dropped way below 0 with wind chill making it -20, -30, or -40 degrees outside. He sure was glad for the warmth of the furs.

His gun collection was modest. He had a 12 gauge Remington 870 shotgun for bird hunting, a Ruger 10-22 for varmints, a Browning .22 Buckmark pistol for the trap line, a 30-06 Remington 700 topped off with a Leopold 3 x 9 scope, and one semi auto Ak-47 with 35, 30 round magazines with 10,000 rounds of ammo for it. He had 20,000 rounds put away for his .22, most were his favorite small game round the Remington Yellowjacket. It is an amazing round for small and medium game animals. It took a few years of losing wounded rabbits and grouse before he understood the solid point bullets were just ripping through the animals and not transferring the energy to the animal to bring them down. Once he switched to Yellowjacket’s his take of birds and rabbits went up. Now he was almost guaranteed to bring home the meat.

He was rich beyond money. Something people who live in the city never could understand. Their judge of success was fancy cars, big Mc Mansion’s and 10 credit cards. Most people living way beyond their means. Many were learning a very hard lesson in 2008-2009 when the economic crash came. They lost their jobs, houses and then their fancy cars. Some people ended up living with relatives. Many ended up living in tents. Obamavilles were popping up all over the country. Like the Hootersville of the Great Depression. The grand American experiment was coming to a close. The American dream had died. The U. S. dollar was about to collapse.

Little did George know how vitally important his lifestyle was soon to become. George’s job now was to get his children there to the cabin and protect them. It was a job he took very seriously.

If You Like This Book Green Death To the World You Will Enjoy Getting This 3 Book Special.

They Will Also Teach You A Lot About What George Was Doing And His Way Of Thinking !