I’ve spoken before about my hard-luck neighbor Darrel the Former Cop. He’s a perfectly normal, capable and industrious man who moved out here with an unusually generous grubstake, bought about 120 acres, built a big house, put in the usual infrastructure, and just never had a moment’s luck after that. Over the past several months his wife had to take an apartment in a city a few hours away because she lost yet another job (he can’t hold any job at all now, his health being so bad) and simply had to find work elsewhere.
And now he’s gone too, because he had a massive heart attack while home alone. He survived because he called our neighbor D who rushed him to the nearest hospital about 40 miles away and then he got a helicopter ride to a cardiac center in the city (for which they’re billing him tens of thousands of dollars he doesn’t have). I understand he came out of it not much more disabled than he already was, but he’s staying with his wife and the common wisdom is that he’s done here.
I feel a little bad about it. Though our relationship warmed up a little bit after he became Darrel the Former Cop, to say the least we were never close and I didn’t exactly shower him with good will.
But the thing that came to mind while I was thinking about him this morning is that he was probably the best shooter around here. I don’t know for sure, of course, because I never shot with him. But consider: His approach to shooting was entirely “tactical.” He built himself by far the nicest range for miles around, and used it. He was an NRA instructor. He was active with all the good ol’ boys at the local club. He was an enthusiastic reloader. He had all the best toys, acquired with the discounts and contacts available to a cop.
He was, in short, the very model of a modern survivalist as fantasized by all the wannabees on all the shooting fora. And none of it did him a bit of good in actual practice. He wasn’t careful, and he wasn’t healthy, and he wasn’t lucky. How much of his troubles he brought on himself, I really don’t know. But nobody else around here ever fell off ladders so often, which says something.
There’s a whole class of wannabe prepper for whom it’s all about guns and other guy-toys. After seven years in the boonies, I can testify that while guns have their place, it’s really not about that at all.
And you can do everything right, and still die from a spider bite. Life is unpredictable. Relish every moment.
Well, as the saying goes, Karma is a bitch. Could well be the bitch is biting back now. But you’re right about the priorities, in a way.
That’s really too bad. But so common. I worked with so many patients over the years who retired, went downhill – slow or fast – and died without ever really being happy or finding fulfillment. They had so often hated their jobs and the lives they led while they worked, but had never developed any real life or purpose outside of it, and usually had destroyed their physical health in the process. All too often, they had also become estranged from family and friends in the course of their single minded pursuit of that hated job! What a horrible waste.
So no, neither “prepping” nor life itself is about guns, absolutely. They can contribute greatly to that joy and fulfillment, but they can’t replace it.
I feel his pain. Like literally. Been there, done that, got the 12 inch scar. I am moving to that portion of the nowhere, but not as nowhere-esque as all that.
My rough it in the tumbleweeds survivalist days are over. I won’t be living 40 minutes from a place where dipshits like me who drank, smoked and ate too much have to go and get the clockworks to behave and stabilize. I’ll have to be more like 20 minutes out as a maximum.
Some would ask why I would still want to move under my circumstances; simple, I hate stupid people. Especially in the droves I currently suffer. They cause me enormous amounts of stress. Just being around them in a public place sets my teef grinding.
I have to git for the same reason Bill encouraged us to enjoy life, I can’t enjoy it here in the hive and that is definitely a shortening agent.
I suspect that stress is more perilous to me than being a few too many minutes away from an ER.
Now, if I could just hurry up and move, find a spot for a little Mass at the Church of the Eternal M1A(hey, if I’m not a live in the sticks with nothing but a knife, some crayons, 30 feet of paracord, a little lint and my good looks survivalist anymore I can still be a shooter) then figure out how to make carnitas into something that is not a cardiac assassin I’d really be living.
I’ve got some really good friends who work at a Level 1 trauma center with a multi-state catchment area in the Western US. Despite all the patched roofs, clean gutters, and well hung holiday lighting good things don’t come from older men on ladders. They get several a week who’s lives as an active, independent adult a come to an end due to falls from ladders.
So if you are using a ladder set it up securely, at the correct angle, and on solid footing just like the instructions on the sticker on the side of the ladder tell you. Don’t stand on the top rungs, get a bigger ladder if you feel the need to stand up there. Don’t reach too far because you don’t want to re-position the ladder, keep your belt buckle inside the ladder. If you have reached a certain age go find a younger person to supervise.
I do believe you’re also allowed a fire starter these days. The Law of the Wild no longer requires us to make fire by rubbing two teeth together.
And you keep threatening to move out here, but I haven’t seen your ugly ass yet. What’s the hold-up?
Now you tell me. See, that’s been the hold up the entire time. I was trying to find a dental surgeon who would install flint teeth. Well now that this is no longer a matter for concern, I will just conclude the two transactions currently in the works. I’m liquidating my business holdings and divesting myself of the troublesome business associations I have been stuck with lo these many years.
I’ve got one issue in escrow, the other is under negotiations and will be in escrow, hopefully by early December. After that it’s a matter of finding a place to settle. I will be making trips out that way in the next couple of months.
This all would be done by now but for my date with a surgeon back in February. Having your heart cut out tends to cause some delays in life.
In other words, I am not sure yet but the ball is more rolling now than it was.
Actually, I need to contact Ian and ask him to play the name game with me and see if he has contact or knows how to get into contact with someone from my past that I am pretty sure he knows from a property association he might have been involved with.
Is that cryptic and confusing enough?
Because I can make that even more confusing if you like……
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