"Bob, don't you dare stop talking now. You have some explaining to do." Maria said. "For example, why are you afraid of technology?"

Bob smiled. "I'm not afraid of it. I just refuse to depend on it. I liked the idea of being able to warm up an evening snack in the microwave. I liked the way I could take my truck to the mechanic and he would hook it up to a analyzer and figure out what was wrong in just minutes. With the prices they charged by the hour, I thought that little analyzer was great. But I learned early in life technology always seems to fail at the worst time. We lived in Florida for awhile when I was a kid. One year we got hit with a pretty bad hurricane. Category four, at least. I thought the wind and rain would never stop. The storm did pass during the night, of course, and in the morning wreck and ruin were everywhere. We had two inches of water inside the house even though there were no holes anywhere in the roof or walls. The wind was so strong that the rain literally was blown through the walls.

At any rate, there was no power. The storm had taken down miles worth of power lines, which took over a week to repair well enough get power back for our neighborhood alone. I remember my father wasn't going to start working on the clean up after the storm without his morning coffee. So he pulled out a small barbeque, started a fire, and put on the coffee pot. A little while later, he was standing in the carport with his coffee, and when he looked up, the guy from across the street was wading though the ditch with an empty cup in his hand. Like so many others, he wasn't ready when the technology failed.

All of that made an impression on me. So I've always tried to be ready for everything I can. Truthfully, I think those were just the first steps on that rocky road I was talking about. But it prepared me for this time. Back home, we had an alarm system in the house, but after Nancy died and the power became so unreliable, I had to come up with other means to protect my home. But it had to be something that didn't require electricity."

Suddenly, there was a loud metallic snapping sound that came from outside the back of the store. It was followed by a yelp, and then howling. Bob jumped to his feet, and first grabbed one of the few working flashlights that he had in his truck when the E.M.P. bombs had gone off. He also grabbed a shotgun and headed for the back door. The howling continued as he ran, but was cut short by a pistol shot, that was just slightly ahead of the blast of a shotgun. Bob skidded to a stop just inside the door and called out.

"Alex! Was that you? Are you two alright?"

"Yeah Dad. We're fine. But this dog isn't going anywhere."

"Hold your fire. I'm coming out."

"O.K. But there's a big mess at the bottom of the stair. Be careful, I think he's dead but it's hard to tell in the dark."

Bob opened the door and moved into the darkness, with the beam of the flashlight stabbing out into the night. As Alex had said, there was indeed a dog at the bottom of the stair. A large one, and it was certainly dead. From what little he could see, the animal had been hit in the chest by the shotgun. Bob knew the reason for the howling. One of it's forelegs had gotten caught in a steel trap that had snapped shut on it. Rather than investigate further in the dark, with possibly more dogs wandering around, Bob urged everyone back into the store, including Alex and Michelle.

Kathy had remained inside with the children, and Bob was pleased to see her put down a handgun as everyone reentered the building.

"What happened out there?" She asked.

"A low tech alarm system I set up was found by one of those wild dogs." He turned to his son. "What happened with you two? Was it after you?"

"I don't think so. I was teaching Mike about navigating by the stars. You know, showing her constellations and stuff, when we heard the trap snap closed. I think the dog was coming towards us, but I don't think it had any more of an idea that we were out there than we knew about him. We saw him as we came around the corner. I snapped a shot with the pistol, but I think Mike is the one who got him."

"I don't know about your shot, but there's no doubt that Michelle hit him." Bob turned to her with a simple, "Thank you. And nice shooting by the way. Especially in the dark like that."

"I got lucky. He was a big dog."

"I don't believe that for a minute." Bob said as he leaned his shotgun against the wall, and returned the flashlight to the table where he had picked it up. Looking over at Maria he took up the conversation as if nothing had happened.

"You see? This is the kind of thing I was talking about. There is a motion detector and flood lights just above the back door of this place. But with no power, it's useless. So I set up my own 'warning system', so to speak. One that works all by itself, and it did the job."

"I'm beginning to see what you're talking about." Maria said. "But what was that bit about survival camping trips? How did you know you'd be able to find anything to eat if the fish weren't biting?"

"It's like Alex already said. You would be surprised at the number of editable plants there are."

"You can't be walking around with an encyclopedia of editable plants in your head."

Bob chuckled at the statement before answering.

"There are a couple of things I learned a long time ago that take care of that problem. Generally speaking, if an animal can eat it, so can we. Not everything, but most things. For example, I've seen certain types of wild pigs eat cactus, thorns and all. I wouldn't want to try that.

As far as animals go, I learned long ago that if it bleeds red, you can eat it. Remember me mentioning the guitar strings I carry? They can be used to make different types of snares. Once that wire digs into the leg of an animal, as long as it is well anchored, that animal will be there when you come back. For smaller animals, like rabbits, you can make them into a sort of noose. You bend down a branch, or sapling, attach the noose and make it so that when the rabbit hits the trigger the branch will 'twitch' upwards, tightening the noose around the neck of the rabbit. The trigger is made by using a stick pushed into the ground with a notch carved into it, and another notched stick attached to the branch or sapling. It takes a little practice to make a 'twitch up' snare, as I call them, but it's worth it. It kept Alex alive when we first had to leave home."

"Doesn't trapping depend a lot on luck?"

"Well you have to place them on trails, or in places where animals go for water to improve your odds. But in a really bad situation, I mean no firearms of any kind, I'd improve my odds a little more by making an atlatl."

"What's that?" Sam wanted to know.

"Think of it as a stick used for throwing small spears. You take a stick, about a foot long, flatten it on one side and carve a groove in it from one end almost to the other. Then you make a small spear, say about three to four feet long, from another piece of wood. The length depends on what the person using it can accurately use. Lay it in the groove, and throw it at your target. Indians in North and South America were using that long before Columbus showed up, for both hunting and war."

It was Tim who spoke up next.

"Bob what about your knife? I mean with all this carving you're talking about it doesn't seem to me that its' going to keep an edge for very long."

"I just follow the example of the people that originally made the atlatl. Their knives were either stone, flint, or maybe volcanic obsidian glass. So they would often use nothing more than the sharp edge of a rock to do it. If it worked for them, it should work for me. Also, once you've used the rock to sharpen your spear, you use a fire to harden the end of it by just scorching it."

"I can't believe they would use something like that for war. I mean How much damage could it do, and what kind of range could you get with something like that?" Tim asked.

"It depends on how strong the person throwing the spear is, of course, but I've seen demonstrations of it where a man throwing one for the first time hit a full sized deer target. He hit it in the heart area at about twenty yards, and it penetrated several inches into the target, which is harder than flesh and bone.

It all comes back to what I've said for years. Our ancestors weren't the thick skulled, knuckle draggers that movies, T.V. and even some so called scientists make them out to be. They came up with answers to problems they faced, with zero technology and absolutely no previous examples to follow. Like the atlatl. It predates even the bow and arrow."

Tom had the next question.

"Wouldn't you have a better chance with a bow and arrow?"

"Yes, you would. But the atlatl is easier to make, and that is important. If you want to make a bow and arrow, one of the first problems you are going to have is what do you use for a bowstring? Things like vines will work on a short term basis, but only a very short term. Maybe three or four shots, and no more than a few days before it dries out, and has to be replaced. Our ancestors found that by using things like the tendons in the leg of an animal, or their intestines, the strings would last much longer."

"Intestines? Oh gross." Tom exclaimed.

Bob laughed before continuing.

"It gets worse. Tell me, do you like sausage?"

"Like it? Bob he'd have it three meals a day if he could." Kathy said.

"I see. Tom, do you know that skin that is on the outside of sausage?"

He nodded.

"Do you know that for pork sausage it is usually made from pig intestines, and cow intestines for beef sausage?"

Tom paled a little and said,

"I think I just gave up eating any sausage."

Bob laughed and went on. "But how do you get the tendons or intestines, without a bow? Enter the atlatl. The next problem will be fletching your arrows." Bob saw the questioning look of the faces of Tom and Sam. "The fletching is the feathers that they put on arrows to make them fly straighter. Those feathers could be tied with tendons or very thin strips on intestine. Another way I've read about but never had the chance to try is to use certain parts of fish. You dry them, and then render them down in a pot to make a very bad smelling, but very strong glue like substance to attach them to the shaft of the arrow. You can also do the same for the atlatl shafts."

"Bob, tell me something. If you depend on things that aren't high tech, what do you think we should do about the loss of vehicular transportation?" Tim asked.

Bob turned his head to yawn.

"Excuse me. I'm sorry about that. It's getting kind of late for an old man like me. I'm not at my sharpest right now. Maybe we should continue this discussion tomorrow."

Maria looked at Bob. "Old man? Somehow I get the feeling you're doing that misdirection thing again."

Kathy smiled as she looked at Maria. "From what I know about Bob, count on it."


BW, Vietnam Vet

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If you missed the beginning of this exciting series, it started with Overthrown – Death of America. You can catch up on all of the previous installments here.