TAPPAN ON SURVIVAL by Mel Tappan.
Contents:
1. Why Prepare?
2. Survival Checklist
3. Retreating
4. Food Storage
5. Weapons
6. Communications
7. Miscellaneous
8. Survival Library
First he'd be SHOCKED we made it as a going concern of a country up til 2008. He was sure, like so many others, that the End Was Nigh in 1979. Set for bankruptcy and economic collapse. If you went back in time and told him gas would be less than $5 a gallon in June 2008 he'd say 2 things. "You STILL aren't on the metric system? I knew Carter was full of it!" and, "LESS than $5?!!!!"
And he was talking out his butt on other things, too.
He is worried about nuclear powerplants 'detonating'. He is worried about attacks from soldiers with flamethrowers, when, by the late 70s, there were no flamethrowers around outside of Hollywood.
But MBtGE has some advice:
Tappen was wrong on many fronts. He had good ideas on some other fronts.
Harvest the goodness...
Ok.
Well his gun selection criteria is a summary from a previous book and it seems old hat. I knew all that. Right, I KNEW that because everyone since the 70's has cribbed from Tappan. Most articles cite him, and you absorb the 30 year old advice like osmosis. So that is good stuff, just not new. Even if it is the original wellspring. He like .308 military rifles and the .45 auto. He likes revolvers and lighter carbines for general light duty. I'm on that frequency.
He recommends only 10 acres for a survival property, and that that is enough to feed a family. Hmm. I didn't know it could be that small. Now I am interested in checking out Homestead properties, again... I'd love something in West Virginia in the Potomac valley, perhaps.
He recommends a small rural town for the support a community provides. Less than 5000 population as more is hard to manage order internally, and more than 2000 to have a proper density to have a wide variety of skills. I don't know how valid this is today, with the 'shrinking' of the planet, but I'm sure the same sort of place are out there, if fewer in number than 40 or 50 years ago.
He recommends a small working pistol or ranch rifle to carry around while you do daily chores on your property growing food and such, as that's when you animals pop up for the pot. And that "going hunting" when there are chores to do may be a waste of valuable time. I don't know about that. A few days in a blind that bags an elk can feed your family for half a year, perhaps. Still. He has a point. And if you are out hunting, who is driving off coyotes and crows, back home, and chopping wood for fuel?
A library is important. For information and also for entertainment.
So how did he die?
ReplyDeleteNot sure. Either zombies or congestive heart failure
ReplyDeleteSharon Astyk gives one glimpse of what some see as the aftermath of 'peak oil', about 2012.
ReplyDeletehttp://sharonastyk.com/2008/06/26/is-electricity-really-the-lifeblood-of-civilization/
She mentions that without electricity (which will likely be priced out of reach of the average family) diet will include less refrigeration, and more cheese and sausage.
One might begin to plan on how to process an elk before spoilage sets in. In Jean Auel's book Clan of the Cave Bear, and again in her Valley of Horses, such preparation can be done. But a small community of helpers (or convincing several women they will survive better with you than on their own or with another) may be needed for mutual support and communal hunts and other tasks.
And maybe take up the rawhide sling, too.
Peak Oil theory leaves me cold. Just as it did in other books I read from the 1970s. Ones that told me we'd be out of the last morsel of coal in the world by 1995. Just like Catatrophic Anthropogenic Greenhouse Warming stuff from 1995 promised we'd average 130 degree temperatures in July by 2008.
ReplyDeleteBut the comments on that link are HIGH-larious! Thanks.