“Wait till she finds out you’re 4’6 and peddle a Schwinn.” – Home Improvement
I had a boss once who could have worked for FEMA – he showed up late, and wasn’t any help when he finally arrived.
There I sat, in the middle of the highway, on my right side. The back wheel of my single-speed bicycle had locked up as I had turned around to make my way back home. I hadn’t been going that fast, since I was turning, so I wasn’t hurt at all.
Okay. Get up, right?
I tried that, but my right leg was locked to the bike, under the bike, with my left leg holding the whole mess down. It wouldn’t budge.
I looked down. The reason my foot was locked to the bike is that I was wearing jeans – hand-me-downs from my brother where the cuff was so long it had dragged on the ground. That ragged cuff on the inside of my leg was stuck between the sprocket, the chain, and the chain guard.
On a 10-speed, that wouldn’t have been a problem. Just rotate the pedal backward until the jeans got loose. Not on my blue Schwinn® Stingray™. Turning the pedal backward just engaged the coaster brake – then it locked up like it was welded in place.
I looked around and assessed my situation. It was getting dark – that’s why I had turned around to go home. I was lying in blue jeans and a gray shirt on an asphalt road. Oh, yeah, it was on a banked corner. The cars coming from the east wouldn’t see me until they were right on top of me.
Then the obvious thought flashed in my mind: “I could die, right here, right now.”
My bicycle couldn’t stand on its own. It was too tired.
——-
When I was a kid, we lived at the edge of the forest. The nearest kid to me was at least 10 miles away. If I had started in the forest, I could have gone (in one direction) 45 miles before I would have seen the next paved road.
It was remote. Oh, sure, there was a movie theater pretty close – only a fifty minute drive away. And there was a supermarket not 15 miles away.
I think that growing up there really influenced the way I look at life. First, I had to become comfortable with my own company. Thankfully, there were monthly trips to the bookstore, and when I was in school the library had a great selection of thirty-year-old paperbacks that I could check out.
I learned to make models, to go hiking by myself, and make my own fun.
I once went to a car show in Mexico, but it was only for Fords®. They called it the Ford Fiesta™.
Growing up in a place like that, one thing is certain – not only were you in charge of making your own fun, you were in charge of keeping yourself alive. When I went hiking, even though I never went too far, all it takes is one rattlesnake to ruin your day. They say the rattlesnakes where we lived were fast and could move at 75 miles per hour, but I never saw one driving.
Every trip we took into the forest was on us. In the summer when we went to get firewood, we’d only be 10 or 15 miles into the forest. That wasn’t so bad. If the truck broke down, we could hoof it out and be home before Ted Cruz could make it back from Cancun.
I had a girlfriend that got tired of my astrology puns. It Taurus apart.
In the winter when we went hunting, that was another story. Pa Wilder packed survival gear, food, and extra warm clothing. With what we had, we could have survived, but it certainly wouldn’t have been comfortable – sleeping in cold weather would have been in-tents.
The vehicle itself was four wheel drive – with a winch. One cold November we got not one, but three flat tires. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to drive a car with multiple flat tires up a snow-covered mountain trail road, but it’s not something that generally works.
It does, however, work when you take a winch cable from tree to tree, pulling the car up as you drive it up.
It worked. I think I was 12 or so when this happened. It made an impression. There was no one there to help us. If we didn’t get out, our lives were at stake.
It was on us.
And that was the primary theme that we had, living at the edge of the forest, at the edge of civilization. If we didn’t save ourselves, no one else would. That’s why we had the fireplace, wood stove, and all of that sweet, sweet firewood: no loss of a generation plant hundreds of miles away would stop us from being warm. Water? We only had a supply for a few days, but the river was only a half a mile or so away. In the summer, a pleasant walk. In the winter? Well, there was plenty of snow.
“I’m, I’m not a cat, your honor.”
Life was always about survival. Life was about always having a Plan B. Our pantry was stocked, our freezer was full, and Pa Wilder had enough powder and primers to last a lifetime. Sometimes we lost our power for a night, but we never had to worry – we had candles, and we had enough firewood to last until Hillary Clinton grew a conscience.
Sure, we expected the light switch to work when we flipped it – we weren’t in Venezuela. But we had a backup plan, and that backup plan didn’t require government at any level to help us. It couldn’t, and if it tried, being so remote, we’d be among the last people it would try to save.
Time and again, I’ve been proven right. Outside of snowplows and preventing the Soviets from invading, the government really hasn’t been much help during any emergency I’ve been a part of. Private companies (like power companies) have done far more to help.
Lenin put “?” behind traitors – and would ask himself, “Did they question Marx?”
The attitude of preparation and self-reliance has driven me towards the Right. I don’t want every service that government can give me if it means that government controls everything. No matter what pretty picture is painted, the end result is the same. Wal-Mart® is better at feeding people in disaster areas than FEMA ever will be.
Thankfully, ordinary citizens are even better than Wal-Mart™ at disaster recovery. Preparing for a disaster beforehand is generally not that expensive, but if you wait until the disaster is unfolding, it might not even be possible.
The biggest lie a government tells you is that it will take care of you if disaster strikes. Governments can’t – they’ve proven that time and time again.
———-
As I was lying against the cold asphalt in the dimming light, I knew no one was coming to help me. I pulled my leg as hard as I could. I heard my jeans rip. My leg was free! I got up, and carried my bike to the side of the road.
What do you call a bike tire repairman? A spokesman.
About two minutes later, a car passed me as I pedaled homeward. Had I been sitting in the middle of the road, could he have stopped?
I don’t know. But I do know that if I had waited to depend on him seeing me, the answer wasn’t mine – it was his. By taking action, I made that possibility disappear. And I got home before Ma Wilder missed me.
The best person to save me, was me. The best person to save you, is you. Act early and prepare.
This is true at every level. Where we live, if I call 911 it will be at least 10 minutes before the cops show up. A lot can happen in ten minutes if someone breaks into your house and none of it is good. The cops will show up in time to make a report and that is about it. Trying to get permission from a local zoning board to start a small, unobtrusive business? That can take months and perhaps forever if they don’t feel like giving you permission. The bigger government gets, the less responsive and the more likely that intervention will make things worse rather than better.
“Ask first, miss out.”
At least six, here for cops. No zoning here, as far as I can tell. Some of the shacks are held together by the mice holding fast to the asbestos.
Daisy has some good advice along this line…
https://www.theorganicprepper.com/how-youll-die-shtf/
https://www.theorganicprepper.com/12-bad-strategies-that-will-get-preppers-killed/
Plus….you had a Stingray? You lucky dog. My next door neighbor had one and I was so envious. I had a Tornado. “Lowest price, Schwinn quality”.
https://bikehistory.org/catalogs/1960.html
The way my bike got a cool handlebar look was when I left it on the ground behind our car and my mom backed over it, twisting the handlebar on the right hand side. From then on I would drive down the road with my left hand where it would normally be and my right hand close to the crossbar. I couldn’t make sharp right turns anymore.
When I was in high school I earned money picking peaches one summer and blew most of it on a three-speed Schwinn with thin tires. I went down more than once hitting patches of gravel on our rural roads. A few scraped knees but luckily never a head strike on my unhelmeted head. The only problem with that bike riding it home from school was that it had a tendency to stop at my girlfriend’s house – a far greater danger than a patch of gravel ever could be.
I did have a Stingray! It was a hand-me-down, and well loved by the time I got it, but I ran that thing everywhere until I was in 7th grade. I could make the back tire peel out (on gravel), too.
Yep, sacrificed many a bell-bottomed cuff to the evil chain/sprocket industrial complex in my youth. They sold rubbery straps for pants cuffs back then to ameliorate the chronic issue. But wearing one was akin to self-affixing a “Kick me, I’m a dork!” sign on one’s back at a bully convention. Far better to suffer a header onto the pavement, especially if you learned how to fall “cool”.
Green stingray with sparkly banana seat and sweet sissy bar was my ride back in the day. I popped so many sustained wheelies it might as well have been a unicycle. The single front handbrake got little to no use, therefore.
Not gonna put any value judgments on it, but having learned to skid (deliberately) on dirt, snow and gravel without wiping out makes me a far better adverse-weather driver today than my wife, for one example. I don’t think that today’s youth can imagine the thrill of careening down steep hills on two wheels, sans helmet, not just spitting in the devil’s eye, but mooning its mother. In church. On Sunday. Host in hand.
At twilight. So you don’t see the chain link fence stretched across that section of the hill…
Good times.
Helmets? We don’t need no steenking helmets.
We’re the Federation.
Years ago, I called the sheriff to tell them of a group of people trespassing on the neighbor’s land, hunting in the middle of the night, and obviously drunk. They didn’t have a deputy available, but would notify the game warden.
After thirty minutes, I called again to check their status. Still nobody available. Since they weren’t on my land, I wasn’t worried about them as possible home invaders, but was concerned about them shooting the house.
After an hour, I heard them off at the neighbor’s drive, their truck start, and they left. I called the sheriff to notify them they didn’t need to worry any longer, since the trespassing hunters left.
It was a good lesson to learn. I thought of all the possibilities during the event, while I sat in the darkened house with my 12 gauge loaded with buckshot. I was ready, if they were intending bad things, but I didn’t like the fact a siege was my only option, and that would have ended, if help never arrived. Still, I would have taken a few with me, but knew in the back of my mind my wife at the time would have been helpless.
Yes – there’s a feeling you get when you’ve suddenly got far more than you were expecting. It can be quite sobering.
John – – Here are some famous truths about surviving during the coming BAD TIMES:
1. Nobody is coming to save you.
2. Everything is your responsibility.
3. Save those who need to be saved.
4. Kill those who need to be killed.
5. Always be working.
Believe these are known as “Graham Shooting House Rules”…….
Seems to me that your story touches on two, possibly three of these points.
Oh, and “nice” photo of the Missus ( you lucky dog…) on your old Ruskie car at your former homestead in Alaska.
Did you drive it from Vladivostok over the ice bridge one winter?
Da! The Mrs. is stronk woman – last baby come out sideway.
My first thought about how to handle that trapped pair of pants would have been to slide out of them, and work on getting the pants free at the side of the road.
Embarrassing, but effective.
Linda – I thought the same thing but it would only have been embarrassing if someone had seen ya! Never had to worry about it since I never had a bike, much less a Stingray…………….
My thought, based on experience, is to crawl, equipment dragging, off the road. Then fish out your pocket knife.
I did have the good fortune that the tear was there. Plus, you know, adrenaline.
Great post John. We must be soul-bros.
Thank you! Schwinn for the win?
a)
I think ‘disaster planning beforehand’ is better than just regular old disaster planning.
b)
I like Rooskie models because they are sturdy to carry load.
c)
The bumblebrats at Federal Emergency Management Administration have one job:
* managing and administering federal emergencies.
(Ha! Just kidding!
Their job is managing and administering their ‘career’ advancement through promotions while ignoring anything to do with TheLittlePeople.
If any of TheLittlePeople are assisted in any way by FEMA, I can imagine those bumblebrats suddenly sitting, mystified.)
a) Yup. And it makes the disasters a LOT more boring.
b) And low to the ground, so hard to tip over.
c) Well, they are Federal.
Chance favours the prepared mind….
With great respect sir, I would suggest that the first thing to have is a proper mindset. Attitude is everything, and in the case of your bicycle adventure, your ability to appreciate the situation led you to a solution within a timeframe that seemed reasonable.
In terms of preparedness, we have played ‘what-if’ games, learned the lay of whatever land we lived on to better understand the routes in and out, and maintained a deep larder etc etc for so long that, now that we are in a situation where those things are looking like better and better investments, it’s almost difficult to believe it.
It’s interesting that the things one prepares for are seem to be the things one is least likely to be beset by, because one is ready for them. I suspect this is because one deliberately arranges things such that those circumstances never arise; ‘situation avoidance’ is rule number one. Odd, that.
I don’t mean to ramble, but the notion of being ready for various levels of misfortune and discomfort is really gaining traction of late, and it is very strange to observe this after spending so many years thusly engaged. On the plus side, very few people know where we are, so past ‘friends’ can’t invite themselves over (as they used to threaten).
I really enjoy your blog, sir. Always something to consider.
Best to you & yours.
Mike, thank you so much!
Yeah, that might have been the second time in my life that I sensed death far too close. The first was in a high jump pit in kindergarten when I nearly passed out (suffocated) under the pit. For some reason we thought it was fun.
Yup – I have one person that has a Plan B to show up here. The first things I asked them: Do you have enough food to feed your family for a month? Do you have a pistol? Ammo?
Now those answers are all “yes” – so they have a much better chance.
Thank you! Best to your and yours, as well!
That Russian model is one good-looking Lada
Quite a bumper.
and we had enough firewood to last until Hillary Clinton grew a conscience.
Okay. Okay. I believe that your parents named both their sons John. I was willing to swallow that you are some kind of Kingpin of Pez, Mr. Wilder.
But nobody has that much firewood.
~ Codex
Seriously – we had a LOT of firewood. But you’re right. Not that much.
Being independent was Dad’s big lesson for me. He could do just about anything from building a house, plumbing, electrical, to heating it. He built and installed a hot water heating system in our wood stove that pumped hot water to baseboard heaters in every room. It was awesome!
I’m not sure the lesson got me as far as it got him, however. I’m so bad at plumbing I could probably make a bag of rice leak. At least I know my limitations. Luckily I married a woman who fills a lot of the gaps in my abilities. I can, however, do basic electrical and construction, so I’m not a total waste of space.
The other big lesson I learned came to me from my first really good boss: “Don’t be a victim!”
Both of these lessons have served me well so far.
Yup – if you’re not a victim, you’ve solved 99% of your problems right then and there.
A folding pocket knife was often carried in pants pocket for such predicaments as a trapped hem. A stern talking to from Ma, but you got over that.
Then again, pocket knives are considered verboeten in many localities. Even a SAK. I stay away from areas like that.
I’m certain I had a knife – I got a Buck folding knife that I carried everywhere for Christmas when I was in second grade. That was not really on my mind 🙂
Was that the bike you sold me?
Yup.
The pedals in the shin bike wipeout is the worst besides the endo (over handlebars) faceplant.
Once I crawled home with a dislocated hip from rough playground time and I’m not even from the tough generation, just lucky to have a chip off of their block. If you have a fat tire midsection then get a fat tire bike to get rid of it and roll over stumps and boulders like they are not even there.
The CPUSA can see that the long march of dumbing down is complete which is why they are going for the fundamental transformation into the Zimbabwe/Venezuela/Cuba Wakanda utopia.
Self-Reliance is something only those deplorable kulak untermenschen scum are into as mommygov loves you and will keep you safe, comrade.
The participation trophy generation considers it a right to never be disagreed with and they will build the Tower of Babel 2.0 utopia whether we like it or not.
They are enlightened beings that learned how to work a twitter tweet and iGadget (hecho en China) just a few years after puberty.
History books don’t offer anything to learn as history began with their birth.
The future looks so bright and we are going to need some radiation proof protective goggles as our external enemies can smell the weakness in the water like sharks.
Physical training time, prepare in every way that you can for the great leap forward redux. Carry on.
Most of my wipeouts were ditching it to the side. Just a scuffed knee and gravel in the palm.
Prepare now. If nothing happens? You’r prepared and in better shape.
Something *always* happens.
The soviet car is a ZAZ-968 (Ukrain), at first i thought it was a trabant. As we use to say here: useless culture..
Better translation: useless knowledge
I love it! Pugsley tried to convince my to buy a Trabant once. It didn’t go well for him.