“Winners always want the ball. . . when the game is on the line.” – The Replacements
Floors take on a lot of responsibility. It’s like everything falls to them.
There’s bad news:
No one is coming to save you.
But there’s good news:
No one is coming to save you.
Who will save us?
You will.
I think many people have this weird idea that other people are the answer. The last first aid course that I took before moving to Alaska ended up every scenario with, “and then you call 911.” To be fair, that’s a great idea in most places. I mean, unless you’re in a school.
The reason the murder rate has gone down over the last few decades isn’t because the idiots in Chicago have developed some sort of restraint in shooting each other. Nope. The medical folks are faster at getting those that were shot, and the docs are better at saving them.
The woman who helped The Mrs. deliver Pugsley quit. I guess she was having a midwife crisis.
But then I took a first aid class in Alaska.
Wow. Night and day. The content was much, much richer. The trainers went into much greater detail, and told us, “You’re not trained to do this. But if help isn’t coming, it might save a life.” The translation was simple. Phone coverage in Alaska sucks.
How bad was it? When we moved there, you couldn’t get a phone line, even if there was copper to your house. And cell service? The infrastructure consisted of what two bright schizophrenics that left the mainland United States could cobble together with the parts of a downed DC-3.
Everyone else was in the same boat. The message was clear.
“You’d better pay attention.”
The quiet part they didn’t say in class was: “because no one is coming to save you.”
When I woke up in the hospital, I told the doctor I couldn’t feel my legs. “That’s because we amputated your arms, maybe?”
When I ended up having to have my entire fingernail removed and the part under the nail stitched up because there was were two 55 gallon drums of salmon oil (I’m not making ANY of this up) on my property that I tried to open and the wedge slipped and pulled most of the nail off anyway, the doctor said, “Okay, this is going to hurt like hell for a few days. I’m going to prescribe you some (powerful painkiller). You probably won’t use them. Toss them in your backpack, so if you’re out moose hunting and break your leg, you might be able to limp out.”
Think that a doctor would say that in Nebraska?
He didn’t say the quiet part: “because no one is coming to save you.”
I prefer it that way. Really. Sure, I like Internet and electricity and cold beer and watching Trailer Park Boys. But I know the true answer.
When it goes bad?
No one is coming to save me.
Three friends were in the forest – the first said, “These are moose tracks.” The second said, “No, those are bear tracks.” The third was run over by a train.
That might sound depressing to some people, but not to me. I like me. And, I like my chances. To be fair, the person in this world I trust most in the world . . . is me. The next one is The Mrs. Third in line?
Maybe Sturm, Ruger, and Company? Yeah, they’ve always been straight shooters to me.
One of the lessons that I’ve walked away with in the last 20 years of my life is that:
- the police,
- the Constitution,
- the courts,
- the military,
- congress,
- and anyone sitting in the office of president
is not going to save me.
And they’re not coming to save you, either.
In one sense, it’s scary. I think that many people take the idea that someone, somewhere, is responsible for them. That’s simply not true for anyone over the age of, say, 14.
We are not passive actors in our lives. That idea is corrosive. We are in control.
That’s from an Edgar Allen Poem.
I think a lot of the idea that other people are responsible for us comes from the anonymity of large city life. To me, it’s odd – the more of us around, the less responsibility we feel, and the more we want to blame other people. Why? With so many people around, it brings anonymity. Anonymity makes it easy to avoid responsibility.
In Modern Mayberry? We know each other. We talk to each other. We are, in the end, responsible. I go to dinner, and the owner of the restaurant greets me, and (from time to time) brings a bottle by the table and pours each of us a shot.
Why?
Our lives are not anonymous. It’s a community. Are we responsible for ourselves? Certainly. But in a small town, we understand that we help each other. And he can go home and tell his wife he wasn’t really drinking on the job.
“Tequila or vodka?” That’s how I’d start a marriage counseling session.
Our nation is fundamentally broken. I’d say that someone in New York City doesn’t care about Modern Mayberry, sitting here in flyover country. But they do. Most of them can’t even understand it, but what they do understand they despise.
That’s okay. I’m not responsible for them. And I certainly don’t want them to be responsible for me.
Only you can save you. Only you can save your family. And that’s still the good news: “Winners always want the ball . . . when the game is on the line.”
The people in Washington D.C.? They won’t save us.
You will.
And that’s the good news. Your life. Your future. Your family. Your country. They’re in your hands.
Would you change that for anything?
I wouldn’t. I like it when the ball is in my hands.
I wouldn’t change a thing.
Funny, I had to get some stitches a few weeks ago and a friend with chronic major pain basically forced some (powerful painkiller) on me and told me to put what I didn’t use (all of it) in my hunting gear in case we ever ran into trouble and he needed it to get home.
I can’t even imagine living a life like my parents – confident in the status quo, knowing things will just keep getting better if we all work hard, trusting the system, living the dream. I feel like that guy in Jurassic Park with nothing left but to eat the ice cream before it melts.
Ha! Yup. That’s exactly the case. We even got nuclear war back on the table!
Of course the people in DC and NYfC won’t save us. They’re the source of most of the problems.
Exactly what I was thinking!
Well said, and if it weren’t so late, that would be a great meme.
What’s scary about that attitude is that it is so uncommon. MOST people look for other people (preferably with shiny badges or official titles) to tell them what to do.
The absolute BEST moment in my life was when I was on my own – I had to get and keep a job to stay alive, I had to pay for the roof over my head, food in my belly, and any other things I wanted. I was able to go back home, if necessary (an option I took several times before deciding the comfort wasn’t worth it), but otherwise, my dumbass mistakes were MINE.
I never fell into that idea that my school years were “the best years of my life”. I knew better – those were years when OTHER people made my decisions for me. I liked the responsibility for my own existence.
And, I lived in Cleveland, OH – not Alaska. A relatively safe place. I never understood those that failed to take advantage of learning to manage their own lives in such an easy to learn place. The experience taught me to manage money (too bad that my husband’s idea, for many years, was to use credit to ease the pain). Fortunately, we were in Amway for a few years, and my husband had exposure to some people with better money management skills than he. As a result, he became a firm believer in paying as he went. It’s made our retirement possible, in some comfort.
I hate to think about my grandchildren’s future, as they have everything they could need or want, without having to go out and earn it themselves. It’s not that they are bad people, just not personally tough. And, these days, they will need to learn how to scrape a living in a tough economy.
I lived in Cleveland, ohio until a year ago when the police were defunded & the murder rate went up 300%, gang bangers were driving down S Belvoir & audible magazine pops were heard; & this was near John Carroll U !!!
Personal responsibility is freedom, and it feels great, as you note. They haven’t had it in Washington for years.
John – Once again, we have shared some weird psychic link. I was thinking a similar sort thing myself this morning (I actually wrote on this some years ago as well).
One of the interesting changes in tone over the last 6 months is the current message of “unity”. Last year the message was “us” and “them” (because somehow that was a thing), but this has changed, because underlying this seems to be a sense that there are deep divisions – there are, of course, but some people are much slower about these things than rest of us. Subconsciously, Our Political And Social Betters (OPASB) understand that the disunity has reached the place where it seriously impacts the ability of the state to function.
“You are on your own” is a message that the modern world does not speak of or advertise – in fact, it often seems actively discouraged. We “need” each other for reasons that are never clearly defined, just vaguely waved at.
Like you, over the years I have come to understand that no one is coming. Which, as you say, is remarkably freeing when it is realized.
The first step in adulthood should be the combination of liberty and responsibility. Without both, a person isn’t complete.
Sir,
It is an amazing thing…. here, at the end of everything we know, watching the things we love and count upon fail us one by one, in final recognition of the extent to which control of our lives has been by degrees usurped, at last it becomes clear, even unto the masses of the insensate, that our destinies are now, and have always been, solely in our hands.
This is as it should be.
Hard times ahead, at a moment when most people are least able to make these kinds of decisions and prioritise their resources, because they are no longer encouraged or trained to do so…. common sense being beaten out of the children earlier and earlier….
Still, what a time to be alive. This was always what we wanted, to witness that which we always knew would eventually come to our door.
We shall enjoy the normal, for as long as it lasts.
We shall take pleasure in the simple and the effortless, while we are their beneficiaries.
We shall treasure the minute moments with our children, while they remain untouched and innocent.
God Bless America.
Amen! And I’m glad that we have the ball in our hands.
It is Sturm and Ruger, not Strum and Ruger, unless they started making mandolins.
Hahaha! Updated. I usually own up to my errors, but I’m gonna blame Word autocorrect (and maybe a beer) on that one. I even looked it up to make sure I got the name right
tbh if Ruger made mandolins I would probably buy one
The Pre 1996 Mandolin 14. Needs a lot of tuning before it hits the note
Hahahaha!!! Ditto. Around my house . . . so . . . many . . . Rugers.
Damn you’re on target today, John.
One thing we cannot get more of is time. It takes about 100 days from planting to harvest for potatoes and beans.
Reality it’s like that. Get busy friends. Currently you can buy at Walmart an 8-pound bag of dry pintos for about 6 dollars, or about a drive through snack at Mc Dees or some burnt coffee at Starstruck.
That’s about at least in my garden a good sized patch of beans growing for the summer and fighting the weeds, bugs and rodents over them. I still plant them, it’s like hunting over bait for woodchucks, rabbits and maybe (ahem) deer.
An 8 pound bag of pinto beans = 20.25 cups of belly filling cooked beans with almost 5 K of calories and 830 grains protein. As US RDA of protein is around 80 grams that’s pretty good. PLUS you can plant those beans for more beans, I do it every year.
I’ll leave the math for a WM white rice 20 pound bag @ about 6 dollars to you.
Tempus Fugit
Right now it’s cheaper to buy the calories. In six months? In a year? And it’s easier to get the gardening skills now, rather than wait when they become required.
JOHN – – YOU SAID: “I think a lot of the idea that other people are responsible for us comes from the anonymity of large city life. To me, it’s odd – the more of us around, the less responsibility we feel, and the more we want to blame other people. Why? With so many people around, it brings anonymity. Anonymity makes it easy to avoid responsibility.”
This is pure genius.
Absolute truth distilled !!
Thank you! Personal observations over the years.
they’re not coming to save you
Didn’t Barack Biden make it perfectly clear that he doesn’t work for us? If I am not mistaken, that was the last coherent thought he ever expressed, even sh!tting his pants for emphasis.
Like Biden’s soiled Depends, this fraudulent regime ain’t gonna change itself. It’s not clear yet if the system isn’t so broken that legitimate elections are still possible (we will know a lot more come November). It is curious (and frustrating) just how much squishy-soft legacy Americans are willing to take, but there has to be a line somewhere. History is screaming at us today, warning us about boxcars, breadlines and the inherent danger of incremental infringements of our rights. Are enough people listening?
I sure hope we are approaching our We’re-mad-as-hell-and-not-gonna-take-it-anymore moment, but who will be the first to wager all for the team?
Your posts are always fodder for deep thought, JW. I will now lose the rest of this day pondering how for the love of phuck one might break a leg hunting moose.
I have it on good authority you can break your leg doing just about anything.
Well, I didn’t. But, the doc seemed to have seen a case or two – noting that deadfall can get tricky . . .
Too many people continue to look for a political solution. They need to remember the following axiom, which I just made up, although it has probably been expressed by someone else: “There is no problem large enough that Team D cannot make worse; there is no problem small enough that Team R cannot fail to solve.”
Very, very well said. What got us here, won’t get us out.
Breaking out of the mind poison of muh democracy is step one.
It is the end of the line for that steaming pile of egalitarian horseshit.
The comrades are full of arrogance and hubris but never listen to Ape Lincoln about not being able to full all of the people all of the time.
Ronnie Raygun (Grand Old Politburo-Uniparty) was right about “I’m from the government and here to help you” being the nine most terrifying words in the English language.
Leave the soft weak drooling dullard copsuckers and muh authoritay boot lickers to rot in their lame ass hopes of being eaten last.
Regarding the replacements Das Radio reported a potential 15,000 strong caravan coming and Lil’ Georgie Sorrows is buying up Spanish language radio stations.
Habla come to El Norte for the free milk and honey before November?
Also Das Heimat Schutze (DHS) and the fabulous simply divine Zelensky Dance Troupe comrade commissar Mayorakas warns of a “mass casualty” event following the Roe v Wade kabuki.
Plan accordingly, discipline at all times, recon and intel local all day everyday.
The Caravan is getting bigger, and bigger. Wouldn’t take much to stop it.