White Lightning Axiom: Redux

Lately, I've been watching a show called Jericho. It's not my usual fare mind you, but since I managed to get in at the beginning, I'm stuck with it. A bit more realistic (for now) than Lost, but it's still a 'what if' type of drama. Now, back in the day when 'Duck-n-Cover' was a sure-fire way to foil them Damn Pinko Commies and their stolen atomic bombs, Fall-out shelters were the right thing to do for every respectable Suburban Middle-class family. You know, you have to tow the line and fight the good fight against the Rising Red Tide, you bet-cha. And then Regan had to go and scare the living bajeepers outta them poor Reds by telling them that we are ready and we will survive whatever you got. Ooooh, and throw in a DeathStar Orbital Platform just for kicks. Yep, that turned all those shelters into storage rooms. Well, except for the Mormons. And Where I lived for a bit in Utah, what they were doing made perfect sense. Have some water stored up for a goodly spell of need. A bit of food for you and your 36 children ... one wife though and boy was she pooped!

Well, it looks like the disappointment of Y2K has left us with a whole mess of supplies and it might not be such a bad thing to be prepared. Like a Boy Scout ... or a Michigan Militia member. Of course, there is some logic to this. Look at the folks who got knocked about by Katrina. They never really had to deal with that kind of disaster. The Florida folk go through that drill a couple times a year. Ever been to the MidWest during the annual Twister Festival? And now there is this. Even my Minnesota Brethren are in on the fad.

Last night at the Adult Confab we were talking about generators and emergency supplies, and talking to the other dads I learned something interesting. Not surprising, but interesting. No one is prepared for anything. I don’t consider myself well-prepared for Something, but I have some basic stuff, and keep my emergency kits stocked and refreshed. Today I considered erring on the side of paranoia, and buying some iodine tablets in case there’s some nuclear botheration. Chances I’d ever use it? Slight, I think. But if something happened, and I didn’t have a tablet to give my kid, and I could have bought the tablets for a double-sawbuck, I wouldn’t be happy with myself. So I went to Amazon to get some stuff.

Yes, it's time for me to come clean. I've got a good amount of water in the basement stacked upon the top of the wine racks (mostly empty wine racks). We have a LOAD of nonperishable canned and dried food in the root celler too. Heck, because of the nearby nuclear facility, we even haveNukePills for the kids .... but I'm not this paranoid yet. However ... shouldn't we really consider the more mundane natural disasters? Acts of God like, say ... flood, fire, wind, snow, earthquake. The times when you really cannot run out to the local corner store to horde milk, bread and toilet paper. Quick side trip here; ever notice it's cheaper to get a case of beer than a case of bottled water? Just something to remember. In any event, be you a fully capable survival freak or one of the segment of society who will need a hand, shouldn't we take this sort of thing a litle more serious? When was the last time you saw a Civil Defense arm-band? Just saying, you know.

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