I've lurked on this forum for along time. I have seen some good information. I am wanting to know, can you handle major changes in your lives? I was raised almost like it was in the 1800s so I know how to take care of myself. I am 48 years old a female. I can build a house,I can roof, I can raise a garden, fix most machines also computors, (don't trust them much),skin almost any animal for food etc... What I want to know will most of you be able to handle a big change in your life styles? I truely hope this coming year isn't as bad as I fear. To many have not kept the old ways. Down here in Alabama there are people who never forgets. Life was not bad, hard work yes, but full of song, We sang when we worked we sang for fun we sang!

-- ET (bneville@zebra.net), August 30, 1999

Answers

Yes, yes; but did you MUDWRESTLE?

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), August 30, 1999.

sure do real fun! You sould try it great relaxer and you seem to need it!

-- ET (bneville@zebra.net), August 30, 1999.

KoS -

Do you enjoy dwarf-throwing contests?

Just wondering...

-- Dwarf (with@big.one), August 30, 1999.

IFSHTF those living in the city will have a tough go due to panic, over population, disease, and no infrastructure. No one in the city or burbs have to live the "old ways," because everyone likes the comforts of running water, sewer, electricity, etc. The people who have a chance of making it are those who are armed, well stocked with food and supplies, and exercise self-control. It is good that you can do all those things, but what do you know about disease, burying the dead, and shooting someone in self-defense? I know people who live in the remotest parts of our county who have no concept nor understand the potential danger of Y2K. IMHO they are just as worse off as someone living in the city. They may know how to do all the things that you know how to do, but when it comes down to the brass tacks, we'll soon find out what we are made of.

-- Rasty (rasty@~~~~.com), August 31, 1999.

Please note that these are the people who will be surviving. A muddy gene pool full of singing dwarves. Naturally the the crazed rope woman shall referee.

ET: do you tie a good noose?

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), August 31, 1999.

rasy I Know about diseases,I Know how to bury the dead. And I don't want kill unless I have too. I need worker more, wound the sucker or at least try to heal them, then teach them what work is.

-- ET (bneville@zebra.net), August 31, 1999.

Are you people insinuating that ET is a product of the movie Deliverance?

-- #### (####@####.com), August 31, 1999.

I guess I missed that movie. What was it about?

-- ET (bneville@zebra.net), August 31, 1999.

Go rent it, do you have a VCR?

-- #### (####@###.com), August 31, 1999.

I do have a vcr but it doesn't get much use. Just cut to the chase. what is the main point of the movie? Can't rent the movie tonight anyway.

-- ET (bneville@zebra.net), August 31, 1999.

But King of Spain

have you ever mud wrestled in deep raw sewage? get ready! There's TONS of the stuff, just Waiting to be released.

-- Read Hamasaki (Posted @above.com), August 31, 1999.

Mud factoid:

There is a clay based mud in Arizona that actually makes a person cleaner after bathing in it--go figure.

-- CS Man (csm@smoke.com), August 31, 1999.

ET--deliverance, starring burt reynolds, is a movie about southern, backwoods men liking men and showing it in conspicuous ways. i think there is a lot of shouting and being brash, crying and whining...you men like to do that anyway don't you? :-)

-- tt (cuddluppy@ouch.com), August 31, 1999.

ROFLMAO!!!

Thanks tt that was a great way to start my morning!

-- Mabel Dodge (cynical@me.net), August 31, 1999.

tt and ET: The backwoods people in the movie Deliverance were all inbred, it was a strange movie, but the banjo music was good.

-- ##### (####@#####.com), August 31, 1999.

BA-DA-BING-BING-BING...

-- Sharon (sking@drought-ridden.com), September 01, 1999.

Can I live the old ways? Sure, I have already done so because hordes of Esquires and 'Your Honors' forced me to do so when I was a child:

"Thirty minutes after waking we descended the stairs. Two flights down we stopped at the neighbor's toilet hole for our ceremonial ablutions. The holes in this apartment house did not have covers. Dawn barely lit the unheated three-story high privy. I struggled to open my fly. My penis shrank into my newly-growing pubic hair as I probed and tugged it with icy fingers, to get it out from my wooly underwear, to get the proper aim on the hole. I thought I had it and let go. Pee splattered off the bench, warmed my fingers and soaked my pants. The paint on the bench was worn off at the front of the opening, just as the paint was polished off the window sill of our former prison.

When I finished soaking, I struggled to button my fly. I dried my hands and the bench as best as I could with newspaper, went out to let Little Brother take his turn. After he was done we continued down the stairs, ready to face the challenges of a new semester.

Outside it was getting light.

"Are my ears clean?" I asked the usual question whenever we went out in the mornings, knowing well that they were dirty because I could feel my dirt. I could feel it in my ears, I could feel it in my eyes, I could feel it in my soul.

"Ja," he said.

I pulled a handkerchief from my pocket. Stretched it over my little finger, wetted it with spit and stuck it into my left ear. Reamed out the wax and dead skin. Moved my finger to a cleaner spot and repeated this procedure several times until no more came out. Then I scooped out my right ear with a bare finger to get out the most of it. Wiped it off and finished the cleaning with my handkerchief.

I always worried how far away people could smell me and tried to keep some distance.

Can my goo be seen? It is swishing again, like distant waves. I can feel the waves.

"Come here. Do you smell anything?" I asked Little Brother.

I had asked him this question many times before.

"No, I can never smell anything. Why do you keep asking me?" I never believed him.

"But smell this."

Little Brother repulsed.

So he smells it. He knew it would stink and won't tell me. He also spit-cleaned his ears with a handkerchief decorated with crusty stuff. Everything in our lives was always crusty, musty, dusty, or rusty. We inspected each other to make certain we looked clean. It was important to look clean, we were upper crusty, we went to school with the elite.

"You have crud in your eyes," Little Brother told me. How uncouth he was, to tell me I had crud in my eyes. He had crud in his eyes too, in both eyes. After we wiped them with our crud cloths, life didnt look so cruddy anymore. I also enjoyed a refreshing spit shower. It wakes you up in the morning.

I resented the smell of spit. I resented it when Ma's nesting instinct got out of control and cleaned her brood with her spittle. She spit on the seam of her skirt and wiped us clean. How could she know which way the dirt would travel? Did it go from skirt to face, or vice versa? We were growing tall now and did not want her to do it, especially in public. But she always insisted on cleaning her brood, on smearing the dirt around, on making it transparent.

When Little Brother and I arrived at the train station, whistle clean, people were already crowding through the gate. No one ever stood in line and there was a mad push to get a seat. As I sat down on the bench I noticed that my fly was open. Why is this important gateway called a fly? I had buttoned it up, but these pants were worn out before I received them, probably because of this very defect. Ma did not sew; sewing was work and interfered with her brooding. I kept my satchel over my lap until I could find a safety pin in school to secure my gateway.

There must be someone who can give me some pants. Why cant the police make Pa give us pants?"

-- Not Again! (seenit@ww2.com), September 01, 1999.

ET,

Thanks for your post. Others are being flip but thats just the way this place is. Its nice to see someone post who actually is ready to live without a bunch of beeping machines. Wish I had your confidence. I won't mind living in a changed world but will need to learn lots of those skills as I go along. Am learning as much as I can now but you don't learn a whole lifetimes worth of skills in a few months. Am grateful I know a lot about herbs and have some knowledge of midwifery.

-- R (riversoma@aol.com), September 02, 1999.

Advice to couch potatoes: GET IN SHAPE. Some of the "old ways" require physical exertion, not to mention stamina.

-- Tim (pixmo@pixelquest.com), September 02, 1999.