A lonewolf or in a wolf pack?

ROTFLMAO Let me tell you my friend, the difference between city folk and country folk seems to be universal. Where I live everything is 15 to 40 miles away. My wife drove 40 miles to work for 8 years until she retired. Now she drives 60 miles one way and works on day a week for spending money. At one time I drove 85 miles a day to work. Why would we want to do this? Well for one thing Texas is a huge place and we all drive a lot to go anywhere so it doesn't bother us but the real reason is we are not city people. I love the quieter country life. Maybe we don't have police but then again we don't have gangs either. I honestly do not even know where a key to my house is. I never lock a door . There is no way you could do that in a big city. Part of the reason for this is that in Texas country folk are rather self sufficient and tend to take care of themselves rather stringently. We have guns and even more important we have a clearly spelled out right to use them to protect our lives and property.
City people call the police to protect them, they usually don't get there in time, country folks call the Sheriff to come get the body.

 

Where I live we have cattle, horses, goats and hogs. Other than ranching this area is mostly timber industry and prisons. I am 63 years old and never in my life tasted the flesh of a sheep. I think it might be to hot here for them. The little town that I live near is actually a great place in that while we don't have any big stores we do have an old time country store that butchers cattle hog and deer and then makes and sells hams, bacon and sausage. Their meat is excellent, they have a few basic groceries and a little produce. We also have a very small general type store (Dollar General Store) so that if we don't want to go to town we generally can get by in our little town of under 300. What kept it alive is that it is near a huge recreational lake so there are lots of lake people that don't actually live there.

The small town feeling is both comforting, and at times, a bit smothering. From a survival stand point it is rather good. For one thing we are probably older than places with more people. Older people lived in different times and are just plain tougher than kids. I KNOW that at any time the world can just turn an bite you on the butt. I've lived through double digit inflation and an economic collapse where there were no jobs and lots of people were living in their cars in roadside parks. Anyone my age has been there. We have weathered storms and been without power for weeks at a time. When times are good we may not hang out together but if anything happens we all know how to work together. We live in a small town because we mostly aren't too fond of having a bunch of strangers around us. In a small town they just aren't strangers.

We may not be a tight pack now but I've seen us come together in the past. When things get tough we get clannish as hell. The stores lock their doors and don't let strangers in. They only sell gasoline to locals. The local church cooks and everyone can eat there. We had huge cook outs so things didn't go to waste if our freezers thawed. It was sort of funny. Most of us actually had a pretty good time. There were several of us that are at least somewhat involved in the survival arts. Like my home and my daughters next door. We have 12,000 to 15,000 gallons of water on hand. Several ways to cook starting with propane then to wood stoves. We are all well armed and have thousands of rounds of ammo and reloading components for many thousand more. We keep well stocked pantries and are prepared to eat out of the freezers for at least a week or two before we have to start smoking the meat. Generators are nice and I have one but they eat gasoline that becomes in short supply in a hurry.

All of the prisons that we have around here have both big pluses and a few minuses. Prison guards and prison workers are not shy delicate people. Inmates look at them as all being some sort of police and don't want to be here. Throw the gates open and they will RUN to get away from this area. Even in a rather pugnacious place like Texas in general, we are well past that. The other thing nice about having prisons all over the place it that they are big time farmers and ranchers, think prison farms with 3000 people , and once things go down that makes them sort of community property.

 

I live in a smaller community in the out skirts of a larger city. If things get bad. I expect problems. I have one good neighbor. I recently have gotten to know a few people in the local community and am working to know more. I hope to move away from this area but don't expect to be able to soon.

 

Anyone that isn't close family could end up being a problem that you might have to deal with in a rather permanent manner. People fail to understand that in a post apocalyptic world people that cause problems don't last long. A 6'8" 300 lb monster gang banger is only one bullet away from not being a problem. If I trust you and you fail me...well me not trusting you is the least of your worries. Our messed up world today is a result of people allowing mercy and forgiveness to rule over common sense and justice. Our Grand parents and Great Grand Parents understood that if someone tried to hurt you you killed them. War was not nice and they were left alone because when they went to war they would just kill them all and let god sort them out. If you treat a person who is a threat to you exactly like you would treat a rattle snake in your bedroom then you don't have many people that are a threat to you. Sorry but that is the way the world actually worked for centuries.

Only in recent times have people gotten stupid enough to let people attack them over and over without making a response that ended the problem. It makes me sick how often I read about people that were murdered by people that had already been convicted for a previous murder and several assaults. It happens all the time! Any time things break down the old ways come back fast. Let me tell you, I knew people that went into New Orleans right after Katrina. They got shot at and had to pull back until they had armed National Guardsmen to protect them. You know those 3000+ people that died in New Orleans that were "caused" by Katrina...a lot of them had bullet holes in them. The gangs and the looters went to war and a lot of old grievances got taken care of.

If the world goes totally down the survivors will be the ones that adapt to the new meaning of civilized behavior fastest. Honor will become important again and forgiveness is for the dead...the living need to be dealt with.

 

I prefer to have a group in the most desperate situations, group support is very important, but it depends on many things, I would never join a group of strangers as it may be a danger to my physical integrity, that is why my group would be made up of The people closest to me to avoid future serious problems, for that i prefer a wolf pack.