About the Author

Cold War memories

I was born during the “heat” of the Cold War to parents who took the “Red Menace” seriously. We had a fallout shelter in our back yard in Idaho.

We moved from there when I was seven, and the new house in California didn’t have a shelter.

I became a survival cynic

As I entered my teens, I became cynical about all the scares: the Red Menace, global cooling, a couple of “killer flu” epidemics (remember swine flu?), planetary alignments predicted to change the solar system in a cataclysmic way; AIDS was going to take over the world, etc.

By the time I was an adult, I was disgusted even with earthquake preparedness. I had rather concluded it was just scare tactics and a way to market flashlights. So I yawned right through Y2k.

An Awakening

I am and have been a strong believer in self-defense, armed or otherwise, and have always been enthusiastic to learn those disciplines, but the 9/11/2001 attack woke me up. The world just wasn’t the safe place I had fantasized...

Another Shift

Three years later, wildfire swept through our very rural mountain community on the outskirts of Los Angeles County, burning some 17,500 acres.

The “official” response during the fire was good firefighting, but insulting people management. Despite a “voluntary” evacuation (not all that voluntary), my wife and I stayed and prepped the property, making “defensible space.”

Actually, while it was a scary time because of the potential destruction to our properties, some of us got together and turned it into a good time, because we all had stored water, full pantries, and barbecues. Kewl survival gear, eh? :-)

And one neighbor had a generator, so we convened at his house and had light, too. Not bad!

A Much Worse Situation

Six months later, the second wettest winter on record in Los Angeles County, plus the previous summer’s fire damage, plus a particularly rare and nasty microburst, caused flash flooding throughout our community.

Within five minutes, it had downed our chain link fence and deposited large amounts of mud and sand on our property, torn out the road and turned it into a raging river, and entirely stranded us for hours. We didn’t know if our house would be swept away or destroyed by the boulders we heard clacking together like billiards balls uphill from us. My wife was making calls to her sons, saying, “If this is it, love you, good bye...” I was scared, but she was terrified.

And because of thunder and lightning, and ridiculous amounts of rain, rescue also couldn’t be effected, because air rescue would have been necessary. They don’t fly in that.

In the end, my wife and I were ok, physically, at least. While our landscaping was completely demolished, no serious damage was done to the house itself or our well, and our animals (a dog and three cats, at that time) survived it.

Lessons Learned

These and other experiences, plus years of outdoorsmanship, have taught me a lot about survival, personal sustainability, and disaster.

Some lessons revolve around the technical and “how to” of survival, but the one that is most prominent for me is the importance of developing a tough, flexible and prepared mind.

That’s why I devote so much of this site to exactly that; truly, the mind is the most important survival tool of all.

Birth of a website

As an outdoorsy guy, I’m aware that “Mother Nature” often plays rough. Being prepared to survive is essential in the wilderness.

Even with technology all around us, we still live in nature. Many folks seem to have fallen out of touch with that, and what it means.

No one knows when something big will happen that will knock out the grid or turn society upside down. It pays to prepare. And it pays for those of us who do prepare to get others to do so: it makes for fewer looters to have to worry about. :-)

And of course, it’s the humanitarian way, too, besides being practical.

helps

Contact Me

Back to Top