Unclewest:
I understand what you're saying, but the problem with the farming part is that all the small farms are gone ... For the most part, the corporate farmers have bought up or otherwise procured all the small family farms, and there are none left. There wouldn't be any land available, even if people did want to return to farming, even just to raise their own vegetables for family use.
I go 'back home' now, and the little 40 acre plots with a house, barn, garden spot, a few trees and an outhouse, have all been swallowed up, and are now just parts of the thousands of acres of fenceless/borderless, continuous rows of cotton, wheat, rice or soybeans.
There are no more 'country kids' in the schools to speak of - the families live in or right around the small towns (which have also 'dried up', with rows of empty storefront buildings along main street).
I was raised 2 miles out of town, and we had several neighbors living within a mile of our house. Now there are no houses left at all on the road where I grew up, where there were 11 or 12 along that 2 mile stretch back then. Same thing on the next road over to the north (1 left) and to the south (none left). The country life, with kids helping on the farm, and learning the 'trade' as they grew up, is over.
Where we used to be able to go out and shoot two or three rabbits or squirrels for dinner ... there are none, because all the 'treerows' and 'fencerows' where the rabbits and squirrels lived are gone. The creeks where we caught fish, have been dredged out, all the trees removed, and now dry up completely most of the year.
My 'way of life' does not exist any longer.
There are some states where folks could survive off the land, but just a few. Even here in Missouri, I doubt there'd be enough wild game for food for more than a few months. The lakes would be 'fished out' pretty quickly. There are a few wild berries, wild grapes, and persimmons in season, but a person would starve in between those seasons. Where I live, I could survive by catching fish, a deer once in a while, an occasional turkey, and some berries in season. I could boil the lake water, for drinking, if I had to. But, the competition for those things would probably require that I carry a gun all the time I would be out getting them, and probably would necessitate pairing up with a neighbor - one to fish/pick berries, etc, and one to keep a constant guard, because doing both simultaneously would be very difficult.
When it happens ......... I'm not sure I would want to stick around too long anyway. |
