DaddyMonkey wrote:
PLEASE excuse me for not reading ALL of the thread in this post (It's
now kind of long).

Here in central VA (Centerville, Va) We have what is called "Field Days
of the Past". It's like a local Fair/Carnival.

Although, It DOES have a great deal of old/antique farm equipment... it
totally blows my mind that we once, 100 years ago, had washing machines
that were kept outside and had to be started with a pull rope (just like
a lawnmower) because they were gasoline powered. We had rock crushers
that turned watermellon sized stones into gravel (gas/steam powered) and
all wicker baskets were local made (not from China at Pier1)

If we go back 100 years from THAT (1806), Saw mills were just two men
working a HUGE hand saw back and forth to saw the logs into planks.
I even heard stories of people moving away from their houses and then
burning- down their house, just to re-collect the nails. (They were
expensive to produce)
WOW!

Let's push forward to today.
What would happen if we were faced with a natural catastrophe? Could I
hunt/fish?
Could I build a fire? Basic shelter?
It makes me think!

Great Post!!!
Dave

I don't now, but I have hunted and fished, I can build a fire from
scratch, I can toss together basic shelter in a rush, but if it comes
to the point we need to do something like this, even in a rural area
like mine, where do, for example, the 98,000 residents of Roanoke and
the 65,000 people in Lynchburg go to nail a deer (or turkey, or,
failing all else, a possum), grub up some branches and get a fire
going, rip the branches off cedars and pines, and dig slit trenches,
but...the sanitary arrangements alone for today's population in central
and southern and western Virginia would be a major feat that probably
cannot be accomplished without technology. The same holds true for
clean drinking water when the wells go out. My county has 754 square
miles, but also about 60,000 residents now, many of whom are true city
boys and girls who never spent day one in the military, either. They're
living their rural dream in their McMansions, but that dream of theirs
may become a nightmare for all of us, unless things keep ticking over
in the current kindly manner.

And this would probably be one of the better areas in the east, should
a catastrophe occur.