knights in white satin

KNIGHTS IN WHITE SATIN

Guest article posted earlier
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As I said, retiring the truck is going to take some adjustments. I’m at work Monday, putting in a half day because oodles and gobs of surplus food product wait for no holiday, thinking what I swell guy I am for coming in when nobody else is working, and as a reward I have a bike tube stem valve failure. Because it is cold here most of the year and I don’t have a workshop or garage I can heat, I don’t bother with any of my own bike mechanics. The first November here I’m trying to remove a wheel in fifteen degrees with a wind making it I don’t know how cold. I couldn’t even get it inside by getting it off the bike ( the trailers big, but not big enough for a bike ) to try to warm the tire up enough to get it off the rim to replace the tube. Something that never occurs to you in Florida as being a future problem. Anyway, when I finally drag my ass home on foot I’m pretty worn out. Not energy wise, I’m good enough to go dig my foot on the earth tube trench ( one more foot to go and I’m half way there! ), just from having used a whole other set of muscles. But I’m also mentally fatigued. And then the damn inverter won’t work ( the overheat button comes on even if its cold and you just then plugged it in ), so I can’t write today’s article ahead of time ( having to go down to the bike shop on my lunch hour ). This makes me even more weary. More money that needs to go out. Oh, I have plenty. I just can’t get the saving back up to my “comfortable” level ( I was down to 40%, now, after the inverter, 60%, since I just received my end of month commission deposit ) with the constant nickel and dimeing. So you just know, sooner than later, my tooth will be next. While flossing my filling popped out a couple of months ago. The last time that happened I got six months leeway before the pain set in. If this one goes that will be three out of four teeth with fillings that have been yanked. I know you are all milling around and whispering about how that ain’t so bad, he should see our credit card bills, etc. I know, everyone has spikes in their “bad luck economically” happenings. Mine are minor in comparison to most folks, but then, so is my paycheck. Anyway, I tell you all this to, one, piss off all those people that hate my “what I had for dinner” monologs, and two, I’m just leading up to and laying groundwork for my main point which is that rather than starting a new book I’d have to think about and stress my brain, I just went for some fluff.

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The fluff in question was a collection of short science fiction stories written in the 80’s. Orson Scott Card wrote the intro and picked the stories, a kind of “ best new idea authors”. I think it was called “Future Fire”. It was in the book stores used/reject pile for a dime so while I’m usually not too hot for those kinds of books ( half the stories don’t interest you so most is a waste ) for ten cents you can’t go wrong. What got my Article Idea Radar to set off clanging and hooting was his attack on survivalists. Kind of strange, him being the author of “Folk Of The Fringe ” and all, but there you have it. His phrasing was something to the effect that survivalists were thinking they would emerge in their new world as the new knights in a feudal order. He probably got that from Kurt Saxon, who was actually still writing at the time, but not a whole lot since most of his time was spent devising new brilliant ideas on exploiting the popularity of The Poor Man’s James Bond. Kurt was a big proponent of that kind of thing, to him the lucky few that were worthy enough to buy his crap the new evolutionary Masters Of The Universe ( a pretty steady selling point for the field, from freeze dried crap sellers to myself ). So, our musings for the day revolve around this concept. Are you going to emerge from the rubble to rule the survivors with an iron fist, you the one eyed hero in the valley of the blind? Answer- of course not. Nor would you want that. The perks are great, but so is the competition.

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Now, he did say knights, rather than kings. You aren’t at the very top. Not AS much competition for the top dog position. But, really, who needs the headache. And, more importantly for our discussion here, you most likely ain’t big and bad enough. It isn’t that we are necessarily cut out to be followers. Survivalists as a whole, I believe anyway, view themselves as rather more intelligent than the whole herd of idiots out there. Why follow the same kind of greedy moron that screwed all this up in the first place? Yet, we live soft and serene middle class lives, so we aren’t cut out to be ruthless overlords. The best thing we can do for ourselves in the new world hierarchy is to find a safe and unassuming middle management position. An NCO position in the military. A member of a board that researches policy for the leadership. A safe position where we have some influence, but not enough to get assassinated for. You proved yourself to be smart enough to prepare to survive the collapse, don’t ruin that by trying to wear shoes that are way too big for you. Be realistic in your abilities and you should be just fine. I think I’ll try to go for the advisor to the new Khan Of Bisonia.

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My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
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