Chapter 2: Footnote

"The Day the Dollar Died"

John Galt is in the process of writing an excellent FICTIONAL novel on his blog called "The Day the Dollar Died". Click on this title for a hyper-link to his first chapter.

His blog novel was the inspiration for my attempt to write my own 'blovel'. In my imagination, his novel describes in detail what happened during the GREAT CRASH that I mention repeatedly in my story.

You can read his entire series that he has published so far on his blog by going to: johngaltfla.com then look on the right hand side under the catagory of "The Day the Dollar Died Series".

Chapter 2-continued, part 3

"Memories of the past hundred years"
June 29, 2059

Isaiah 1:23 Your rulers are rebels, companions of thieves; they all love bribes and chase after gifts. They do not defend the cause of the fatherless; the widow's case does not come before them.

PRAISE BE TO GOD!

I just got a telegram from 'Texas Department of Census' that my granddaughter, Sarah, is still alive!!!! ---I'm so incredibly happy! You have no idea what a huge, black hole fills a person's heart when you lose contact with your family!!! As I wrote before, my grandson Seth, returned to my life after the Dark Years but all my other children and grandchildren had disappeared---dropped off the face of the Earth for all I knew.

Sarah is the oldest child of my youngest daughter, Mary. Sarah and her family were living in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma when the first nuclear terrorist strike hit Washington, DC. Her parents were called up in the first wave of the mandatory draft and disappeared from contact. The last I heard was that she and her siblings were relocated into a government care center somewhere in Texas. That's all the information I've had these past fifty years........the memories of not knowing what happened to them and not being able to help them in any way are still sooooooooo painful! It was such an overwhelming feeling of darkness, dispair and sheer helplessness!

Now that telegraph service has been opened up to private messages, questions on 'missing persons' have totally overwhelmed the wires and the services trying to help relocate all the millions of displaced persons. I put in my request for information over 3 years ago. After all this time, I had given up hope of ever hearing about any of my family again. "Praise God!"

Sarah was five years old at the time of the Great Crash which means that she would be an old woman of fifty-five right now. There was no information as to her address or any personal information on her life. For now, it's just so wonderful to know that she survived!!!!!!!!!

I'll write about Seth's life and about my great-grandchildren in a future chapter. As for right now, my great-great grandchildren all pestering me for attention. Seems that I've become the family's built in babysitter, story teller and teacher--loving that role!

I'm back........

The old 'United States of America', for all practical purposes, ceased to exist after the collapse of the dollar. With deliveries of food and fuel greatly disrupted, most areas dissolved into riots, looting and then anarchy. When Marshal Law was declared in an effort to suppress the lawlessness, our old Constitutional form of government dissolved as well. The Dakotas became the 23rd Military District with its headquarters at the Minot Airforce Base. This military district was made up of the prairie region of Montana east of the Rockies, both Dakotas and the prairie region of eastern Wyoming. The military government was especially interested in controlling this area because of its wealth of coal, oil, food production and electrical generating capacities!!

Our new Dakota Territory grew out of this military district. After the Dark Years, civilian rule was allowed to return to Bismarck as capital of the newly declared 'Dakota Territory'. General William McDonald, Supreme Commander of the 23rd Military District needs to be praised for relinquishing his dictatorial control!!! His name needs to be placed beside George Washington in honor of his leadership in forming the civilian government of 'Dakota Territory' which was modeled after our original U.S. Constitution.

Outside of Dakota Territory, the Federation of the Central Plains, the Sovereign Nation of Texas and a loose federation of communities in the Pacific Northwest and along Lake Superior, all the rest of this country dissolved with the anarchy and chaos as far as I know. These three regions govern themselves but there is a push to reunite in a new 'United States' in response to the potential for foreign invasion across the Rockies.

It sounds like some areas along the Pacific coast from Alaska thru Mexico are occupied by either the Japanese to the north and the Chinese to the south. After the collapse of the dollar, China, Japan and many other countries were left holding trillions of worthless American dollars, Treasury Bills and other worthless paper promises. In their anger, they joined forces in an attempt to recoup their losses. India, Russia, many oil rich countries, South Korea and even Brazil joined in a coalition to attempt to regain their losses.

First, they froze all American assets within their countries. Then after observing the loss of global power projection by the U.S., China invaded Taiwan and Japan seized Guam, Saipan and eventually reoccupied many of the Pacific Islands in a replay of their power projection World War II. After the outbreak of the Mid-East War, the terrorist attacks on U.S. cities and the collapse of the U.S. central government, Japan made claim to a number of coastal territories in Alaska and China claimed several coastal areas from Seattle to the Baja Penincula as payment for U.S. debts owed---but I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll write more about this in another chapter.....

For all I know, it sounds like the Chinese don't venture too far inland after suffering substantial losses each time they attempted to send scouting parties across the mountain passes. Between the destruction of most key bridges by local militias after the crash and the existance of well armed and extremely hostile bands of mountain peoples protecting their territories, the Chinese can only venture into these mountain areas in considerable force. You have to remember that few military machines function due to the lack of transportation fuels. Seems that they are content to stay close to their boats and supply ships and focus on pillaging the remaining fishing grounds and develop the agricultural areas near their settlements. But that sounds like it is in the process of changing as these peoples are in great need for more productive farmland---that's a subject of another chapter.

I'll write more when I can, God willing!

Chapter 2: continued-part 2

"Memories of the past hundred years"
June 22, 2059

Wow! I woke up again this morning! Praise God! I wasn't so sure last night as I went to bed. I haven't been feeling very good these past two nights, kind of unsettled--hard to explain. Well, with this gift of a new day, maybe I should write some more.

First, I want to make something very CLEAR! Life today is not some type of Agrarian Eutopia!!! It's HARD to say the least! Life these past fifty years has been filled with more pain and tears than anyone could have imagined! Oh, this past few years have gotten considerably better but life is still a major struggle. Life has settled down, the bandits have been all but eliminated in Dakota Territory and we don't have to live each day with a level of fear in the back of our minds. Today, we wake up with a sense of purpose and a motivation to put life back together again rather than apprehension as to what struggles the new day will bring.

But then again, the quality of family and community life has become so much richer that even if I had the choice, I wouldn't choose to go back to living the way we did 'pre-CRASH' -- it was that insane! Everyone lived for their own pleasures. Few cared for anyone else--maybe for their own family but it was a rare individual that cared anything for their 'fellow man' if it interfered with their self-centered gradifications.

Faith in God's plan for Salvation and living their daily lifes in a loving relationship with the God of the Universe was soooo rare. Most people claimed to be Christians but only on Sundays and only if it didn't interfere with their quest for personal pleasures. It still brings tears to my eyes to think of the undescribeable suffering that we as a society had to endure to get most people to turn back to God as the center of their lives. It was like living thru the disasters God allowed to happen to Israel in the Old Testament to turn his people away from their Idol worship and turn once again to His promises. Whereas, the people of Israel worshiped the idols of wood and stone, the people of the so called 'modern' society worshiped the gods of greed and pleasure, of money and accumulating bigger and better or just plain 'MORE' things............. sigh..............

Medical care has greatly declined in some ways and greatly increased in other ways. Preventive health care is our central focus. Naturally pure, healthy foods are now abundant for all. Daily exercise with plenty of fresh air and sunshine is just normal for everyone. The 'couch potato' is as extinct as the Dodo bird. Going to the gym for exercise ended with the CRASH. Obesity is all but extinct as well. Nutritional, herbal and what was previously called 'alternative' health care are now once again normal for society. Where our health care has really declined is in treating tramatic injuries. Extreme intervention and microscopic surgery has been hard to duplicate. But then again, everyone from the very young onward are taught 'situational awareness'. They are taught to be aware of the potential for accidents and avoid them.

There are small community 'hospitals in every town or village. Many are in family homes. There are some small regional hospitals with well educated and trained doctors and nurses but nothing like the 'old days'. Many doctors travel by buggy or train from town to town and home to home to help as they can. Most births are at home with each community having a very dedicated nurse/midwife in attendance. Only the pregnancies with complications go to the community or regional hospitals. The huge, industrial hospitals of the past era were so completely overwhelmed during that Terrible Winter that they just stopped functioning. It didn't help when the Military Government ordered most of the medical staff into manditory service during the War.

Our global trade and sales in 'plastic pumpkins' to satisfy consumer addictions crashed immediately with the collapse of the dollar. Trade in the essentials of life like food and fuel was quick to follow. The existing central government was totally unprepared to deal with the collapse of the dollar, the coordinated cyber attacks on our entire command, control and delivery systems, the explosion in the Mid-East and the terrorist attacks on our cities all in a matter of days. It was 'hyper-war'!!! Life as we knew it just stopped.

We have been rebuilding our manufacturing base on a local and regional level ever since. It was like reinventing the wheel! So much was forgotten and we just didn't have the tools to manufacture the tools and replacement parts to keep the old machines functioning. Global trade and shipping of our country's manufacturing abilities overseas for the greed for profit was an all out disaster for this country. Cottage industries sprang up almost overnight. The proverbial 'butcher, baker and candlestick maker' where once again in high demand. This region was very fortunate to have some limited electrical power during the dark years and we were able to salvage steel and manufacture hand tools, wood/coal stoves and horse drawn equipment but we were unable to manufacture the complex parts needed to keep this large scale electrical generation functioning.


This here remembering is tiring!! I need a nap. I'll write more if I regain enough energy. May God bless you all!

Next:

Chapter 2 continued.........

Chapter 2: Life as it is Today

"Memories of the past hundred years"
June 20, 2059

Genesis 8:22 As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.

Well, I see that God in His mercy, has decided to bless me with another new day! It’s amazing how much I value the gift of each new morning! I sure wish I’d have known earlier in my life how much I’d treasure each new day. I wouldn’t have wasted so many of them!!! And as a very old joke goes, “If I would have known how long I was going to live, I’d have taken better care of myself!”

Let’s see, of everything that I’ve lost over the years, I miss my mind the most! That’s another really old joke. Well, it seems that my ol’ brain still functions--sort of. My short term memory is about gone. What was I saying?-----heeheee. It does seem like my long term memory is still intact. But then again, how would I know how much I forgot if I have forgotten it??? And how would you know, my dear reader, if I’m remembering these past hundred years accurately or if it’s just a product of breathing all those petroleum fumes and other nasty chemicals that saturated every aspect of life before the Great Crash?

Well, you can cross reference these rambling memories with other first person accounts of this time period to check. But then again, how much was their accounts colored by their own preconceived notions or there own exposure to toxic ‘chemicals??? Ask me about ’Woodstock’ some day if I’m still alive then. I’ll just write it as I remember it and you can decide its validity.

As I said, my mind still works--sort of-- but my hearing is just about gone, as are my teeth, my hair, my ability to walk more than across the room, my balance, my muscle tone, my sense of taste and sense of smell. My eyesight still works close up but anything over 10 feet away is just a fuzzy blur. I’m so glad that I still have my driver’s license------just kidding. There hasn’t been any motor fuels for private vehicles since that ‘terrible winter’ and no need for licenses. I can still type on this old typewriter if I find the keys one at a time but I have a hard time changing the paper and lining it up.

I’ve just about lost everything and everyone that I valued in my life but I still have my trust in my loving God and the gift of his Son as my personal savior. And I can still laugh with the best of them. My life has been filled with joy! I have been blessed in spite of all that I've seen in my life.

My four children lived like most families, in communities scattered across the country. They all disappeared into the void of history after answering the mandatory ’civil defense services’ orders in Twenty-eleven. This mandatory mobilization turned into a 'forced labor' program by our military rulers in a 'knee jerk' response to the chaos of the day. All young men between age 18 and 35 and young women with ‘essential’ skills were ordered to report to the nearest military base for mandatory service. A portion of these young adults were trained for the military services and Homeland Security but most were pressed into whatever tasks the rulers deemed necessary at the moment.

Both of my daughters were in the medical field and were drafted in the first wave of call ups. My sons followed a few days later--for what good it did. Yes, I’m bitter about that and so is everyone else when an entire generation in the life of this country is just swept away!! A few of our children have straggled back over the years with stories of unspeakable horror.

I lost track of my seven grandchildren as well. They were supposed to have been staying with other relatives around the country. When the communication went down, they and everyone else, just disappeared from our lives. Incredibly--thanks be to God, my third grandson, Seth Thomas Andrews, found me in the year, Twenty-twenty-one. He has welcomed me into his home ever since---or maybe it was the other way around. That was ten years after my entire family disappeared. He didn’t know anything about what happened to the rest of our family either and spent a number of years searching for them. I’ll tell more about Seth in another chapter.

I don’t know whether my children and other grandchildren are alive or dead. I don’t know whether they were left on foreign shores when the transportation fuels dried up or whether they were left to fend for themselves in the terror ravaged cities of this country. For my own peace of mind, I imagine that they found life again in the small surviving communities that I've heard about located in remote areas around the world. But I don’t know.

Life right now, closely resembles the close knit farming community that I was born into back in 1959 except for their reliance on all those petro-powered machines. Who could have imagined how much we’d come full circle in these hundred years. Today, it’s hard to imagine how absolutely crazy our so called ‘modern society’ had become.

Ours is an agricultural and pastoral society made up of extended families living together on family farms or in small villages made up of several groups of families. Faith, family and fellowship are once again, the central tenants of our community structure. The ‘household economy’ of the past multi-thousand years of human civilization has once again been reinvented. Each household or village produces most of what is needed to sustain each other. Surpluses are traded with other communities for goods or services that are in rare supply. A ‘gift economy’ has also been re-invented. People with an abundance, share with those who are in need. The young care for those who are old or infirm including me! The old are the teachers for the young, passing down skills, knowledge and wisdom learned thru years of struggle.

Farms and communities are by necessity, located by good sources of water. Most are located near rivers or lakes but outside of the floodplains. Large gardens and small grain fields are located along the bottomlands. On the uplands, where the the maze of barbwire fences have fallen to disrepair or been scavenged for use as security fencing during the Dark Years, herds of cattle, sheep and horses roam the open plains. They are carefully watched over by young herdsmen on their beautiful horses--the new ‘cowboys’!

Our technologies are starting to find a life of their own these 40 years after the Dark Times. For years after the crash we tried to keep some of the old machines alive for as long as possible. But after 50 years, even with creative fixes, few are still functioning. The first to go down was anything electronic. They were just too sensitive and we had no way to manufacture new computer chips or circuit boards. Many creative ways were invented to eliminate the computer controls and reinvent manual controls to keep the machines functioning. Without transportation fuels, most of the vehicles and farm machinery wouldn’t run anyway. If we would have known, there was so much that we could have done before the GREAT CRASH that would have mitigated some of the worst effects of the chaos but that's a subject for a different chapter.

Not being able to manufacture spare parts for breakdowns have now killed most of the old ‘modern’ machines. Old tools and machines from community museums were a Godsend. What was even more valuable was the ‘Old Timers’ that could teach us how to use them!

The oil wells didn’t produce long without the ongoing maintenance of a skilled crew, spare parts and the specialty products used by the industry. When the dollar crashed and life became scary, most of those skilled people just took off to provide for and protect their own families. The same happened to the Mandan Oil Refinery. Skilled employees just stopped coming to work. The military rulers of that time, forced some back to work--those that they could find but it was a case of "too little, too late" like everything else!! Oh, part of the refinery is still functioning but only on a tiny fraction of its former output. Its most valuable products are lubricating oils, grease and tar!! The little transportation fuel produced is reserved exclusively for the so called ‘essential services’ of the government.

The electric power from Garrison Dam was kept alive for close to twenty years before the lack of spare parts stopped the last turbine. Now the spillways stand frozen half open, a huge monument to a bygone age. Coal fired generating plants limped along for five or ten years. Wind turbines were just too sensitive. They needed repairs almost immediately. Only a few continued to function after ten years by cannibalizing spare parts from others.

Trade is developing but it is slow and limited by our lack of transportation. River traffic is once again dominant all the way down the Missouri River to St. Lewis. Steam locomotives and rail lines have been extended from Billings to Bemidji recently by repairing old tracks but security is still a major limiting factor. Gangs of bandits still hide out in the woods in either direction but few have functioning guns anymore. We primarily trade grain for lumber in either direction. Additional rail lines have been repaired heading south all the way to Dallas, Texas.

Communications everywhere came down after the start of THE WAR. Some people used to call it ‘World War III’ but what’s the point. It was just THE WAR!!! And it changed everything everywhere! The few functioning radio and TV stations were completely taken over by the military government. To call what they fed us 'Propaganda' would have been polite. The 'happy talk' fed us was worse than useless. Mostly, they just read us the latest regulations and controls forced upon us. Registered ham radio operators were rounded up and their equipment was confiscated. This time was just called 'the Dark Years' because life was such a struggle, being in the dark as to what was happening in the world made it feel so much worse!

Unauthorized or 'gorilla' radio broadcasting, mostly on shortwave, sprang up to a limited extent. Possession of shortwave radios was banned but almost universally ignored. We were incredibly hungry for news as to what was happening around the country and world!!! We heard a little news about what was happening in other countries but I’ll save that for another chapter.

After the Dark Years, telegraph lines started to return between towns and then between regions in an attempt to improve communication. Good radio communication is still limited due to our limited manufacturing capabilities. In these past ten years, radio communication between the governments of the different territories has improved greatly but still extremely limited to private citizens. Telegraph communication has opened up to civilians but have far to little capacity to handle the heavy demand.

A regional postal system attempted to start after the collapse of the U.S. Mail but suffered greatly from lack of transportation fuel, damaged roads and the explosion of bandits. After the Dark Years, the postal system has improved greatly within the Dakota Territory but was still limited between territories. Recently, that has begun to change as well!

With the loss of transportation fuels, we didn’t just crash into an 1800s lifestyle, that would have been a treat!!! Everything just stopped! Nobody in our so called ‘modern culture’ knew what to do or how to do it. We couldn't even claim to be knocked back into the 'Stone Age' because we didn't even know how to work with stone!!!! We had to relearn and reinvent everything!!! Fortunately, to this area, there were a few ol' timers left that were able to teach those that were willing!!! PRAISE GOD!

Our system of global production, transportation and ‘just in time’ deliveries was so incredibly fragile. Who knew? We sure didn’t realize just how misguided our government’s policies were at the time; how they were based on unworkable economic models and self-deluded political agendas. Then all of what we trusted in our life ran into the inflexible wall of reality. We believed that abundant energy was always there free or almost free for the taking. Money was created out of thin air at the whim of those in control with no connection to the means of production of real wealth---food, shelter, warmth.

Life quickly distilled into a ‘SALVAGE ECONOMY’ where we used the refined metals like steel, copper, aluminum etc. from the refuse of our past to help us survive into the present. Lumber, insulation and glass were carefully salvaged from the thousands of abandoned houses scattered around the plains. At least we were able to salvage those that weren't wrecked or burned down in the chaos of those dark years. What quickly became a struggle was reinventing ‘shingles’ for roofs. The art of splitting the old style wooden shingles had to be relearned. Petroleum based shingles were no longer made and were near impossible to salvage. Now, fifty years later, the availability of easily salvaged items have been depleted. We are now transitioning into a more stable form of sustainable economy where we are either able to manufacture all that we need or we do without.

When it all came down, we had forgotten how to produce our own food or preserve it when it was produced. We didn’t know how to keep ourselves warm or sheltered. We even forgot how to work with our own neighbors for our own mutual support and protection. We were all spoon fed from the big box stores, mesmerized by mass media, driven insane by our own pridefulness and arrogance . How insane we were to believe that our country and our ‘modern society’ were somehow different and exempt from that which has happened to every other culture in all of history.

I remember an observation made before the Great Crash by my old friend, John Michael Greer. He stated that: "The one Great Lesson of History that I learned was that the consensus view of the future that permeated our entire culture from top to bottom was consistently WRONG!"

How prophecic his words turned out to be!!!

ZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz bed time. God willing, I’ll continue this chapter tomorrow.

Chapter I: From a Long Line of Survivors

"Memories of the past hundred years"
June 18, 2059

Proverbs 28:19 He who works the land will have abundant food…

I was born on August 9th, 1956 to a hard working, God fearing, farming family trying to scrape out a living on the windswept plains of southwestern North Dakota. I was born into a community of hardened survivors. Most were first and second generation immigrants from the Black Sea area of South Russia. ‘Germans from Russia’ they were called. My ancestors were originally peasant farmers for their feudal lords of the German Federation during the Middle Ages. In the late 1700s, Catherine the Great, Czar (I don’t know how to spell the female version of Czar--hehehe) of Russia, promised free land, freedom of religion, limited self government, their own schools and courts, exemption from the draft and other freedoms if these hard working farmers and craftsmen would immigrate to these empty Russian lands.

My ancestors moved as an entire extended family clan to escape their feudal masters and gain these freedoms! Several like minded German peasant families banded together and formed a Old West style, wagon train to travel the thousand miles to reach this ‘promised’ land. The German nobility was only too happy to see them go as they felt there were too many mouths to feed on their lands the way it was. Starting the long journey in the spring, reaching their new home in the fall, left little time to prepare for the coming winter. As you can imagine, that first winter was a killer! Many of these new immigrants died of exposure and lack of food.

Those first years out on the barren steppes (a Russian term for the plains) were incredibly difficult. It was said that “the first generation saw death, the second, depravation but the third saw bread“. Each of these groups of immigrants either joined with an existing German village--if they were lucky enough to have relatives already there or formed a new village of their own. They joined together for mutual support and protection. Alone they died, together most survived. Each family built their own home in the village and had their own land, cattle, gardens and crops around the outside of the village. These communities became prosperous over time due in no small part to their faith in a loving God, their strong family bonds, a mutually supportive community and the incredibly hard work of these industrious people.

As time went on and these German communities prospered, new rulers in Russia forgot or ignored those old promises that had made. Local Russian serfs were also incredibly envious and jealous. One at a time, the promised freedoms were eroded away. Children were forced to attend Russian schools and learn the Russian language, the local self government and judicial system was taken away and replaced by the dictates of the Russian nobility. Russian peasants started stealing from the prosperous Germans (many suspected the nobility directing these thefts). Some people were injured, raped or killed. Any complaints taken in front of the Russian nobility were ignored or they ruled against the Germans. The last straw was when the freedom of religion was threatened and the exemption from the Czar’s armies was eliminated.

Germans from Russia started to immigrate in mass to North and South America from the mid to the late 1800s. The Czar ruled that no youth of military age, 16 thru 21, could immigrate before serving in the Czar‘s armies. Being God fearing people who thought lying was a sin; many a young man wrote the number “21” on the sole of one of their shoes. That way they could swear to the port authorities that they were ‘over 21’ and not be lying! Men that were even younger wrote ’16’ in their hats for the same purpose!

These German immigrants were forced to sell all that they owned for a mere fraction of what it was worth before they could scrape together enough money to pay for the passage to America. Many arrived on these shores absolutely destitute. But they gained far more than they lost. They gained their lives and their freedom. As history unfolded, Germans in Russia were imprisoned and tortured in World War I and most were rounded up and sent to forced labor camps in Siberia during World War II. Few survived.

My ancestors traveled steerage (the lowest class) on a tramp steamer thru the Saint Laurence Seaway to the port of Chicago where it was much easier to get thru the immigration authorities. The story goes that immigration controls were becoming much more strict thru Ellis Island in New York harbor and my ancestors were afraid that some of the older members of the family would be turned back if they had arrived at that port. From Chicago, they traveled by train to north central South Dakota where they settled near each other as an extended family. They worked wherever they could find jobs. After a decade or more of carefully saving their money and buying the livestock and tools that they needed. After careful preparation, this extended family loaded all that they had on a train for Bismarck. Then they moved by their own wagon train to the northern edge of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. This land between the Cannonball and Cedar Rivers was the last land taken away from the Indians and opened up for settlement. My family clan homesteading beside each other on both sides of a little township road--which was just a wheel track in the prairie at that time. Because of arid nature of the land and the need for much larger acreages, farms had to be much farther apart than in the ’Old Country’. Each family had to live on their own land so they were unable to reestablish the village structure that they had in South Russia.

As I said, my ancestors moved together as a family clan. This extended family was lead by my great-grandparents and their eight adult children. Most of these children were married and brought along their families. This family bond was so strong that husbands to the three sisters of this family agreed to come along as well. Many of these families had small children that shared in the hardships. They also brought along all their livestock, farm machinery and tools. They helped each other build sod houses and establish working farms. With that stoic German work ethic, they once again built up a prosperous farm community within a few decades of breaking this virgin sod. They also built a community church, cemetery and a country school. All were located next to this little country trail in the middle of ‘nowhere’.

In the early 1950s, my parents took over the family farm. My Dad’s brothers and sisters lived on farms within a few miles of each other. They helped each other with all the building projects on each other’s farms and worked together for much of the farm work. I was related to almost everyone in the community. Family gatherings were absolutely huge! Life centered around the community church, the country school and each others‘ farms! The farms were all diversified, raising range cattle, grain, hay, pigs, chickens, some milk cows, big gardens and more. My family raised and processed almost all of our own food. My Dad told me that living thru the Great Depression wasn’t too bad. Nobody had any money but they all had food! The hardest part of it was the drought that lasted for years. Even so, there was enough rain to ‘make do’.

This was the community that I was born into! Like I said at the start of this chapter, I was born on August 9th, 1956. I was born in a small community hospital in a little town called, Brisbane that doesn’t exist any more. My parents tell me that it was a hot day just perfect for threshing the ripe windrows of wheat. Rain was forecast and my Dad was really torn between his desire to help bring in the crop and his love for his wife. He did stopped helping the threshing crew long enough to drive the hour over those rutted, dusty township roads, help my Mother into the hospital, wait anxiously in the waiting room for me to be delivered, greet his wife and his new son (ME) and then rush back to the farm. The threshing crew made up of brothers and uncles continued threshing his grain without him. A week later, he came back to town to pick us up. Fortunately, my Mother’s parents and many others of my Mother’s siblings lived close to town. They came to visit regularly. There were no phones that reached as far as my parent’s farm so my Dad just showed up again one week later. My Mother and I had been released from the hospital the day before and were staying with my Grandparents.

My parents didn’t tell me hardly anything more about my first three years on the farm. They did say that I absolutely loved the farm animals!!! When I was older, they gave me a picture of me as a toddler and our pet lamb. That baby lamb was as big as I was! With the aid of that picture, I can remember those few minutes when that picture was taken----------that memory is over a hundred years old!!! Now, don’t ask me to remember what I ate for supper last night or even who stopped to visit me this morning--heheehehehee. My short-term memory ain’t worth beans!!! Oh, I should take that back--------during those dark times, good bean seed, any garden seed for that matter was worth more than gold!!!

Really!! I traded a lot of open pollinated garden seed for other peoples' pre-1965 American silver dimes, quarters, half dollars and silver dollars. I also traded for gold jewelry even a few diamond rings (they weren't worth much) during those dark years. After all, you sure can’t eat GOLD!! Whereas, the pre-1965 silver coins instantly became an excellent means of exchange when all those paper promises became worthless during the BIG CRASH!!!

Well, it’s bedtime. I’ll write more if I wake up tomorrow--God willing.

Next:

Chapter 2: Life as it is Today

INTRODUCTION

Dakota Territory--1959-2059
“Memories of the past hundred years”
June 17, 2059

My name is Samuel Robert Abrahamson but most people call me 'Grampa' and some just call me ‘Old Man‘ --I happen to really like that name! Kind of proud to have lived so long. I’m one hundred and three years old. I’m twenty to forty years older than most of the ‘senior citizens’ left in this here Dakota Territory. Maybe I’m the oldest man in the world. With global communication so limited, who knows?!?!? Wouldn’t that be a hoot! Life has been soooooo hard that few people live beyond sixty years of age any more. I only remember vague glimpses of the first three years of my life. So that is why I sub-titled these ramblings ‘memories of the past hundred years’.

Don’t ask me how I’ve lived so long especially thru that terrible winter of Twenty-eleven and twelve when so many others did not. The DARK YEARS that followed were even tougher. Not too many old people survived those times of struggle and chaos. I was in my sixties during those dark years and I am still amazed that I made it thru!!! But then again, it helped to be a lifetime gardener. Food and warmth were critical to making it during those dark times and I had an abundance of both--enough to share! Even then it was hard. What do you do when you have enough food to feed ten people for the winter but a hundred hungry, starving people show up at your door? I certainly couldn’t threaten to shoot them and keep all this to myself. All I could do was take in those I could and for the others, share enough food for a few days and send them down the road. Most were extremely grateful with that and left with smiles and words of thanksgiving. Others were much more demanding and much more threatening, but that’s a story for another chapter. All that sharing left some very lean times for us as well. But like the widow’s oil and flour in the story of Elijah, no matter how much we shared, we never ran out!

I also have a strong faith in a loving God so I never gave up to despair and that killer called ‘depression’. During those hard times, surrendering to depression and just giving up, killed more people than lack of food or warmth. Those dark times were just so foreign to the masses so used to their artificial comforts and the provisions of those artificial ‘big box’ stores that when all of that just stopped after the GREAT CRASH, they gave up on living rather than suffer thru depravation and the struggle for survival!!

Now you might think that it’s strange that I refer to God so much in these meandering memories of mine. But when you reach my age and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that your life will end in a matter of days, maybe weeks and certainly not more than a year or two, you won’t be thinking of much of anything else either!!

I figure that God has some sort of purpose for allowing me to live so long. I haven’t figured out what that purpose is yet cuz I sure don’t think I’ve done anything special so far in my life. I’ve never held public office. I’ve never been a leader of anything! I also figure that I don’t have a whole lot of time left to figure out what that purpose is. So I was thinking that maybe I should write down my memories of these past hundred years. Maybe that is my purpose, just to remember and share those memories. Maybe if I can share all the mistakes I’ve made in my life and all the horrible mistakes we collectively made that lead to the “GREAT CRASH” and all those horrible dark years, maybe you, my dear reader, can learn from our mistakes. I also figure I can tell you about all the wonderful lessons we’ve learned thru those terrible struggles and afterward during our time of RENEWAL--how we as a people put away our self-centered ways and joined together as God fearing families and communities to make life work once again.

Bedtime! If I wake up again tomorrow morning--God willing!--I'll write some more.

Next:

Chapter 1 "From a Long Line of Survivors"