Heinlein, Robert A – Expanded Universe

worthwhile, if you can’t face the prospect of coming back to the ruins of your

cabin, burned down by drunken looters, other than with the quiet determination to

build another, then don’t bother to start. Move to a target area and wait for the

end. It does not take any special courage or skill to accept the death that moves

like

lightning. You won’t even have ttie long walk the steers have to make to get from

the stockyard pens to the slaughter-house.

But if your ancestors still move in your bones, you will know that it is

worthwhile, just as they did. “The cowards never started and the weaklings died on

the way.” That was the spirit that crossed the plains, and such was the spirit of

every emigrant who left Europe. There is good blood in your veins, compadre!

It is not possible to tell exactly what to do to prepare yourself best to

survive, even if this were a book instead of a short article, for the details must

depend on the nature of the countryside you must rely on, your opportunities for

planning and preparing, the numbers, ages and sex of your dependents if any, your

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present skills, talents, and physical condition, and whether or not you are at

present dispersed from target areas or must plan for such dispersal. But the

principles under which you can make your plans and the easiest means by which to

determine them can be indicated.

Start out by borrowing your son’s copy of the Boy Scout Manual. It is a

practical book of the sort of lore you will need. If you can’t borrow it because he

is not a member of the Scouts, send him down at once and make him join up. Then make

him study. Get him busy on those merit badges-woodcraft, cooking, archery,

carpentry. Somebody is going to have to make that fire without matches, if that

rabbit is ever to be cooked and eaten. See to it that he learns how, from experts.

Then make him teach you.

Can you fell a tree? Can you trim a stone? Do you know where to dig a

cesspool? Where and how to dig a well? Can you pull a tooth? Can you shoot a rifle

accurately and economically? Can you spot tularemia (we are back to that ubiquitous

rabbit again!) in cleaning a rabbit? Do you know the rudiments of farming? Given

simple tools, could you build a log, or adobe, or

rammed-earth, or native-stone cabin from materials at hand and have it be

weather-tight, varmint-proof, and reasonably comfortable?

You can’t learn all the basic manual trades in your spare time in a limited

number of years but you can acquire a jackleg but adequate knowledge of the more

important ones, in the time we have left.

But how much time have we?

All we can do is estimate. How long will it be before other nations have the

atomic bomb? Nobody knows- one estimate from the men who made it was “two to five

years.” Dr. Vannevar Bush spoke of “five to fifteen years” while another expert,

equally distinguished, mentioned “five or ten years.” Major General Leslie Groves,

the atom general, thinks it will be a long time.

Let us settle on five years as a reasonable minimum working time. Of course,

even if another nation, unfriendly to us, solved the production problems of atomic

weapons in that length of time, there still might not be a war for a number of

years, nor would there necessarily ever be one. However, since we don’t know what

world conditions will be like in five years, let’s play it safe; let’s try to be

ready for it by 1950.

Four or five years is none too long to turn a specialized, soft, city

dweller into a generalized, hardened pioneer. However, it is likely that you will

find that you are enjoying it. It will be an interesting business and there is a

deep satisfaction in learning how to do things with your own hands.

First get that Scout Manual. Look over that list of merit badges. Try to

figure out what skills you are likely to need, what ones you now have, and what ones