Still, I was already out of the car so I looked around. I bought two nearly new backpacks of very high quality for a dollar each. These bags were not the disposable won't last through a school year book bag type. They are sturdy, double stitched, double zipped at the top back packs meant for hikers. They were a dollar!
The guy came out and tried to sell the bags as I was giving his wife the money. People do that. They want you to 'feel' the bargain I guess, I don't really know. But, he told me about the extra pockets and the double zip at the top made them water proof. He said they were hardly ever used. She said, we hike a lot. We have a lot of back packs. I figured they needed me to appreciate the bags, so I said yes, they will make good bags for my grand children.
What I meant was, G.O.O.D. bags. They are just the right size to fit a small woman or a tween-ager without needing a frame. The earth tone green and gray made them the right color. I don't have any use for screaming neon that puts a target on my back.
By the time I had admired the bags, I had gathered from the couple that they make a good second income taking their vacations together and taking newbie hikers into the Appalachian Trails for day hikes and Three day treks. They made a second income out of their vacations! Very cool! They would meet a group of day hikers and take them for a 36 hour trek and teach basic wilderness skills. These people just got the basics of how to stay on a marked trail and how to wait to be rescued if lost. The couple would come back and trade them for hikers with more experience, often return clients for a three day hike that was actually four full days start to finish. They got lessons in scavenging for forest food, and more detailed woodland skills. With their two week vacations together they could take out five or six groups depending on their booking via internet connections and advertising.
So, why then would they be selling off their back packs I asked. The economy and fewer hikers and they gather dust were things I heard. I suggested they reach beyond the day hiker outlets and start touting their survival skills. Maybe they could drum up more clients if they approached the prepper crowd. Well, then The Husband lit up like a Christmas Tree. In the next three to five minutes, he told me about all these TV shows like Disaster Preppers that he loved to watch. I tried stepping backwards toward my car, but they kept talking. There was talk of let people run out of food in the grocery store and see how they turn into animals 'cuz I gotta gun, and how they were saving their second income ( and the amount in the bank) to move to the country just in case.
I said let me tell you something you really NEED to know. One of the 'experts' who actually rates the Disaster Preppers is James Wesley Rawles. He is a published author and I told them the names of two of his books (How to survive TEOTWAWKI, and Patriots). I told them the name of his blog, Survivalblog.com. And then I told them they have two compound bows, a derringer (.22cal), MREs for two for two weeks, a cat and a 12 gauge shotgun and two hundred rounds of shells, they are gone from their home for two weeks every May, and had absolutely no sense of who they were talking to. They didn't know me from Adam OR Eve!
They didn't 'catch on' to the phrase G.O.O.D (get out of dodge), they didn't know I prep. They didn't know my criminal history (none, but they didn't know). They didn't know or realize they had told a stranger way too much. They were a little shaken. They had not realized how much information they shared. They seemed enthusiastic about prepping but had painted a target on themselves. I hope they read survival blog and learn to "unshare" or not share at all. I hope they survive whatever hard times come their way.
How much do your neighbors know about you? How many people will knock on your door when hard times arrive, knowing you have prepared? What do you share with strangers?
