Survival: Volume 2 (Ambler's Travels) - Tapa blanda

Government is hanging by a thread. Warlords, roaming bandits, and armed insurrections exist in America. Families struggle to survive in huge crowded communal camps from coast to coast. Food, clothing, and cold are constant worries. New rigid attitudes, a forced work ethic, and mistakes are leading to revolution. The economy has shriveled. There’s a new currency. Whole industries are simply gone, confiscated. Fossil fuels are reserved for only government and military service. Families are placed on farm land with only hand tools for growing crops. Food supplies must be supplemented by hunting and gathering. Housing has returned to pioneering expedients. Steve Ambler is a roving trouble shooter, serving a government with an uncertain future. The McCandless family finds old skills are required, must be relearned, and new defenses are necessary to survive with few resources. Book two, Survival, sets the stage for Book three, The New Order.

I’m an ‘older’ guy. I’ve lived in many places and enjoyed a wide range of experiences in my life. I learned to shoot at 8 years old. I’ve hunted deer and when shot at by another hunter, decided on another hobby. I’ve fished in fresh water and on the ocean. Fish don’t shoot back! I’ve worked on a farm, herded cows on horseback, chopped cotton, stomped silage, bucked hay bales, plowed fields, and milked cows. I played football, basketball, and went out for track. I liked school despite being bored much of the time. I finished college on my timeline, adding the electives of getting drunk, experiencing hangovers, and chasing young women. I was tested, ‘short armed’ in El Paso, Texas and rejected for flat feet. Eventually I became a school teacher. I completed a master’s degree, got married (45 years), bought and sold property, raised 3 kids, supported dogs, cats, chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, a goat, pigs, horses and cows. I have felled big trees, cleared land, and built fences. I have built different kinds of farm structures. I’ve traveled across twelve of the western states and lived in six of them. I’ve been an archer, a skier, sailed a boat, and paddled my own canoe. I’ve been a smoker and a drinker. I quit smoking but enjoy a glass of wine now and then. I’ve been in more churches than Carter has pills, studied religions, and been “saved” via sprinkle, splash, and dunk. Well, I got wet anyway. I bring all of that to my writing.