I know you're only joking - but this is an interesting subject my wife and I sometimes discuss. Don't take it to be about you.
I don't get the impression that most city and suburban-types really like the country. How many would want to live there permanently? I don't think very many. When people are young, they go where the jobs are. I've done that myself, so I know. They move to metropolitan areas and surrounding towns and usually stay there until they're forced to leave. When they're older and no longer need to work, they either stay put or relocate to someplace warm and lazy: Florida, Phoenix, the V.I., etc. Not many do what we're doing. In fact, I often get a 'Are you nuts?' look when I tell folks up North that soon I'm retiring to New Hampshire. "New Hampshire is where people retire FROM, not TO," they say.
Okay, so be it. We aren't doing what others do. We almost never have. The Contrarian approach has served us well.
If you remember my posts at all, you know that I'm a bit of a Doomsday Prepper . . . or, in other people's parlance, "a nut." That's okay. I'm right back at them, viewing everyone else as nuts - for NOT preparing for a crisis that anyone with half a brain should know is coming.
So, the question remains, do we want "nuts" we don't know well to visit us and see what we're up to prior to a disaster? Why would we, given that they and those to whom they speak will represent a significant additional threat one day, if the "doomsday" event we're trying to prepare for ever actually happens?
Do you remember Truman Capote's true story, "In Cold Blood"? Two prison inmates heard from another inmate that a Kansas farmer always had a large amount of cash in his safe. Never mind that the story wasn't true -- the rumor was enough to persuade the two inmates to trek halfway across the country when they were released, to rob and murder an entire family they didn't even know.
In a TEOTWAWKI scenario, thieves and murderers will be abundant, especially at first, and the food and supplies of a disaster prepper will carry a far greater allure than whatever Perry Smith and Richard Hickock hoped to find in that Clutter family safe. It's a risk we'd be foolish to ignore, given that we take TEOTWAWKI seriously.
So, do we want visitors? It's a beautiful place. One day, I'd surely enjoy showing it off to family and friends from afar. But doing so would be DUMB from a prepping standpoint - except perhaps in the cases where we're actively recruiting. That could happen. It's a lot of land. The truth is, we *do* want to have some friends up there, but only ones who are like-minded and who have something to offer. After all, let's be real: We're going to be way out of our league, especially at first. The people who've lived in the country for years, who understand the winter and living off the land, who may already possess gardening, hunting, construction or logging skills, will run circles around us. We're going to need THEIR help to make a go of it, not additional boat anchors weighing us down when we're already struggling.
So, how's that for a long-winded and probably somewhat mean-spirited response? We'll welcome and even seek out useful people, but it would be stupid to not employ discretion.
That may not sound very Christian, I know . . .
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