Calamity in America (31 page)

It stayed way cooler in the summer and was much easier to heat in the winter.  With that big remodel he had put on two regular house doors instead of the old trailer house doors which were worn out anyway.  So the outside of my home was more like a regular house than a trailer.  That was why I wanted to put on the security doors.  I knew anyone could come and kick in my front or back door without much problem.

I had changed out all the small short screws in the latches and hinges on the doors.  I had installed three inch screws everywhere.  I could feel the difference it made when I was done.  Both doors seemed sturdier.  But I wanted more.  So I had measured both doors and kept an eye out for a couple of steel security doors for cheap. 

I finally found them at a moving sale.  They were new and had never been installed.  The people said they had bought them but never got around to installing them and now they were moving.  I haggled the price down to twenty bucks apiece if I took them both.  The man there even put them in my trunk and tied the lid down for me (not that I couldn’t have done it myself).

I have plenty of tools at home that my father had from the all the odd jobs he did and the big remodeling jobs he did on the trailer.  I had helped him, on and off, with working on the trailer, so I did have some knowledge about how to do things.  And since I have been doing a little working out I am fairly strong.

I installed both the security doors without a problem.  Of course, because they were new, they had full instructions on how to install them on the packages.  I did the first one in a day and the other on my next day off.  I had purchased both knobs and deadbolts at yard sales for those doors so they are fairly secure.  It makes me feel better having those new doors in place.  A little added security can never hurt.

With the summer I was running again.  People do different things to relax and, as crazy as it sounds, I run to relax.  Of course it is exercise, but when I run any and all stress I might feel just melts away.  Running really makes me feel alive.  But there is always risk and I again had a problem on one of my runs in the city.

I was running near a city park on a trail for bikes and runners when a man stepped out in front of me.  I was instantly on guard because I could only think of one reason to step out and stop someone running.  My hand was inside my fanny pack and wrapped around my pistol before I even came to a stop.  Any place else I would have just ran around the man and it was very unlikely he could have ever caught me, but the trail narrowed way down here and there was no room to get around him.  That was obviously why he picked this spot. 

“Be quiet and obey me and you won’t get hurt,” he said. And then he brandished a knife.  It was a stupid chef’s knife like they often show in the movies.  I pulled my pistol, cocked it so he heard it, and aimed it at his sizable belly.

“I wonder just how far the bullets from this will penetrate into that big belly of yours.”

One small step in my direction and I would have pulled the trigger as fast as I could.  At this close of a range there was no way I could miss, and I was sure to get two or three bullets into him before he could touch me.  I think he must have known that also.

He said nothing but instead dropped the knife, turned, and ran directly away from me.

This time there was no shaking or labored breathing on my part.  I just carefully uncocked the pistol and put it back in my pack.  Then I just started running down the path again.  No different than stopping to step on a bug or to swat a mosquito.  That expense for the pistol has paid for itself a couple of times already.  It was a very good investment.  

I am so happy about my garden!  It is actually looking like a real garden in a picture or something.  Stuff is growing well and I have eaten many salads from it already.  Awhile after I had planted my garden I stopped at the dollar store (the real dollar store where every item is a dollar or less!) and they had a closeout on their seeds. 

I skipped over the flower seeds but bought quite a number of packs of the garden seeds.  I’m sure these packages had fewer seeds in them than the name brand ones that I had bought where I work, but these were now only six packages for a dollar!   I bought everything I thought I might eat.  I know, call me a spendthrift, but I spent a whole four dollars on those seeds.

After seeing the sale on the garden seeds I stopped at a few other stores to see if they had sales on their leftover seeds.  I had bought plenty at the dollar store but there were more varieties that I wanted.  After those next few stops I had all the seeds I needed for at least the next year, and maybe the next two years, at a substantial savings.

In the spring, Walmart had again brought me (and most everyone else) up to our normal work week hours.  They had never changed from the ‘winter hours’ but a few people had quit or gotten fired, so everyone else had picked up a few hours.  Walmart had not hired anyone to replace those that were now gone.  But by the middle of summer sales were again slumping and hours were again being cut. 

Of course, Walmart was not alone with the sales slump.  In fact, they were maybe in better shape yet than many other businesses.  People were again losing their jobs.  More and more people were seen begging or holding signs asking for work on many street corners.

I had access to the city’s daily newspaper at work and read it every day during break.  I also watched the evening news when I was at home in the evening.  Chicago did file for bankruptcy.  And they were not the only city to do so.  On the news they listed ten other large cities that also filed for bankruptcy, either just before or just after Chicago did.  And that was just the larger cities that people would recognize, and I guessed (correctly or not) that other lesser-known cities had likely done the same thing, only, likely many more of them.

Things were not looking good at all.

Chapter 5

With my garden working out so well I started to think about maybe trying my hand at hunting this fall.  I needed information so I went to the sporting goods section at work and picked up a free hunting regulations booklet.  I read the entire thing but still had many questions so I stopped at the same gun shop to see if they could answer some of my questions.  The owner’s son was working when I went in.  He actually smiled when he saw me.

“Hi, what’s up today?”

“I am thinking about maybe trying to do a little hunting this fall and I have a hundred questions.”

“I have hunted ever since I was old enough to shoot a gun.  I will certainly answer any questions that I can.  But if you can work it into your schedule there are state hunter safety education classes that are starting very soon in the evenings that would be a good idea for you to take.”

“I work some evenings but maybe I could switch around some to take the classes.  Are they expensive?”

“No.  They are less than twenty bucks and are required before you can buy a hunting license anyway.  Plus, they pour a huge amount of information into just a few hours of instruction.  Whether you decide to hunt or not the information is very worthwhile.”

“Is there a brochure or something that lists the dates and times so I can try to work it into my work schedule?”

“No.  It will be listed in the newspaper at some point usually, but I think I have something I can give you.  Give me a minute to find it and make you a copy.”

He left and went into a back room or office.  I was all alone in the shop.  I guess he trusted me.  He returned a few minutes later with a paper.

“Here are the dates and times.  It is being held at this middle school.  You can sign up the first night or you can now do it online too.”

“I don’t do the whole computer thing.  Thank you for this information.”

“You are most welcome.  By the way, my name is Jack.”

He put out his hand and we shook.

“I’m April, but I guess you already know that.”

“Yes, my dad told me you stopped in on a day I had off.  I knew your name from the pistol registration.  You just kinda impressed me and I told my dad that I met you.”

“He told me.  But I can not say that I have ever impressed anyone before.  I am just a poor nothing girl that is just trying to get by in a rather hostile world.”

“You are most certainly not a ‘nothing’ girl, and you did impress me. And that is not an easy task.”

“Well thanks for the information on these classes.  I will hold my hunting questions until after I take these classes.  I’m sure they will be answered there.”

“You know, you are always welcome to come here and either I or my dad will help you any way we can.”

“Do you do that for all your customers?”

“Yes, we do.  Good customers are hard to come by these days.  And some customers we like better than others.”

He actually winked ay me!  No one had ever done that before and I’m not sure what to make of it.  I just thanked him again and left the shop. 

I was able to get the few evenings off without a problem at work.  My boss was surprised because I had never asked for any time off before.  And these few evenings were not a problem because I would have only been scheduled for one or two of them anyway.

I showed up early on the evening of the first class but when I walked into the room they were already set up and I signed up for the class.  I saw that the class consisted of mainly kids of about early teen age.  There were several adults about but I couldn’t tell if they were all parents or if they were taking the classes for themselves. 

At the start time a man stepped out in front and began talking about the classes.  We would be split up so the class sizes would be small.  He then said that all the instructors were volunteers.  He waved his hand at several men and a lone woman standing against one wall.  I noticed both Jack and his dad were amongst the volunteer instructors!  No wonder Jack had the times and dates of the classes. 

I rather hoped that I would end up in class with Jack as the instructor.  I don’t know why as I’m sure the other instructors were perfectly capable.  After talking about the classes for a bit the man in charge read off names and we were all assigned to different classes.  When I walked with my group to our assigned class room I was pleasantly surprised to see Jack and the woman (I learned her name was Patty) were to be our instructors.  Each class had two instructors.  There were two other adults in this class besides me.  The rest were kids.

We were given a workbook and other materials for the class and then the rest of the two hour class was taken up with lectures intermixed with questions and answers.  At the end of the nightly class we were given a reading assignment in the work book.

After class I walked over to where Jack and Patty were standing.

“I should not be surprised that you and your dad are instructors.  I’m glad I got in your class.”

“I was kinda hoping you would be in my class.  No special treatment though.”

“I think I can pass OK.  See you tomorrow night.”

As I was walking away I think I heard Patty ask Jack if he and I were an ‘item’.  I think I heard him say that I was just a customer of the shop.  Somehow that made me kinda sad, but I’m not really sure why.

The classes lasted two weeks but were not every night.  There was a ‘field test’ on the last Saturday and then the following Monday night we all graduated.  Jack was correct about there being a lot of information compressed into those few hours of classes.  It was mostly about safe gun handling and hunting safety but also included many other things that would be useful while some was necessary for hunting. 

Jack was a good instructor.  He often looked at me in class when he was in front lecturing, but he never singled me out in any way with questions or remarks.  Like most of the others, I asked several questions, which he answered very well.  He was funny some of the time I think, just to keep the attention of the kids in the class.  But he also often mentioned the seriousness of the class itself.

The classes made me really want to hunt after it was done.  I went back to Jack’s shop to buy my hunting license.  Again he smiled when I walked through the door.

“I’m here to buy my first hunting license.”

“What are you going to hunt?”

“I want a small game license for now but I plan on getting a deer license later.”

“Great.  Let me have your driver’s license and I’ll write it up.”

“OK, but don’t look at my weight.”

“We post the names and the weights of everyone we sell a license to near the door later in the season.”

We were both smiling now as he was filling out my license for me.

“Do you have a place to hunt?”

“I talked to one of my neighbors so far and he said I was welcome to hunt on his farm any time.  Plus, there is a wildlife area just a short distance from my house.”

“I do get a day off once in awhile.  I would certainly like to hunt with you and maybe show you a few more things if you wanted.”

“Do you make that offer to all your customers?”

“No.  Just you.”

“I like you Jack, but I am not looking for a boyfriend.”

“Can’t I just be a friend who you happen to hunt with?”

“I could go with that.”

“We are closed Sundays.  Want to try something this Sunday?”

“That would be great.  I have Sunday off this week and that was when I was planning to go anyway.”

“Grouse, squirrel, and rabbit season opens Saturday.  Have you ever eaten any wild meat?”

“No, this is all new to me.”

“Your shotgun is not the best choice for grouse but it will work.  Your twenty two would be perfect for squirrels and rabbits.  So are we on for Sunday?”

“Sure.  I know I need help with the hunting stuff.”

“Are you sure you can shoot an innocent bunny rabbit?”

“Trust me, I can shoot a rabbit.  Or anything else for that matter.  Here, let me give you my phone number.  I have to work the evening shift Saturday, so maybe not too early.”

“We have to give the critters a chance to wake up anyway to make it sporting.  How about nine, would that be OK?  I can drive out and meet you at your place.”