299 Days: The Community (24 page)

It was beautiful out that May morning. A perfect time for a walk. She got to Mrs. Roth’s house quickly. It was a modest little house on the land side of the road, across from a very nice waterfront cabin owned by…what was his name? He was that podiatrist from Seattle. Oh, Randy Greene.

She tried to hide her rifle as she walked up to the door. There was no need to alarm the poor old lady. She knocked on the door, and could hear someone inside slowly get up and shuffle to the door. The house smelled like a “grandma house.” Not a bad smell, just that distinctive grandma house smell.

Mrs. Roth smiled widely when she saw Mary Anne. A visitor. How nice. “Hello, Mary Anne. It’s wonderful to see you. Come in, please.” Seeing that Mary Anne had a rifle, Mrs. Roth said, “Oh, bring that in, too. No need to keep it outside. I used one of those myself back in the cowboy days when we tamed the prairies,” she said with a laugh.

Mrs. Roth wasn’t looking so well. She was very thin and moving even more slowly than usual.

They chatted for a while, and Mary Anne asked about Mrs. Roth’s health. She wouldn’t say much, brushing aside the questions. They talked about the news, keeping it very general. Mrs. Roth was well informed; she had been watching the TV news non-stop, but she didn’t seem too worried about anything.

Mary Anne asked her if she had food. Mrs. Roth answered, “My son comes once a week and brings me things. I don’t eat very much at all anymore. In fact, eating is a chore. I’m fine, but thanks for asking.”

She stared out the window. “I was a little girl during the Depression and World War II. This reminds me of those times, I hate to say. Except that then, we were all so united. We had a common cause. I don’t think people are united now. The country is too big. We’re bickering and greedy. I think this great country is over.” Mrs. Roth said that in a flat, matter-of-fact tone.

She had lived through so much that something like the Collapse, while certainly noteworthy, wasn’t the end of the world. The end of her world was coming soon due to her disease and she knew it. It put everything into context. Mrs. Roth started to remember all the people in her life who were no longer alive. She thought about them and what she would do to help them if they were still alive. She started thinking about how she could still help the people at Pierce Point. She knew she was going to heaven soon and wanted to do all the good things she could before then. “Well done, my good and faithful servant,” she whispered to herself, which was what she wanted to hear after she died.

Mary Anne told Mrs. Roth about the Matson family coming out with the Team. She had a hard time describing exactly what the Team was, so, realizing now that Mrs. Roth had lived through World War II, she said the men were kind of like soldiers. Mary Anne also told Mrs. Roth that Lisa Matson was a doctor. “I’ll ask her to come by and see you,” she said. Mrs. Roth nodded.

There was a pause. Knowing that she had come over for a reason, Mrs. Roth asked Mary Anne, “What can I do for you?”

Mary Anne was a little uncomfortable asking for something and hesitated for a moment. “Well, we have all those people living in the cabins on Over Road, like the team of young soldiers in the yellow cabin. We need to feed them. I am gardening and there are those apples everywhere that just rot each year. I am going to put up all the food I can, just like when I was a girl.”

Mrs. Roth smiled. People were going to be canning again. It was about time. All this fast food and relying on the grocery store for everything never made any sense to her.

“Oh, I have so many canning supplies I can’t keep track of them,” Mrs. Roth said. “They’re in the shed. You can have them if you’d like. I can’t stand long enough to can, anymore.”

“Oh, that would be great, Mrs. Roth,” Mary Anne said. “Just great. That’s what I came to ask you about.” Mrs. Roth was making her feel less and less guilty about asking for the canning supplies.

“Oh, certainly honey,” Mrs. Roth said. “I probably have ten cases of wide mouths and about the same number of pint jars. I have cases of regular lids. I got them fifteen years ago, but they never go bad. I thought I would can for everyone but no one wanted home canned food.” She chuckled. “They do now, though!”

Mrs. Roth’s eyes lit up. “I also have cases of those Tattler reusable canning lids. I got them in the 80s, a little while after they first came out. I never threw them out. I just knew that someone could use them. After living through the Depression, it’s hard for me to throw things out.”

Tattler lids? Mary Anne was euphoric. Unlike regular canning lids, which usually could not be reused a second time, Tattler lids could be used dozens of times. So could canning jars, making Tattler lids an absolute gold mine.

“That would be so generous, Mrs. Roth,” Mary Anne said. “We could really use them. We could also use some canning recipes. Could you share some with us?” Mary Anne knew the answer.

Mrs. Roth’s eyes lit up again. “Oh, yes, dear. I would be thrilled to share my recipes.” She realized that this would be one of the ways she could live on down on earth even after she was gone. People would talk for decades about “Mrs. Roth’s canned stew” and “Mrs. Roth’s apple butter.” She could tell Mary Anne the stories about her family and how the recipes came about. This was the best thing that had happened to her in years. She was so happy. She felt renewed. It was making the prospect of her approaching death that much easier.

“Let’s start by having you go out into the shed and inventory what I have,” Mrs. Roth said. “Then we can start on the recipes. I have a book of canning recipes and some up here,” she said, pointing to her head. “You can write them down. My mind is still sharp. I can give them to you by memory. And I might share a story or two about them.”

“That would be great,” Mary Anne said. She wanted to hear Mrs. Roth’s stories. She could tell that this was one of the best days Mrs. Roth had had in many years. And everyone would benefit from the canning recipes and, especially, from the supplies.

Mary Anne was stunned at how many canning supplies Mrs. Roth had. She had eleven cases of quart jars. With twelve in a case, that was a lot of jars; enough for many families each year. She also had nine cases of pint jars, also twelve to a case.

Mrs. Roth also had almost ten pounds of paraffin wax. Mary Anne knew that for some things, especially jams and jellies, she could melt about a quarter inch of wax on top of the jar and seal it that way, without having to use a canning lid. Wax could be reused to stretch it even further. Mrs. Roth had enough paraffin for lots and lots of jams and jellies; more than the families on Over Road probably would eat in a year.

Another prize was Mrs. Roth’s stores of pectin, which would allow Mary Anne to make jams and jellies that would gel instead of being runny. Mrs. Roth had Pomona pectin, which had a longer shelf life than regular pectin. This was important because Mrs. Roth's pectin was about fifteen years old; regular pectin would not be guaranteed to be effective over this period, but Pomona would. Also, Pomona pectin worked with lower sugar content jams and jellies and, with sugar being as scarce as it probably would be soon, that would be a good thing. Another amazing find in Mrs. Roth’s storage shed!

Mrs. Roth also had two twenty-one-quart All American canners; the ones that sealed without a rubber gasket, like the kind Mary Anne got at the farm supply store that week. Now, with Mrs. Roth’s canners, Mary Anne actually had more canners than they needed, but she could give the extras to others who needed them.

Mrs. Roth also had a well-worn copy of the Ball Blue Book of canning recipes, which would be great for people like Mary Anne and Eileen who hadn’t canned in a while.

The final prize was the boxes of Tattler canning lids. They were absolutely spectacular. Mary Anne counted the number of Tattlers. There were 365 of them. One for each day of the year, she thought.

“Mrs. Roth, you are literally saving our lives,” Mary Anne said, trying to choke back a tear.

“I know,” Mrs. Roth said with a smile. Then she got choked up, too. “But you’re saving mine. Making it meaningful here at the end. I’m more grateful to you than you are to me. Thank you so much for asking for my help. Thank you.” They both cried; joyous crying.

In that moment, Mary Anne realized that modern American culture did not value older people. That was over, though, now that modern America had collapsed. All across America that very morning, hundreds of thousands of people like Mary Anne and Mrs. Roth were probably having that same conversation. Younger people were getting skills from the older people. Older people were receiving a well-deserved purpose and pride by sharing those skills. Perhaps it was one of the few positives coming out of the whole mess.

Chapter 98

No Kings

(May 9)

After talking to Lisa about his new job and assuring her how safe he would be, Grant only had a little while before he had to go back for the 7:00 meeting at the Grange.

Grant and the Team would go early to get ready for the meeting; it would be an important one. There would be more people at this meeting than the one the night before; they met people all that day who said that they hadn’t been to the first meeting, but would be coming that night. The Team would be introduced by Rich and—Grant felt like he’d said this to himself a hundred times in the past few days—first impressions were everything. The residents of Pierce Point had to trust the Team and want their help.

Grant was still elated that Lisa had agreed to be a doctor out there. Part-time, of course. He knew that “part-time” would become full-time very quickly. He was happy for three reasons. First, it anchored Lisa into Pierce Point. She had a purpose to be out there. It would be harder for her to wish things were fine and that she could go back to Olympia when she had patients to see. Second, she would save lives out there. There was no question about it. She regularly saved lives when she was in a fully stocked ER, but out there, with primitive conditions, her knowledge would save even more lives.

Finally—and Grant was embarrassed that the politician in him actually thought this—having a doctor out at Pierce Point would be a huge political asset. It would be another reason for the residents to buy into the plan to have as self-sufficient community as possible. A Patriot community. Not in a giant ideological sense of “Patriot.” People didn’t need to walk around Pierce Point reciting the Federalist Papers or quoting Ludwig von Mises, but they needed to pick sides: Patriot or Loyalist. Grant knew that the more security, food, and medical services that Patriots could provide—contrasted with the security, food, and medical services the Loyalists were failing to provide—the more people would gravitate toward the Patriot side.

Grant had studied Mao and had a copy of his book “On Guerilla Warfare” out at the cabin. In it, Mao was crystal clear: a guerilla movement succeeds or fails depending on whether it can give the population what they need and treat them fairly. (Once Mao took power, he didn’t care so much about the fair treatment part.)

The military side of a guerilla movement is just that: a side. A part of it. Warfare is political. It’s about giving people a reason to fight and die for your side. Feeding them and protecting them are a huge part of that. And, as Mao made clear, successful guerillas focus on practical things, like food and security. They don’t talk about politics.

Grant heeded this advice. He would not even mention politics. He wouldn’t lie to people about his Patriot beliefs, but he wouldn’t dwell on them. “Politics”—officials spending money they didn’t have and grabbing power—had caused this Collapse. The people knew it. The last thing people cared about when they were hungry and terrified was “politics.” Not again, they would think, we have just been through that crap. But, over time, they would see one side was helping them and the other was bullying them. Having a doctor was a big part of showing people that the Patriots were helping them.

There wasn’t time for the usual group dinner at the Colsons’. Manda and Cole made spaghetti for the whole family that night. Manda was so good about getting Cole involved in everything. Grant had stored forty pounds of spaghetti noodles in vacuum-sealed pouches and had those cans of sauce. That was a lot of food for cheap and it stored forever. Grant was proud of himself for having all that food out there. Not in a “pat yourself on the back” way but in a “so glad I can be taking care of my family” way.

Dinner was quick, but great. The Matson family all talked over their meal. Like they had…well, never. Back in Olympia, they always had work or ballet or whatever going on.

Drew and Eileen were there, too. They were doing fine. Both were finding plenty to do out there and were really working well with the Morrells and Colsons. Grant couldn’t remember a time other than Thanksgiving when the whole family was together eating and talking. It felt great; like how things were supposed to be. It took a Collapse to get us to eat dinner together, Grant thought.

After the quick dinner, Grant went over to the yellow cabin. The Team was there, except Chip. He had been hanging out more with the older residents like the Morrells and Colsons. He could keep up with the Team, but everyone could tell he wasn’t trying to be a full-on member.

Grant told the guys, “We’re being introduced tonight as a SWAT team, so let’s look the part. Full kit. Strap on your ARs. Empty mags in, actions open. You can bring loaded mags in your kit, but we’re around a lot of people and no discernible threat. So empty mags in. Wear your pistols, of course.” Grant realized that he and everyone else on the Team—and many other males in Pierce Point—were wearing pistol belts all the time. It was starting to look weird to see people without them.

The guys looked very professional with their full kit and ARs. Grant had seen them like this on Sundays at the range, but he realized how someone seeing them for the first time would react: these guys know what they’re doing. Not in a “playing Army” way, just in a “we’ve done this hundreds of times” calm and understated, but comfortable, way.