Destiny Survival

Archive for the ‘Survival with Prell’ Category

Editor’s note: George Prell forwards another letter from his friend, Karl the survivalist.

- John

Dear G,

Hope you don’t get tired of my rants, but have just seen a demonstration on casting bullets (lead balls in this case) that really caught my imagination.

The person who did the demonstration said if you have a muzzle loader rifle or handgun, why not cast lead balls for it? He likes the balls because they are easy to load, but you can also make regular handgun slugs, rifle slugs, and shotgun slugs. The molds use the same handles which keeps cost and weight down.

Why cast them? Well, what if commercial bullets were no longer available, or you were someplace where you couldn’t buy them? All you need is the mold and handles, a pot for melting and a dipper. In a pinch, he said you can melt and even pour from a tin can, using a pair of pliers to hold the can. But he uses a long handled dipper to stir the metal and dip it for pouring into the molds.

He used a Lee double cavity mold for his demonstration. He likes the double mold because it is faster and holds the heat better.

There are electric melters that are really nice, he said. Bass Pro has them for making lead sinkers. But for out in the woods survival a little wood fire will melt lead. Some guys use canned heat.

He laid out an old towel to catch the slugs as they came out of the mold. The first ones he cast were kind of wrinkled because the mold wasn’t hot enough he said and the metal solidified too soon. He just put them back into the melter and kept on casting. He knocked the sprue cutter with a piece of wood and turned the slugs out on the towel. Soon the bullets came out nice and shiny, which means they were just right and had filled the mold.

He let me try some. He said you need to get into a rhythm with how fast you pour and dump them out. This keeps the mold just hot enough. Some of mine came out kind of frosted and he said that means the lead or the mold was too hot. Shiny is what you want. No harm though if they aren’t exactly right. Just put them into the pot and try again.

We used up the can of lead pretty soon and had a nice batch of round balls.  He said you can also get a mold for casting little ingots. They are a handy way to store lead and the little ingots could be used for sale or barter.

Where to get the metal? Of course you can get it from Bass Pro or MidwayUSA. Some guys use old wheel weights, which are an alloy. Wheel weights make hard bullets. Then there is the inexhaustible source of old car and truck batteries. Target shooters can find slugs at the range or reuse ones they retrieve.

Just thinking, you don’t have to be a reloader or even a shooter to cast slugs or little ingots. You could set up a little bullet-ingot shop for barter with those who do shoot. It really is fun to do, once you get the hang of it.

Karl

Note: Prell suggests the following items, which you can get when you click on the Bass Pro Shop banner.  Search for these product names on their site.

Hot Pot III Lead Melting Pot

Cast-iron Melting Pot

Camp Dutch Oven Lid Stand

Which area are you from? I’m from #3. I hope I will never have to move.  So much of my life is bound up in this place. But if I am moved to another area, part of me will always be in Area #3.

Every area has its own accents and idioms, I suppose, but our Area is kind of special. Some say we have traces of the old country in our speech. The USA it was called.

#5  could be okay, I suppose. Smaller camps with a more personal touch. A bunch of us could be going there soon to help with the big toxic spill. Might be a good deal. Toxic workers get double food allotments and private quarters. Guess so they don’t contaminate the food and housing people?

If I am assigned there I hope to do some good. Try to prevent the contamination of the migratory birds that nest there. Lucky birds. Imagine going where you want. No travel permits. No border guards!

But we may be too late. You can’t ever get it out of the ground water. We’ll end up drinking it and eating it. Everybody’s got to die sometime, so I’m pretty much resigned to whatever happens. But I would like to be buried in Area #3. It’s the only home I’ve ever known.

Editor’s note:  George Prell forwards another thought provoking note from his survivalist friend Karl.

Dear G,

Years ago I heard that question asked by a comedian mocking modern values. He said that must be what modern man is concerned with.

Is there anyone who doesn’t see things collapsing all around us? My niece told me of a family friend who is out of work, fired from his executive position without warning. He has huge credit card debts and won’t be able to make his mortgage payments. He would like to rent a place for his family of four. In trying to sell his house he has reduced the asking price down to $440,000 for a quick sale. No takers so far.

Chuck Harder, the broadcaster received a call for help by someone in a similar situation, only on a much smaller scale. His advice was to get a Winabago type of rolling home. Park it on a lot that has utility hookups, living wherever he could find any kind of work. I have discussed this with some of my survival friends. They agreed with the practicality of such a plan, but some objected they don’t want to give up their possessions to hit the road. Store them, said one.

But a friend had an idea I had not thought of. His idea, buy a used freight trailer. He said there are many thousands sitting idle. He used to load them for Kroger’s. He said the floors are cross-plied oak to take the fork lifts running over them and to bear the heavy pallets. They are weather proof and have secure doors.

His idea, load everything you hold dear into your freight trailer and have it hauled to your survival location. If you have to, live in it yourself. Weather permitting, live in a tent. Sound horrible? How does it compare to people without possessions and no place to live at all?

Ever notice how much survival planning is for a coming disaster, nuclear war, epidemics, crop failures. I’m not  against these preparations, G. But it does seem, when I look down my prayer list at all my troubled friends, that the hard times are  upon many of us now.

Karl

P.S. I did rappel. Finally got the nerve. Tell you about it later.

We were alive again, this time forever. All our problems were over and nothing but happiness lay ahead. But some bonds still held us captive, bonds of love and friendship we once had with our beloved pets, in this instance, our dogs and cats.

We were gathered at Reunion Meadow as we had been instructed, for an event we did not yet fully understand. All we knew is that it would be a time of great happiness.

The animals were waiting for us as we walked up a gentle slope to a field that seemed to go on forever, left and right, to the distant horizon.

“There must be millions of dogs and cats!” someone exclaimed.

            “Billions,” said a guide. “From thousands of years. Some of them were the last of their breed when they died.”

“But they are all here now, and so are their owners.”

We had formed a long line on one side of Reunion Meadow, and about a hundred yards away were our pets. They were lined up too, facing us, and nervous with anticipation. They were of every type and color and every mixture imaginable. We could see them clearly across the grassy expanse, our new vision as sharp and clear as if, in our former lives, we had been using binoculars.

A little boy extended his arm and cried out in his excitement, “Look Mommy, it’s Spike!”

“Spike was our English Bull,” his mother explained. “He was so wonderful with the kids. He would spend entire days with them under our big catalpa tree, watching them play in the sand box. He even got into their wagon and let them pull him around, sometimes with one of their hats on his head. He didn’t care, as long as he was with them he was happy. He died when our trailer burned. We were only gone a few hours. When we returned they were putting yellow tape across the driveway to keep people out. Everything was destroyed. All we found of Spike was the metal parts of his collar and his name tag. But there he is across the meadow, as strong and alert as ever.”

A little girl turned to her father. “Brownie is here and he’s all new!” She had seen his broken body after he had tried to bite the tires of a delivery truck, no doubt thinking he was defending his family from a monster animal, as his ancestors had done for thousands of years.

But that was all past now and we were ready to see our pets again, and this time it was for keeps.

A guide had lifted his arm as a signal to the animals across the way. They understood somehow that their run to us was about to begin. The larger dogs were poised with tense dignity, while the little dogs could not restrain themselves. A toy poodle, standing on his hind legs, pawed the air with his front feet together as if he was praying. Tiny dogs were spinning in their excitement, like windup toys.

The guide swung his arm down. The race was on! There were bounding Great Danes, Irish setters loping along like trotting horses, and little dogs whose steps were so rapid you could hardly see them move.

Then, in mid-field, the big dogs stopped and looked back.

“What’s wrong?” someone asked. “Why are they stopping?”

The guide explained, “They’re waiting for the little dogs to catch up. They don’t know yet that they can fly.”

Last of all, a baby Chihuahua stopped and was looking back too.

“That’s ok, Honey,” his owner called, “You don’t need to wait. There’s no one slower than you.”

Suddenly they were upon us, a tide of happiness, bowling us over in their exuberance . They yelped in their excitement, and licked us as they had in days gone by.

No one remembered how long this high point of the reunion lasted. It could have been minutes or hours. Time was different here. The first excitement subsided, replaced by a glowing joy.

“But what about the cats?” someone asked. “Where are they?”

Our guide pointed to them across the field. They were all still there. They had been behind the dogs all along. But none of them moved, except to lick themselves or change their lounging postures. A mother cat, nursing five kittens, lifted her head for a moment to look at us, then lay back down, shutting her eyes in contentment. A kitten was biting another kitten’s tail. None of them moved towards us. We sensed their eyes watching us, but the excitement of the dogs had been replaced by the cool curiosity we had come to know over the years.

“When do they come to us?” a child asked.

The guide smiled. “They never will. You have to go to them. That is one thing that has not changed."

Editor’s note:  George Prell persuaded me to post the following story.  It’s not what you’d expect on a blog about survival where the focus is on beating the odds against us.  Yet one day disaster will strike that ends life as we know it.  People will die.  Some will be our loved ones.  Coping will be a tremendous challenge.  But what about in the here and now?  – John

 Rejoice with them that do rejoice and weep with them that weep.  (Romans 12:15)

Meg had been serving as a Christian counselor for three months and was  just settling in, just beginning to feel she might make it. There was a  walnut and brass  name plate on her desk presented at a little tea and  cookies party by friends and officers of the church. She would look at it  and think, “Is this really me?”

She was equipped with a degree in counseling and had a good solid Bible  background. But she felt each person who came to her was a new challenge, a unique individual, and she was certain she could never be complacent,  never really relax. Christian service was like that.  You had to be open  to new experiences all the time.

Besides her formal training, she had been given three simple guidelines  by an older woman in the church who had experience as a professional in medical counseling.

Mrs. Wyatt’s guidelines were:  “Never have physical contact with a client. Use the client’s last name at all times, and use ‘we’ when referring to yourself, as in, ‘We are here to help you,’” she said. “After all, it is more than a euphemism. You are part of a group–the  officers of the church, our prayer support partners and the good intentions of the whole congregation.

“These guidelines are to assist you in maintaining a proper perspective  concerning your relationship to the client.  You will be tempted to  empathize with people to the extent that you seek to join them emotionally in their situations. We women are particularly  prone to this behavior. That is how God made us after all.” Mrs. Wyatt cited C.S. Lewis as her closing argument. “I don’t remember his exact words, she said, But his example was of someone trying to  rescue a person drowning in a stream. Unless they keep their feet on firm ground they can’t pull someone out of the water. To jump in with them means you both will perish.”

The older woman’s words made sense to Meg, and she found it was not too difficult to work within their framework. In fact, quite often it was  difficult to achieve empathy with many of her clients. Their problems were often due to their self?centeredness and egos. Many were petty complaints,  family bickering and feuds she felt they should work out among themselves.

Her last client this day could be different, however. His wife had died about a year ago and his family had referred him to her. They felt he had not adjusted well at all, they were quite concerned about his attitude and what they called his "unrealistic behavior".

“Alan Hughes is here,” said the secretary at her door.

A small thin man stepped in briskly. He had short gray hair and wore a blue work shirt that brought out the color of his eyes.

“How am I doing timewise?” he asked?

“Fine, fine,” she said. “A little early, actually.”

“Well,” he said apologetically, “I really hate to take up your time. I only came because my family kept getting on me. I’m really ok, you know.”

“Well, Mr.Hughes,” Meg began, “I hope that is true. But your sister told me that you don’t answer the door when they come to visit you.  She said they found newspapers lying in your driveway from weeks ago that you never picked up.”

“Oh, sure, sure,” he said. “I guess I was a little forgetful for a while, but I’m past all that now. I’ve gathered them all up. I’ve been going through them, saving the food ads, things like that. My wife likes to look at the food section. And the comics, too. She’ll have a good time catching up on them for Better or Worse when she comes home.”

Trained as she was, Meg was not prepared for this comment and those that followed.

She saw him looking at the soft drink cup on her desk. She rose and turned towards a little refrigerator on the counter behind her desk.  “Can I get you something?” she asked, opening the door

He saw the little red and white half pint cartons in the door shelf.  “I’ll take a carton of melk,” he said brightly.

She hesitated at the word "melk.” Had she heard him correctly? 

“Milk?” she asked.

“Yeah, that’s right,” he said, “Just a little carton of melk. I just need a taste, really.”

She handed the carton to him and sat down across the desk. “Where to start?” she thought. Initial contact was always a little awkward for her. She was still learning.

“I thought I detected a little accent when you said milk,” she began. “Are you from around here?”

“Oh, yes. Born here,  lived here all my life except for some time in the service. Melk is how my wife pronounces it,” he said. “I figure it’s the right way to pronounce it. She and her family say ‘melk.’ They are from Germany, originally. Very accurate type people, you know.”

He saw her looking at the watch on his wrist. “It’s my wife’s,” he explained. “Figure I’ll wear it until she gets out of the hospital. They say it’s better to wear them than just put them in a drawer someplace. It keeps real good time.”

Meg really did not like what she was hearing. “Brave little man,” she thought, “You’re trying to carry on without your wife, but this is not the way to do it. Not at all.”

“Mr. Hughes,” she said with as much detachment as she could muster. “How long has your wife been dead? About a year, isn’t it?”

He shifted nervously. “One year and twenty-one days,” he spoke, returning to the reality of it all. “I know what you’re probably thinking. You think I can’t face it and all that, like my family thinks..”

Meg began to protest, but he continued.

“Well, that was really the case at one time, I admit that. The day she died I went to the food store. I had to. There was absolutely nothing to eat at home. One of the last things she made me promise was that I would eat right. She said, ‘Now don’t starve yourself. I’m afraid you don’t know how to make proper meals.’ I hated it when she talked like that, like what would I do when she died? But she made me promise, so there I was at the food store and she had died just that morning.

“I was having trouble driving, still in shock you know. I was afraid to park near anybody, afraid I would bang their car. So I parked way off from everybody and walked into the store. I honestly didn’t know what to do. I got hold of a grocery cart and couldn’t separate it from the stack, you know. I kept pulling and pulling. Finally a clerk came over, a young girl. She pulled my cart free for me.

“I didn’t know how to shop. I was on automatic pilot you could say. I felt like you do in a dream when something is chasing you and you can’t move your legs. Everybody was going around me with their carts. I was so slow. I didn’t have any idea what to buy. My mind was so messed up.”

Meg wanted to say something, pull him away from this agonizing recollection. But she knew it was important for him to continue and for her to listen.

“I thought, ‘What should I buy?’ I saw the bread display and I thought, ‘get some bread. Bread is good for people. You need bread.’ I got whole wheat. She always says white bread is no good for you.  I kept doing that, thinking what would she get, and that’s what I bought. I remember I got pickles. She likes pickles, she eats them right out of the jar.”

Meg listened intently, straining to be objective and follow her training. “He’s having trouble with his tenses,” she thought. “He speaks of his wife as if she was still alive.”

“I bought dumb stuff,” he smiled. “Cookies, stuff like that. I even got  some Hershey’s chocolate syrup. I had a craving for something that was…”

“Comfort food?” Meg interjected.

“Yeah, yeah,” he agreed. “One thing for sure, I needed comfort. Something to get me through it. Well, I don’t know why I’m telling you all this, really. Except I wanted  to show you how  bad off I was then. But that stuff is all over now. I wish you would tell my family that. You will, won’t you? No sense them worrying about me so much. I’m ok  now. You can see that, can’t you?”

He looked at Meg, waiting for her answer. When she didn’t answer he  looked away, staring intently at a glass hummingbird suspended on a thread from the ceiling.

“He’s distancing himself,” Meg thought. “He’s pretending this is all no big deal. How can I tell him it is?”

“Mr. Hughes,” she began, “\we really want to help you in this situation, but you must help us. To do that you must face some things about your present emotional state.”

“Too formal,” she thought as she heard her words, as if they were coming from a text book.

“Mr. Hughes, I must tell you how concerned I have become as I listened to your story.  I want to thank you for being so forthright with me, for telling it like it is. But now I have to be perfectly honest with you if we’re going to help you. People do certain things when they experience great sorrow at the loss of a loved one. They may wear items of clothing of the person who has died.” She saw him look down at his wife’s watch on his wrist.

“They may continue to speak of their lost loved ones as if they were still alive and try to maintain this fiction by adopting their pattern of speech and so forth. This behavior is to be expected in the early days of the grieving process. But if this continues unabated it can be the sign of a very serious problem. I am a trained Christian counselor, but I am not a psychiatrist. But I will tell you this, there is a term for what I believe we have here.”

She looked at him as she spoke. He was no longer looking at the hummingbird. “The term I am referring to is bereavement psychosis syndrome.”

“Psychosis,” he said, his eyes fixed on hers. “It means crazy, doesn’t it?”

 He tried to drink the rest of the carton’s contents. His throat was so constricted that he swallowed with difficulty. “This is good melk,” he said. He reached to place the carton on her desk. It struck the edge and spilled. He tried to wipe it up with his sleeve.

“That’s OK,” Meg said. “I’ll get it up later. It’s OK.”

His eyes were filling with tears. “That’s what you mean, don’t you?” he said. “Bereavement psychosis. I’m crazy with grief  aren’t I?”

“Oh no, Mr. Hughes,” Meg began…

His gaze was intense now, as he beamed at her. “Thank you, oh thank you so much. You really do understand! You really do! I am crazy and I don’t know what I’m going to do about it!”

His head was bowed down, his hands in his lap clenching and unclenching.

He began to wail, like a child crying for its mother in the  night. “Aaah huh huh, aaah huh huh!” Three notes on a descending scale.

Meg  pictured a limp body rolling down steps into a dark basement, an image of helpless sorrow. In a flash, a question came to her, “Will anyone ever love me this much? Will anyone cry like this when I die?”

She rose from her seat behind the desk and came to him, kneeling by his chair. She placed her hands over his little frail hands and squeezed them as hard as she could. “Oh, Alan,” she said. “I am so sorry, I am so sorry.”

Then she began to cry too.  Then she began to cry with him.

Editor’s Note: Yesterday morning I heard about two minutes of the syndicated Mancow morning show, and he mentioned speculation that President Obama would one day announce NASA probes had found buildings on the moon and Mars.  Supposedly the president would announce the existence of alien races.  Mancow doesn’t believe this will happen, and I doubt it, too.  The idea isn’t new though.

For example, back in the early 1990’s talk show host Chuck Harder, who didn’t dabble in paranormal subjects, set forth the possibility that the appearance of UFOs would bring about world government.  This was because the U.N. and nonaligned governments would see the need for a united front to face a potential destabilizing threat.  Could such a thing happen?  Is this another survival scenario to prepare for?  How would people react?  Will people of faith be so shaken they’d lose their faith?  Prell shares thoughts on this in the following account.  - John

And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was there place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Revelation 12:7-9

Business was slow at the Oak Street Bible Shop. It was 11:30 am and only three customers had come in. Or one customer and two browsers. Gary was standing behind the counter in front of his Bible display reading from a newspaper spread out before him.

“Did you see this letter to the editor about UFO’s?” he asked.

Joy looked up from her place at the rack containing Chick Publications booklets.  “I saw it,” she said, “but I couldn’t figure out what the writer was getting at.  Was he saying that believers are weak-minded or something?”

“Yes,” he replied, “or words to that effect.”.

Sue had been cleaning the window with a bottle of Windex and some paper towels, trying to look busy.  “What is it all about? Why do they think we’ll lose our belief, or whatever they said? And what have ufos got to do with it?”

Gary quoted from the letter which claimed that the secrecy surrounding such unexplained phenomena was justified, because if beings from another world contacted the Earth, American society would collapse.

“It says that most Americans are religious and feel that the Bible teaches we are the only intelligent beings in the universe besides God and his angels. If another race made its presence known to us it would prove the Bible was wrong and maybe our whole faith was misplaced.”

 Joy’s expression took on that fierce angry look she often assumed when she felt skeptics were attacking the faith.  “You notice no scriptures were quoted. I don’t remember anything in the Bible that says we are the only creatures God has made. Although if He did they sure have taken an awfully long time to make contact with Earth.”

 “Maybe they are demonic,” said Sue, with childlike simplicity.  “I suppose the writer of that letter doesn’t believe in demons, but it is one possible answer, don’t you think?”

“Makes sense to me,” said Gary, “but if the ufos are demonic it still doesn’t explain why they have waited so long to reveal themselves to us.”

Sue looked wistfully at the “prophecy corner” where Glen liked to stand.  “I wish Glen was here.  I’ll bet he would understand about ufos and the Bible.”

Joy looked a little exasperated.  Sometimes she thought that Sue hero worshiped Glen. “”He would probably say the answer is in the book of Daniel.  He thinks everything else is.  Why don’t you call him, Sue?  He has a book order to pick up anyway.”

“All right, I will,” Sue said, lifting the phone and punching in his number.

Gary and Joy noticed that she didn’t have to look up Glen’s number.  They looked at one another, but said nothing.

After a few questions Sue put the phone down.  “I talked to his landlady.  She said he was doing some yard work for her, but she’d ask him.”

They all returned to what they had been doing and in a matter of minutes they saw Glen’s blue van stop out front.  The front door swung open and Glen stepped into the room wearing his work jeans and with dust on his black navy shoes.

“What’s this all about,” he asked.  He looked from face to face and turned to smile at Sue.

“We need your expert opinion,” Sue said, her eyes sparkling.  “I said I would bet you would know about ufos and if they are in the Bible.  Gary read an article that says the government should suppress information about alien contacts because religious people couldn’t handle the truth that we aren’t alone in the universe.”

“Who in the hell said that?”  Glen shook his head, “Was it one of those government guys, or one of their shills.  Those guys never get it right.  The truth is just the reverse.  Only Bible Christians could handle an alien contact. I mean informed Christians,” he emphasized.  “It sure wouldn’t shake my beliefs, it would confirm them. “ Of course there are other beings besides we humans.  Maybe billions of them.  In fact, one of the books in my order gives the best explanation I have ever read.”

Gary stepped from behind the counter with a cardboard box containing Glen’s beloved prophecy books.

Glen reached into the box and pulled out a paperback book by Arthur Bloomfield.  “You see, the Bible tells us of a time, just before the Great Tribulation, when demons will rain down upon the earth.”

“You mean as ufos?” Sue asked in her innocent way.”

“Ufos, pirates, or Casper the Friendly Ghost,” Glen answered casually.  “They can present themselves in a number of ways, I suppose.  But the time of their arrival has been foretold.”

He opened the book he had been holding and found the place he was looking for.  “There are a number of places that deal with this event, but no place tells it with greater detail then here in the Book of Daniel.”

Joy slumped on her stool in the doorway, with a look that said “Here we go again.”

Gary strained to stifle a laugh.

“I know, I know, you guys think I believe everything can be explained by studying Daniel.  But this can be. Let me prove it to you.”

Glen began to read from The End of the Days, by Arthur Bloomfield, page 157.

“The Coming of Antichrist, Daniel 8. The rise of the Antichrist is one of the most important subjects in prophecy, and yet it is the most difficult to comprehend. This difficulty is caused by the fact that it involves situations and conditions never before experienced. For this reason our conceptions and therefore our expositions are inadequate. When we enter the realm of Antichrist, we feel that something has been added-there is a fourth dimension which for want of a better name, we may call ‘outer space’. While the earth is preparing for a conquest of outer space, outer space is preparing for a conquest of the earth.

“Space then, is not a vacuum: it is teeming with life. Scientists debate the question of life on other planets, assuming that life can exist only where there are conditions similar to those on earth. But life in outer space is the kind of life that can exist in outer space. Therefore we do not have to have the same conditions: we only have to have a different kind of being. In outer space, beings are not necessarily friendly. Satan has principalities and powers- organized governments. The satanic conquest of the earth has been, for the most part, a spiritual battle. At the end of the age the added feature is that the battle becomes physical.”

Glen closed the book and looked up.  No one was laughing now.

“I have only begun to touch on the subject of demonic beings coming to earth.  Daniel and Revelation are the great sources of knowledge concerning this subject. They both tell not only what will happen, but when”

“You mean the dates when they will happen?” asked Sue, incredulously.

“Not the dates, Sue,” Glen said with gentle patience, ”but the order of events.”

Gary broke in.  “But aren’t the events concerning Antichrist’s rise to power going to take place after the Rapture?  I mean, we won’t even be here, will we?”

“You’re right, Gary.  Everyone here believes in the pre-tribulation rapture and its Biblical basis.  But there will be others who are not in the rapture. Some of us believe we are laying a foundation of knowledge for them.”

Sue spoke up again.  “You mean tribulation saints?”

“That’s right.  Whether they will read our books no one will say, but we can leave a record in case they do.  But it is important that we understand the nature of extraordinary goings on so we are not deceived by this talk about creatures from distant planets.  Also, there could be preliminary contacts, like advance parties, just before we leave.”

Joy was very serious now,  “Great events sometimes cast their shadows before them.”

“Well said,” replied Glen.  “There is so much more in this Bloomfield book, so much more detail.  People need to read it, study it.”  He placed the book back in the box and headed for the door.  “I better get back and finish my landlady’s iris bed.”

Sue smiled at him.  “Thanks for coming, Glen.”

He looked at her with tender regard.  “Thanks for asking me”.