How Life Changed After "The Day"

Need to be informed re fallout (obtain pamphlets and read before disaster happens)
No phones
No electricity
No running water
No gas
No Western Union
No trucks
No mail service
No Traveler’s checks
No Government Savings Bonds
No banks
No gas stations
No stores
Need your own strength in a crisis
Dig latrines
Be physically fit to walk/manual labor
Carry a gun at all times
Face reality and cope with it
Neighbors put their resources together and divide and share everything
Stockpiles should be in the country and not in the big cities (as big cities were demolished)
Plant crops
Elderly and sick died
Elderly had difficulty accepting change
Bury the dead quickly
Rule of war: economy of effort and forces
Connected water pipes from artesian well which connected neighbors together
Watched out for each other
Someone has to assume leadership role and gives orders to the others (and it wasn’t necessarily elected community leaders)
Stop feeling sorry for yourself - there are two choices: have to start over or die
Use car battery to power short-wave radio
In everything they did, now, was with an eye for the future
Be a woman of courage
Survival of the fittest and make it a conscious decision
Small dog can be used as a foot warmer in bed
6 inch hunting knife can be used as a razor (sharpened on a whetstone and belt)
Missed music from phonograph and radio
Missed cigarettes
Used whiskey for anesthesia and for trading
Missed coffee (most valuable)
People lost weight and were more fit
No Income Tax
No alimony
No bills/debts/house payments
Barter system (Ex: Gas traded for MD house-calls)
Guard the food supply
Chop wood
Youth take on adult responsibilities
Rotate nights to guard animals
Everyone worked hard all day just to survive and eat - depended on each other
Had assignments (that were taken very seriously)
Finding more wood became more difficult to obtain/transport
All entertainment, amusements, escapes and information again centered on the library
(Because all the other distractions had been removed)
Reading classics was providing a superior education
It required a holocaust to make the librarian’s life worth living - she became an important person
The local park is where goods were traded and notices were posted
This disaster equalized blacks and whites
Cadillac traded for only 2 bike tires and a bike pump
Outdoor, interdenominational Easter Services
Hair and clothing fashions didn’t matter
Survivors didn’t know who won the war and they had differing opinions - topic of discussion
Abandoned cars appeared as stripped, unburied carcasses of giant beetles
No garbage collection
Some people (in Pistolville) defecated and urinated in public
No mongrel dogs or feral cats to be found (they had been eaten)
In four months time, Pistolville had regressed 4000 years
Even pets were killed and eaten
“The rules were off”
The past (life before “The Day”) seemed more removed or distant than actual amount of time that had passed
Everything was remembered as happening “before” or “after” “The Day”
More greed
Radium burns from “hot” looted jewelry
Highwaymen
Unkempt yards quickly turned into jungles of overgrowth
Bubba Offenhaus was Deputy Director of Civil Defense and Undertaker but all the requests and problems frightened him. He did not lead the community. He hid in his home.
Mayor barricaded himself in his home - besieged by imaginary and irrational fears.
Authority had disintegrated
Chief of Police dead and two other police abandoned their posts
No Fire and Sanitation Departments
Martial Law came into effect
Randy Bragg found leadership to be a lonely experience
Everyone had to be careful. A simple fracture could be compound disaster
Make whiskey from homegrown corn and sugar cane
Make own distillery (Use lawn roller, a mule and crush corn and cane on cement slabs. Copper tubing from cars)
Nature is just and even merciful. By natural selection, nature will attempt to undo what man has done.
Helen loses touch with reality and temporarily believes her fantasy that her brother-in-law is her deceased husband
Read book about edible palms, grasses, and herbs from library to find other food sources.
Without communications, the simplest mechanical failure could turn into a nightmare and disaster
Randy didn’t sleep well unless he knew all was well in his perimeter
Made a homemade spear
North American civilization returned to the Neolithic Age
A boy grows up fast or doesn’t grow up at all
The survivors in the contaminated zone wondered if the rest of America had forgot them
Dan Gunn (the town doctor) was attacked by highwaymen; beaten up, lost his car, glasses and medical bag with supplies
Traffic was no longer a problem
Some domestic dogs turned into wolves
There were human jackals for every human disaster
Typhoid was the unwelcome, evil sister of any disaster in which the water supply was destroyed or polluted and normal disposal of human waste difficult or impossible.
Shoes wore out and didn’t have replacements (children’s feet kept growing)
Armadillo’s only enemy was the automobile - now they were multiplying (due to lack of cars)
Lip Radio: once spoken at the library, the news would spread through Fort Repose
After “The Day” people were willing to wake up before dawn and walk three miles on empty stomachs to watch the sun come up and attend an interdenominational Easter service
Under Martial Law can make up own rules and take the law into their own hands
Randy and Lib were married the day after they decided to do it (no preparation time)
Marriages and Births were recorded and records kept at the local library
Highwaymen attacked again - killed the parents and the children escaped to aunt’s home
Three Highwaymen were gunned down by Randy and his helpers
One Highwayman was hung at the park to deter others from plundering the people
Community members enlisted in the Fort Repose Provisional Company (Bragg’s Troop)
Fishing pliers, darning needles, metal hair clips six-pound nylon line sterilized in boiling water would have to become primitive surgical instruments
Unable to replace blown-out tube for short-wave radio - all contact with outside world is cut off
Within 5 months, gasoline vanished entirely
Homemade moonshine (made from corn and sugarcane) made excellent bug repellent, liniment and preoperative skin antiseptic
Books from the library taught Dan Gunn (doctor) how to do hypnotism to be used as anesthesia
Ran out of candles and kerosene for their lamps, burned furnace oil in lamps
Dan operated on Ben on a billiard table using hypnosis and primitive surgical tools
After eight months, ran out of salt (which was used for medical saline solutions, brushing teeth, pickling foods and hides, etc)
In the heat of August, fish stopped biting (had to change how they fished)
Found a hidden source of natural salt and crabs near the salty beach (from a journal kept by Randy’s grandfather)
Responsibility for teaching the children became the parent’s responsibility
Home library room became the schoolroom
Nine months after “The Day” the first post-Day baby was born bright and healthy signifying that life would go on
Military leaflets used as toilet paper, and paper money (10 leaflets would buy an egg, 50 a chicken)
American became at least a 2nd Class Power, if not 3rd Class after the nuclear holocaust
About a year after “The Day” Randy and his family and closest neighbors had no desire to leave their community and start over somewhere else

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

"God is ever before my eyes. I realize His omnipotence and I fear His anger; but I also recognize His love, His compassion, and His tenderness towards His creatures."

December's Title Swap

Classical Kids CD's (My favorite are Mozart, Handel and Vivaldi)
My First Book of Classical Music (Easy Piano Arrangements) by Bergerac
Little House on the Prairie Series on CD by Laura Wilder
Alcatraz and The Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson

Networks Vs. Communities

So, I blog...actually I have three blogs to be exact. Yes, I finally decided to see why everyone is so into Facebook. I still snicker whenever I get a "friend request." Especially when it is from a person from high school that I never talked to during the three years we roamed those hallowed halls together, but now we are "friends," and I know their daily thoughts and activities. Although I have to admit that I can't wait to see if anybody has any comments about my latest quip I posted, I find myself feeling more depleted, not fulfilled after such encounters. John Taylor Gatto explains the reason for this feeling of emptiness that occurs after spending time in these social networks perfectly in his book, Dumbing Us Down. What amazes me the most about this book, is that it was first published in 1992, before the Internet was widely used.

He states on page 48 that, "The fragmentation caused by excessive networking creates diminished humanity, a sense that our lives are out of control -- because they are... that when people in networks suffer, they suffer alone, unless they have a family or a community to suffer with them.... These thin human contacts give you the feelings that your 'friends' don't really care about you beyond what you can do for them, that they have no curiosity about the way you manage your life, no curiosity about your hopes, fears, victories, defeats."

In contrast, "A community is a place in which people face each other (not just in cyber space with a web-cam, but really face to face) over time in all their human variety: good parts, bad parts, and all the rest. Such places promote the highest quality of life possible -- lives of engagement and participation."

What is the antidote to the depletion we experience everyday from the numerous networks we belong to-- Service! We can start by serving. Get out and get your hands dirty. Take your kids along and get their hands dirty. Serve your family and friends. Serve strangers. Start rebuilding a community feeling wherever you are. Hopefully this will help build our families, instead of continuing to deplete them.

November's Title Swap

The Ultimate Book of Homeschooling by Linda Dobson
The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez
Created to Be His Helpmeet by Debi Pearl
7 Habits for Happy Kids by Covey
theleaderinme.org

Was Hamlet Sane or Insane?

Hamlet was sane. He was brilliant with his ability to use his interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences. This indicates that he was extremely aware of himself and everyone around him, thus making him responsible for his actions. The following are quotes from the play that demonstrate Hamlet's use of these skills and prove his sanity.

Interpersonal Intelligence (discerning people for who they really are):

Hamlet - Then I would that you were so honest a man. (Act 2, Scene 2, line 177)
Hamlet - Do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? (Act 3, scene 2, line 341)
Hamlet - You go not till I set you up a glass where you may see the inmost part of you. (Act 3, scene 4, line 20)
Hamlet - He keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw, first mouthed to be last swallowed. When he needs what you have gleaned it is but squeezing you and, sponge, you shall be dry again. (Act 4, scene 2, line 17)

Intrapersonal Intelligence (internal reflection):

Hamlet - "Seems," madam? Nay it is. I know not "seems."(Act 1, Scene 2 line 76)
Hamlet - For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. (Act 2 scene 2, line 246)
Hamlet - What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! (Act 2, Scene 2, line 299)
Hamlet - To be, or not to be? That is the question (Act 3, scene 1, line 56)
Gertrude - O'er whom his very madness, like some ore among a mineral of metals base, shows itself pure. He weeps for what is done. (Act 4, scene 1, line 25)
Hamlet - What is a man if his chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more. (Act 4, scene 4, line 32)

October's Title Swap

Tales of Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb
Hamlet CD by BBC
Teach Your Own by John Holt
Your Money of Your Life by Joe Dominguez
History Pockets by Evan - Moor

September's Title Swap

Miss Potter - DVD
Printable Rescources - donnayoung.org
Debra Bells Ultimate Guide to Home Schooling
Charlotte Mason + the Guides to...
Ruth Beechick's 3R's
Confessions of an Organized Homemake
Last Child in the Woods - Richard Louv

Story of the World by Peace Hill Press
Literature Pockets and Daily Language Review - Evan Moore
Code Word Caper by Letter Factory - DVD
Meet the Sight Words - DVD
The Weighty Word Book - Levitt, Burger, Guralnick
Criket in Timesquare - CD
Mr. Popper's Penguins - CD
The Web Files - Margie Palatini

Math-U-See
Primary Grade Challenge Math - Edward Zaccaro
Math-It
Life of Fred - Stanely F. Schmidt
children's math stories - Stuart Murphey

Draw Write Now
Science Units from Debra Bell's Subject by grade lists

Trusting Our Children to Learn

I was most impressed by the John Holt's incredible empathy he shows for children in his book, How Children Learn. He gives us permission as parents to love children where they are and encourages us to look at things the way they do. I loved every part of this book! It has already changed they way I parent.

John Holt-

"What we have to do is break this long downward cycle of fear and distrust, and trust children as we ourselves were not trusted."

Children learn with the spirit of joy, foolishness and exuberance like the spirit of all good games including the game of trying to find our how the world works which we call "education."

Why Leadership Education?

In a Deseret News article that was published August 25, 2009 by Irene Maher, stated that “Starting or returning to school can be stressful and trigger emotions and anxiety in children that even the most attentive parents may miss.”

The article continues: “School can put (children) over the top. It has nothing to do with school, actually. That’s just the place the child brings his emotional baggage, says Dr. Peter Gorski, (a University of South Florida pediatrician who specializes in developmental and behavioral medicine).

Colette Parker of Tampa thought her youngest son, Xavier Williams, would handle kindergarten without much fuss, just as his older brothers did.

But two weeks into his first school year she started getting calls from his teacher. Five-year-old Xavier was throwing things, blowing up emotionally, running out of the classroom, acting aggressively and physically fighting with other children. The teacher couldn’t handle him.

Parker, 33, says her son had a difficult time making the adjustment from the familiar friends and caregivers at day care to the more structured environment of kindergarten. Day care was all about play. ‘In school he had to sit down and do work,’ says Parker.

‘We see a lot of families who never had issues with their kids until school started,’ says John Mayo, a licensed child therapist and deputy executive director of Success 4 Kids & Families.”

What is wrong with this picture?? For most of my life I would have said that some kids are going to have a harder time leaving home and adjusting going to kindergarten than other kids, but it’s a fact of life. Your child “has” to leave you at age five, and like it or not he or she has to start making his or her own way in the world.

I remember very well how I stood in a line of mothers and their kindergartners waiting for the bell to ring, signaling the first day of school. This was my last biological child and I knew I wouldn’t be able to have any more children. My heart was breaking and tears were willfully held back as I attempted to put on a brave face for my little girl. I look back at this experience with much regret and realize there is nothing I can do now to change what happened then. But I have the knowledge and power to change the outcome for the adopted children I have in my home now. The single greatest paradigm shift of my life has occurred because of discovering “Leadership Education.” I would like to share some my favorite parts in the book by Oliver and Rachel DeMille entitled Leadership Education - The Phases of Learning, that contributed to my transformation.

(Page 18) “Leadership Education recognizes the need for freedom in education and encourages self-motivation and personal mission accomplishment that result in feelings of inherent self-worth, leadership and compassion for others. The conveyor belt enforces sameness and aims to foster feelings of societal interdependence, based upon feelings of personal inadequacy and dependency on experts as the norm.”

(Page 23) “The greatest irony in modern education is that we will not let children play when that is practically all our teenagers do. What if children played and worked with their parents more and were lovingly taught about good and bad, right and wrong and true and false? What if youth worked very hard and put in long hours getting a great education and preparing for their life mission? What amazing results could come of making such a reversal in our society!”

(Page 45) “The increasing intellectual demands of the child in Love of Learning Phase upon the parent require that the home life and family’s time be kept as uncomplicated possible. Too many outside activities, no matter how valuable or interesting, can be over-stimulating for the child and draw him much too soon away from the ties that bind him to the nest. Too much “stuff,” either as clutter in the home or as entertainments and possessions that rob time from the necessary “right kind of vacuum” (that space of discomfort/boredom that impels a young person to exert himself to accomplish something worthwhile) can derail a family’s education... It is okay to stay home! It is okay to just play sometimes! We need to take responsibility to fill our homes with wholesomeness, warmth, light and learning and provide the time for family members to benefit from this ideal environment.

(Page 86) “The two biggest complaints are that Scholar Phase is too hard and the Love of Learning Phase is too easy.... There is nothing more challenging in the entire educational world than an excellent Love of Learning Phase. Day in and day out, week after week and year after year, the parent-teacher’s role is to inspire the child to happily, consistently and unswervingly study, learn, search, discover, enlighten, know and apply. The sad reason that people think Love of Learning is ‘easy’ is that they have been brainwashed by the conveyor belt. When they hear ‘Inspire, not Require,’ their brains are so conditioned against combining ‘inspire’ with ‘education’ that they actually go home remembering something very much like ‘ignore, not require.’”

(Page 127) “There are two proven ways to create a teenager: 1) force and push children academically and 2) let them do whatever they want in their personal life. In contrast, young adults are raised by parents who: 1) have firm disciplinary standards and 2) a high quality freedom-oriented educational system. The two components of creating youth are natural and excellent complements.”

(Page 135) “It is interesting that some modern feminists have described the stay-at-home mom or homemaker as caught in a life of boredom, subjugation and sad mediocrity. But true feminine ambition focused on the training of future leaders who fully understand and can accomplish their missions is the greatest challenge and opportunity of our time or any time. It is not enough to train up one’s own children. The true mother must also train and properly raise the whole community in which her children grow up, looking ahead three or four generations and acting accordingly. This is not a government village raising the child, but a mother raising her own children, her future sons- and daughters-in-law, and communities of great and good leaders who will ensure the liberty of their grandchildren. Not, ‘It takes a village to raise a child,’ but, ‘It takes a mother to raise a village.’”

(Page 135 - con’t) “The greatest educators are fathers and mother - from Eve, Mary, the mothers of Moses , Washington , Jefferson and Lincoln, to the women who embrace and magnify their roles and responsibilities as mothers in your neighborhood and your own family. These are statemen and stateswomen engaged in the work of building the family-the basic unit of society. A stateswoman puts her relationship with God and spouse in their proper place of preeminence, leads an inspirational life, is actively progressing through the phases herself, runs a Mom School, has her home arranged as a leadership home, says ‘no’ and ‘yes’ in the Leadership way, and mentors through the Phases of a Leadership Education. She is a powerful example of a woman living a life of challenging, fulfilling, exciting feminine ambition and expertise that is literally world-changing. It takes a mother to raise a nation.”

(Page 283) “A life spent making the world better for your future grandchildren is a life of service, leadership, and greatness. It takes a full lifetime to really make change. This is the message and purpose of life and the most important thing any of us can ever do. It is the reason for our lives. We better get started on it early, or as soon as we realize what it is all about.”

I didn’t understand “what it is (really) all about” until I was already a grandmother. Nevertheless, it is not too late for me to transform myself and become a scholar and provide leadership education in my home and community. When we open our hearts and souls and become receptive to what blessings God has in store for us, He will lead and guide us to where we need to be so that we can accomplish our missions and true purposes for being here on this earth. It is through applying the principles taught in Leadership Education that we can accomplish our life’s mission by guiding and preparing the future leaders of the world in our own homes and inspiring others to do the same.

No longer do I believe the myth that compulsory education is a fact of life and that there is no other choice but a conveyor belt education that enforces sameness and “feelings of personal inadequacy and dependency on experts as the norm.” I wish I could let all the “Colette Parkers” of the world know about Leadership Education and that there is a much better and more joyful way to nurture and educate your children and be the change you wish to see in the world. Little five year-old Xavier wouldn’t be carrying emotional baggage to school because he would be able to stay home with his mother who would teach him basic core principles and allow him to be a child and not worry about scholarly pursuits until he had a great core phase and loved to learn. Imagine how different Colette and Xavier’s lives would be with Leadership Education.