Monday   August 17, 1998   6:47 AM   \19980817.06    Forbush, North
Carolina

This list was prepared some time ago and appears elsewhere in my
journal.  It has also been sent out on email as well.  In the story the
hero puts away some tins of meat, some chocolates, some bullion cubes,
and the like, in a footlocker and forgets them.  Later in the story
they come as a blessing in a time of need.  He calls them "iron
rations."  Not all of these items came from the book, but it charged my
thinking.  Paul
                          December 31, 1993
Notes from the book " Alas Babylon", By Pat Frank :
Batteries
22 Ammo long-rifle hollow point
Iron rations
Extra glasses and unopened epoxy
Loose weight and get in condition
First aid kit
Emergency kit for car; entrenching tool; hatchet; flashlight; simple
fishing kit; compass; water; five minute bag  ( a bag of necessities
you can grab if you have five minute notice to get out.)
Extra candles
Forceps for tackle box          
First aid training
Pray for parents
Practice money preparedness from the Lord
Civil defense pamphlets
End of money
Kerosene lanterns and kerosene
List weapons: high powered rifle; carbine rifle; twenty-two-rifles;
twelve gauge shotgun; twenty gauge shotgun; pistols
Admiral Hazard's war room and the all-wave receiver  ( a scene where
they scan World events)
Bill McGovern's tools  (the man had a lot of hand tools lying around)
Pets turned into varmints
Extra razors, could be straight razor; shave cream
Needles and thread
Matches
Harvest game
Barter items
Bee keeping
Whiskey as a negotiable money crop
Eating a "thinning diet"
Fishing
Salt-many uses, preserve meat, tanning hides, etc.

(Added later in a preparation list.)
   "The twenty-two-magnum rifle.  My experience with this weapon comes
after this basic list was prepared in 1993. Many poachers in North
Carolina use the solid 22wmr [22 Winchester Magnum Rim fire] to hunt
dear at night.  They try to hit it in the neck.  Having a 22 magnum
rifle reduces your regular twenty-twos to target rifles.  What I said
about bartering the regular twenty-two ammunition still holds.  Most
people don't work with the twenty-two magnum because fifty rounds can
cost $7 instead of $1 or $2 for the standard twenty-two."

---------back to the original:

   I sit here calmly reading Pat Frank's now classic novel. I have
electric light, a clock ticking on battery power, heat and water
effortlessly here. The people in the book face the loss of all of
these. Even so I made a list of little things I might do to prepare.
   The Lord seems to be teaching me to get ready for hard times. May I
get better at it as I go. It strikes me that my whole house is stocked
with a knowledge of possible catastrophe. I just have no place to move
and no place of safety. Remember the two people in our group, who live
under worse conditions now than there will be then, because their fear.