Once upon a time....there was doom. It was good, it was scary, folks were convinced it was right around the corner and approaching like an out of control locomotive. And humanity was much like the damsel tied to the tracks...there was no escape.

Now...we talk about politics. Weather...how scary those hail storms are, and tornados? Tornados have been around since one snatched up Dorothy all those decades ago. Y2K is a quarter century old joke, peak oil is 7 years in the books and I don't know about the rest of the country, but where I am, I can order gasoline or diesel by the truck load and use it to build bonfires for the rest of the year for my neighbors if I want to.

Real doom never needed discussions on housing prices, did it? Buying a hunting/fishing cabin to hide from the suburbanites fleeing the cities for lack of food, sure, but insurance getting more expensive because someone lives in a hurricane landing zone? That is a given, and always has been. Company can't make a profit, can't find an under writer, they pull out of the market, less competition, other companies raise their rates. CFS.

Worse yet, because people don't study the history of doom...they just get scared, read whatever reinforces a preconceived opinion, rinse and repeat. Not all of us educated doomers of course, we all know that endless cycles of non-doom are the norm, having lived through a couple of them now.

So...when do those of us who have been in this game for decades now....figure this out...and warn others to not take this stuff (multiple cycles of which we geriatrics have lived through now) so seriously?

Oh yes, and one quesiton for RE....when and how did you learn to be a first class shot with a rifle, being a sort of forever city dweller type?

I'm trying to imagine....RE....La Longue Carabine.....stalking game in the wilderness of New England forests.