TRICK OR TREAT (RECESSION-STYLE)

We usually have snow on Halloween. Except when it's too cold, but usually there's at least a crusty dusting on the ground when the kids march stubbornly up the drive, trying to show off as much of their costumes as they can around the puffy coats and boots. The older kids - some of them with five o'clock shadow - try to tough it out. Maybe a long-sleeved shirt under their costume, sometimes bare arms against the twenty-five degree wind. They'll burn through more calories than the collected candy contains if they're out long enough. Mother Nature's holding back this year, saving it for when she really needs it.

We seem to have a mustache shortage up here this year, as well. Not the real ones. We have plenty, too many maybe, of the real ones. But my friendly local costume shop, which supplies me year-round with fine faux mustaches, is nearly out. Just a few joke-sized black handlebars and some raggedy old muttonchops hang now on the pegs.

Not my style.

I guess it's cutbacks, the pretend facial hair industry scaling back on low-selling items like everybody else. Some day, sitting around the campfire, we'll sing songs about the days of yore, when we had snow on Halloween, and mustaches were sold on every corner.

APOCALYPSE NOW?

I'm a big fan of the post-apocalyptic future genre. I like rough, gritty characters, and stories characterized by chronic shortages of essentials and the perseverance of morality in the midst of crumbling civilization.

I also enjoy the dystopian futures where either the government has restructured the world to contribute to its nefarious goals, or mankind is hiding and fighting against some big nasty: annihilating aliens; computers burdened with blissfully single-minded superiority complexes; zombies; and vampires?

Post-apocalyptic and dystopian books and movies are high stakes affairs. Every decision or refusal to make a decision has life or death consequences. There are sterling moments of humor, iron-strong ties between characters, and really bad Bad Guys. Self-sacrifice is a repeating theme and, honestly, that never gets less compelling. The settings are amazing, emotionally evocative by themselves. Burnt-out landmarks, charred children's toys, rusting razor wire. (Fire and oxidation apparently run rampant in these futures.)

Probably the only reason I can read or watch such stories without running, screaming, from my seat is because I know them to be works of fiction. But every once in awhile, I come across a true story that makes me wonder if we're closer to these fictional situations than we know.

This one caught my attention today. It's not a situation of urgent peril like the ongoing nuclear disasters in Japan. In fact it seems static, almost benign, in comparison. But it's also borderline terrifying. Farm families are being displaced. Farmland is being destroyed. Natural resources are gobbled up and twisted into place, only to be let immediately to decline.

I know I could probably find examples of such programs being perpetrated in my own country, but the sheer scale of this operation is what I find most astounding. It's the impudent hatchling that ate an entire country. It reminds me, frankly, of Science Fiction stories where some mega-corp builds up this or that planet or orbital and then abandons it.

So what, dear readers, will happen next? I've got two dollars on idyllic young families being moved it at no cost, followed by a zombie spider outbreak.

CUISINE AT THE END OF THE WORLD

When I was growing up, in a small town in Alaska during the early 1980's, my parents didn't buy milk in a carton. Nor did they grow milk plants and harvest/drain the pods (ten points to whoever names the origin on that reference - I'm certain I can't remember). They bought powder, added it to water, and mixed it...often with poor results. Want to know what a dry lump of partially-reconstituted milk feels like in your mouth? Like a spore of Hell has landed on your tongue, that's what.

Why would parents subject their children to such a thing? Because it was less expensive than liquid milk, and had a long shelf-life. Those were the sorts of things we had to pay attention to in a place where almost all food stuffs were imported, and the import schedule was erratic. At the time, I thought the manufacturers of the stuff (Nestle, I think) were sadists. Now, in light of the (probably) impending zombie apocalypse, I think they might be geniuses.

For all the changes in the world and Alaska during my lifetime, we still can't grow much food here. Sure, there are animals and delicious fish, but the growing season is short and cool. We can grow 100 pound cabbages, but grains are tricky, and don't get me started on fruit. Also, some of those animals kill people on occasion. 

So, in the event of the end of the world, what would we have? I'm presuming here that the final curtain call will be preceded by a period of energy scarcity on such a scale that manufacturing ceases, etc. etc. We'd have massive Brassicacaeae, moose steaks (here's a how-to if you want to make your own), salmon, and tart berries. I sense scurvy in my future, unless a couple of Jamba Juices survive and start delivering. Which would be awesome btw, a perky little badass Jamba juicer hellbent on delivery in a Mad Max world. Quick - somebody go write that.

So, for all you authors of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic prose, where's the food coming from? Are all your characters hoarding Twinkies and raiding the 7-11 at the end of the world, or are they growing and harvesting? And what are you planning to live on, should the end times come a-callin'?