Look up Les Stroud's "Off the Grid". He's better known for Survivorman, but anyway, times have never been better to live "off the grid" than now. Thanks to the greenies and the hippies, self sufficiency can be had to a certain extent even with energy and having an indoor toilet.

Your local bookstore will have a bunch of magazines about being a new pioneer, homesteading, living off the grid, etc.

Far from being a bad time to live off the land (more or less), this may well be the best time ever to approach hobby farming, animal herding, what not.

(Les Stroud was in his 30s before he even went out in the woods, and there is a former Israeli Colonel that now raises water buffalo in Wisconsin after retiring from the IDF...)

Giving more thought to it, my earlier comments about becoming a hobo or homeless person are still valid. In ye olden days many cowboys didn't have homes. They'd sort of ride the range line (see "Will Penny") trying to scare up summer work. But they'd be sleeping out of doors, sometimes in hotels, and many times working odd jobs. Traditional hobos also travel from area to area working odd jobs.

Unlike in the 19th century, even if you are a hobo, you can still get your leg stitched up and get some antibiotics if you get hurt. You can also get chemicals to purify your drinking water.

Other things to do would be to get a shrimping boat, go fishing, raise rabbits... There's lots of folks out here that get by somewhat off the mainstream. Some seem happier.

Morality has little to do with any of this. If you wanted to see squalor and degeneracy, well the slums of London or NYC during Queen Victoria's life time would put any modern American slum to shame. (Read Jack London's "People of the Abyss" for a near contemporary reference.) Even a working class existence in much of America in the 19th century would actually be less comfortable than living in many third world nations today.

So anyway... head north or head south. Strap on a Heritage .22 combo revolver and a bushcraft knife and go do it if that is the life you want.

You might even get some change back these days!!

Some pretty neat thoughts in the past pages. I enjoyed the sentiments of some very diverse backgrounds...
goes to show you one mans shack is another mans castle. I guess if we are lucky we would, God willing get a chance of living our dreams what ever they be,,I still dream of fulfilling my own personal "Bucket List"
All I need is the first item in that list...My prayer is that this I have experienced will be available to the forum's youngest member. The love of GOD and Country still live in my mind and heart.....We may not be perfect, but nobody has come up with anything better that I have seen.....But I still want a darn good dentist!!!!!!For those who live around NM try to see "The Hermosa branch of the Ladder Ranch. A step back in time....You must have a real 4 wheel drive to get there..Not one of those sissy all wheel drives!....25 years ago it was owned be the primary stock holder of
Atlantic
Richfield Oil.( I think) It all was part of the
American Land and Cattle
Company

It also depends on what lifestyle you want to pursue. I think there's a great deal of romanticism about the Cowboy and the Mountain Man, the last "Mountain Man" was Sylvan Hart in the 1960s-1970s, I suspect the last "real" Cowboys were all gone by 1940 or so.
Some have mentioned medical problems and conditions. The traditional bow legged appearance of the cowboy, was attributed to too much time in the saddle, the actual cause was rickets.

Nice thread, and some good recomendations on reading.
So Ill post a recomendation similar to what this thread is about
The Final Frontiersman - Heimo Korth

A trip to Turn of the century America would be intresting where do I book my seat on the time machine (that magical carpet ride)

What bothers me is that I am afraid that most of our society today could not cope without the luxaries, where has common sense and Basic education gone.

I have spent many trips into wilderness areas in New Mexico alone. It is easy to see why few men went alone into these areas "back-in-the-day". You'd be easy pickings for the "locals" since you cannot see everything every minute.

I have often been doing chores on my property and thought the same thing. While feeding stock, gathering hay, digging a ditch, etc., you'd be an easy target.

I would like to go back and experience a lot of historic events and times, but I would want to be unmolested and return home to my S&W collection!

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Have guns...will shoot'em.

I take a mancation every year that lasts about a week.It consists of nothing more than 15 lures,a fishing vest,a sleeping bag,some matches and the stars.Where we go there is no electricity,toilet,or food except what we catch and is surrounded by water.I find it hard to either sit by the fire or fish all day and thats pretty much what we do.

I have taken more than one friend with me in past years with little to no success.This years trip ended a day early because he got cold from the rain.Next year i'm planning on doing it by myself because it's to hard to cater to others.

Where am i going with all this,it's fun to know you can do these things,but it's more fun to know you can come home.

Got off of my sorry butt and did some research on the Hermosa branch of
The Ladder Ranch, part of the Diamond A cattle company. It was owned by Robert Anderson of the ARAMco oil when I was there...Later sold to The Ted Turner.....We did a movie shoot for the Mahan Boot Company at the Hermosa, basically for European Clients. Now looking at the air maps of the ranch I understand why it was so desolate. In 1980 I don't think that information was available......None the less three Buckaroos and their wives lived and worked on the Hermosa Branch....N.Mex, Ghost Towns. Mr Anderson had arraigned for cooks to be on hand and we stayed in the cabins and a restored hotel on the one and only street in Hermosa......A one block dirt street with reconditioned buildings and a piece of old narrow gauge RR tracks. Took baths in old water troughs..Cold,real cold...Larry was filmed riding with the Buckaroo's who were riding the roughest string of cow ponies I had ever seen. However those ponies could darn near climb a tree...I had the time of my life. Great people those Buckaroo's, 500 plus keep a month and one trip per month to Truth or Consequence NM.(and they seemed happy) The top hand on the Hermosa was from Philadelphia and had a teaching certificate, got tired of the rat race and started on the ranch because he ran out of money driving west, he had over the years progressed from driving the feed trucks to top dog in his own little world... any body that reads this old guy memory that might know anything later than my recollection I would love to hear about it. I sure didn't know that Turner had bought the whole Cattle Company...












































Sierra County New Mexico.;

I have hunted mule deer in the canyon just north of the entrance into Hermosa. I sneaked into the Ladder from that canyon and hunted it a bit too, just west of Hermosa.

I wanted to go into Hermosa itself but was afraid they might have a "caretaker" hiding around somewhere.

Fantastic country down there.

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Have guns...will shoot'em.

I have been a loot of places it sure left a lasting impression on me! Thanks for the commit....sort of like a new world, as I remember it..

I'm a stayin' right here in 2011-I like air conditioning wayyyyyy too much!!

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Forum consigliere

Maybe this is one of the reasons God doesn't let us live for ever. We just couldn't keep up with the changing times. I was borne in 1942 and it seems life was much simpler then. Don

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"Don't worry be happy"

Actually in the Wild West many doctors successfully removed appendix and as for cancer I am very glad your wife survived, but even in modern day there is no cure for the terrible disease. Btw I am an avid fan of everything Wild West I have read tons of books and keep up on my history.

1910 average life expectancy-46

Infant mortality-20%+

Chances of woman dying in childbirth-more than 10%

Antibiotics-nonexistent. Any cut or nick could be a death sentence.

Biggest killer-pneumonia

Number of houses with indoor plumbing and bathtubs-less than 10%

Amount of paved roads-144 miles

Medical doctors with degrees-none. Most went to medical schools which had horrible reputations, and learned on the job with other doctors.

In light of the above, I would only go back if I had all my shots, my own personal physician, and an unlimited supply of antibiotics and analgesics. Oh, and enough money to have indoor plumbing.

I will freely admit to not being as "tough" as my ancestors, but then, I don't have to be. If I wanted the lifestyle of the 19th century, I could live like the Amish now, and still have all the modern medicine I need. It's much more reasonable for me to go hunting in a remote locale on horseback to experience the "olden days" than it would be to actually live them. Who was it that said that the life of uncivilized man was "nasty, brutish, and short"? I think he was likely correct. Even though I detest the morality of these modern days, I much prefer the lifestyle.

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ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

Be careful what you pray for...

If (when) there's an EMP, we'll all be living in a mud hut.

I guess I'm right in there with keith44spl and Iggy.

I cowboyed for awhile when I was young and foolish. Spent literally months living in a tent, sleeping in a bedroll.

Was put on my first horse when I was about three. Can't remember it, but my folks took pictures. Because of horses, I've suffered so many broken bones that I probably financed some orthopedic surgeon's last three sports cars. I've been kicked, bucked, and rolled on. I've been under x-ray machines so long that I practically glowed in the dark. I'm just grateful for all of our medical advances. My joints ache in the morning or right before a storm. I still gimp a bit in my left leg after a horse kicked it and broke it many years ago. But, I still have horses and mules. Go figger.

I can still "rough it" now and again when I feel like it. But, I'll be the first to admit, it's hard to beat hot showers, indoor plumbing, home-cooked food, and a soft bed.

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Pack light and cinch tight.

Well, to get it on film, you'd need to take a short step back in time before your bigger one

1800's would have been ok with me. I might have even got a chance to fight in the Civil War for the CSA.
Or, start my own horse and buggy chain. Call it HorseMax.

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How many guns are too many?

I've suffered so many broken bones that I probably financed some orthopedic surgeon's last three sports cars. I've been kicked, bucked, and rolled on. I've been under x-ray machines so long that I practically have glowed in the dark. I'm just grateful for all of our medical advances. My joints ache in the morning or right before a storm. I still gimp a bit in my left leg after a horse kicked it and broke it many years ago. But, I still have horses and mules. Go figger.


I sure hear that.. I've got 27 broken bones and 22 of them was from critters.

The 7th Is Made Up Of Phantoms, The Twilight Zone, 1963.

I've roughed it for a few days, nothing like Dave, Iggy or others have talked about but enough to know that, while it might sound romantic, I'll stick with modern times. Besides, I have a congenital back condition that has required surgery three times just so I could walk upright and without severe pain. In the 1800's I would most likely have spent a lot of time in what passed for wheelchairs then and lived in horrible pain.

CW

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μολὼν λαβέ

I was camped on the Little Bighorn when Custer and Sittin' Bull had that squabble and went over to complain about the noise!!

Whenever I was pitting myself against nature with not a soul around, I was disturbed that nobody was playing music in the background.

About twice to three times a month I get to go back to the 1800s...I shoot Cowboy Action.

BUT...I also get to "survive" and come home to a warm bed in a modern home!

Best of both worlds.

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Have guns...will shoot'em.

small error ... by that time they won't be able to think such things at the rate its going

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it just needs more voltage

Y'know I've lived like a muskrat, or the poorest of the poor. Let me state emphatically, "Poverty sucks". Showers, toilets, thermostats, electricity, etc. is our reward for blending into the mosaic of human achievement. The closest I came to a violent, horrific death were those times when I shrugged my shoulders at civilization. Now, I'm old, and I've learned my lesson. I think I'll put on a CD, and go to sleep.

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Why, I aughta.....

I am guilty of romanticizing the past - I love going through old photos and imagining what it must have been like back around the 1880s - when freedom was really free.

I remember some remnants of 19th century living when visiting my maternal grandparent's home in Bisbee, Arizona back in the 1940s. They didn't have indoor plumbing; a bowl, pitcher, and chamberpot were standard in their two bedrooms.

So whenever I think I'd like to go back in time, I remember a fixture more or less like this one that was behind my grandparent's home that I was forced to use when we visited.

And that changes my mind...

John

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- Cogito, ergo armatus sum -

Dad grew up with those out back - he once said there must have been several unofficial world records for the 60 yard dash set during a Canadian winter...

Always love your photos and travelogues, Paladin.

The only thong i cant live without is my DvD player and collection=Shasta included. Other than that, I can get used to eating much more Beef Jerky and Pemmican.

Not one of the better Twilight Zone episodes.

And you'd better make these the Good Old Days because you get what you get and you can't pick and choose.

Warren Oates was the tank crew Corporal. The episode is: "The 7th is made up of phantoms." Actually, I thought it was a very good episode partly because of Warren Oates being in it as an early career appearance.





The Twilight Zone S05 E10 The 7th Is Made Up Of Phantoms - YouTube

I'm not a editor but....... I have to point this one out.

OH, The humanity.

I went to see a friend at the beach. The Canadians are here.

Oh, My eyes! My eyes!

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Dum vivo cano

Hot showers? Back in the Nam if you got a hot shower you were lucky. If they filled your water tanks early in the mourning, That they being me, you had a warm shower heated by the sun. Otherwise you got wet and lucky for it. Try a week or two out in the boonies. If someone passed gas it smelled good. Ah the life of an infantry man or a combat engineer. It was the Asian wild west. If you weren't being shot at you were just wet and miserable. Or both. Don't wish for something that is nothing more than a dream. Life then could be real tough.
DW

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"NUTS"

I just want to once hear someone who wants to romanticize going back as anyone but a white man....You know..."when freedom was really free"



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Living 'way back when sounds like fun, or something, but every time I visit an old cemetary and see how many children aged 5 or less are buried there, i'm reminded how "unfun" it would have been. Myself, I'd have been dead at 35 from a bad appendix. Or for sure at 50 from a perforated intestine. Not very appealing. Paraphrasing Steve McQueen in "Tom Horn" - "If you had known how raggedy assed the old west really was, you wouldn't a thought so much of it."

Yup. Grandma was born in 1877, 9th of ten children. Of her four oldest siblings, three died before she was born.

[QUOTE=mike from st pete;

Now my personal fantasy. I remember seeing on TV a tale of a Guard tank crew coming to the rescue at the Little Big Horn.[/QUOTE]

I remember that Twilight Zone episode. 30 cal carbines, M-1's and 1911's did not overcome superior numbers.

That was exactly my first thought!

And, when I was younger, I drank and had a big mouth. I seriously doubt I would have made it past 21!

I used to feel the same way but as I got older and older those reality checks started kickin' in. The allure of the cool looking guns and the romance of sittin' around a camp fire out on the open range with a pewter coffee pot bubblin' and a pan of beans and bacon filling my nostrils with those aromas mixing with the smells of sage brush. Laying on my back under a blanket with my head resting on my saddle and looking up at a huge full moon and a sky full of squillions of stars. Having my trusty steed for companionship and the peaceful feeling that comes from solitude.

I can close my eyes and see myself pushing my way through bat wing doors into a saloon on some dusty street in some frontier town. Walking up to the bar and ordering a shot of rye. The odor of cigar smoke and the tinkling sound of the piano in the corner adding to the ambiance of the place.

Taking my best gal out for a buggy ride and a picnic by a quiet little stream in the shade of a little stand of willow trees at the waters edge. Cold fried chicken and boiled eggs and unrefrigerated beer.

But the older I get, the more I understand the reality of my existence. For one thing I'm going to be 70 years old in June. I am 99.99999% positive that I'll make it easily and beyond. But one of those realities I've mentioned is that I'd probably have been dead for years had I lived in the mid 1800s.

Even if I'd died of natural causes which could even include something as simple as an abscessed tooth or chicken pox or an infection from a simple cut or injury that got infected and went systemic, I'm sure I'd not have made it as far as I have living in THIS time.

But with my luck I'd probably have died very young. Kicked in the head by a horse or shot by a bandit or what have you.

And I never get very far if I start thinkin' about all the stuff I have that I wouldn't have ever know about if I'd lived back then. One of the main things is air conditioning. I don't see how ANYONE lived around here before that especially trying to sleep at night while sweating like a pig.

But one good thing about living back then; nobody had to put up with the aggravation of a computer or a cell phone!

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Real men love cats!

A lot of us tend to romanticize about some other era, and daydream about living in it. But as others have noted, life was harsh and short then, and they definitely didn't have the modern amenities we take for granted...

This thread reminds me of my friend Gino. His parents are from Ischia, a little island about 19 miles off the west coast of Italy. It was very simple and primitive when his parents were growing up there, and Gino tells me they didn't even have electricity until the Germans came during World War II.

When Gino was a kid in New York, growing up in a bi-lingual household, he once asked his Dad what was the Italian word for "toilet".

"I don't know", said his father. "We didn't have one!"

+1^^^^^ Not crazy about the idea of returning to a time when a broken bone or abscessed tooth could be life threatening, not to mention surviving from birth to 3 years was problematic. While it would be nice to return to a time when we were a Republic and not a democracy, I'll stay here, thank you very much.

I have often thought about that.
I think I would have made a decent Viking or Pirate too.

Hi:
I was born in the late 1930s and grew up in the 1940-1950 era.
We lived in a low income rural area. Living in a board shack no electricity, running water, or telephone. Water was from a pitcher pump, lighting from oil lamps, heat from a stone fireplace, cooking from a wood stove, bathing from a tin tub on the back porch, and toilet was a outhouse (paper from a Sears-Roebuck catalog). Walked a mile to the school bus stop to ride to school 15 miles away. At the country school heat was from wood heaters in each class room. Grades 1 though 12. Shopping was on Saturdays at a small town 20 miles away. Every one worked at the mines and farmed. During WWII children and old men were the only people in the area as the men were away in the armed services and the women worked in the defense factories and ship yards. Evening were spent around the battery operated radios listening to the war news.
Jimmy is happy in the era he is living in now.

No electricity, means no refrigeration, no A/C, no recorded music, no communication outside of shouting distance.
Men worked in the fields, took care of animals, and chopped wood. Women worked in the house building fire, preparing food and making clothes. That's what you did from dawn til dusk. Living was a full time job. You worked hard, no holidays, no weekends, no money. A feast would be a meat, a starch, and a vegetable. A meal would be a starch. No hobbies, no leisure time, no entertainment. You worked, you ate, you slept, you survived. Have you noticed how somber folks look in old photos. That's because they didn't have much to smile about. No S&W forum, who wants that?

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Wayne
Torn & Frayed

It is fun to imagine what life would be like in an earlier time. Let's see the 1880's, no automobiles, all transportation was horses, mules and some oxen. The "exhaust" from these creatures lay in the street and smelled. In fact, the whole area had a particular "air" about it.

I kind of like the era just before JFK was killed, but I am a white man. If I were of African descent I would not like that era so much.

I am fortunate that my 93 year old father is still alive. When I hear his stories of growing up I am impressed by what he lived through. In 1934 Grandpa was making $20 a week and Dad was 14. Dad worked as a night clerk in a motel and made the princely sum $10 a week. Dad was allowed to spend his money as he wished, but some was always paid to the grocer's so the bill never got to $20 and then the family would be cut off. In addition to working as a night clerk, Dad mowed lawns, worked around the auto dealership where my Grandfather worked and made homemade doorstops which he sold through a local retailer.

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Luke 22:36

Now Vikings. .I'm all for!

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The only thong I can't live without is the one my sweetie wears. (At 60, she still looks good in it.)

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Not in jail.

Hmmm, I know a bunch of teenagers I wish were cowboys/cowgirls...

But seriously, we're looking at this knowing what we know today. If you lived back then and didn't know you were missing out on our modern stuff, then it wouldn't be as bad.

Like these people who don't believe in vaccines. Yeah, lets bring back the good old days. Smallpox, polio, TB.....

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Wayne
Torn & Frayed

I have a copy of the Frederick Remington's bronze, "Mountain Man" and it tells a very descriptive tale about the existence these individuals lead. One of the things that Feral pointed out is very obvious-no body fat/all muscle and sinew; horse and rider!