The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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Little Jimmy was off on another of his Paul Revere speeches while the denizens of the Downrigger Lounge at the Yacht Club were hauling up the Happy Hour specials before the 6 p.m. cut-off. Little Jimmy believed, based on extensive reading, that the world economy was headed for fiscal apocalypse. The Great Recession was only the first pealing of the doomsday bell about to toll.

“Get out of the stock market now,” he advised, bolstered by two gin and tonics. “Get gold and silver. Credit cards are a joke. Banks won’t open, nothing’s good but cold hard cash.”

Little Jimmy most likely had a stash buried someplace. “God help him if Alzheimers hits first,”Ralph said loud enough for Jimmy to hear. “Go ahead and laugh. It’ll be dog eat dog when the Crash comes.”

I got neighbors who believe – who hope, actually – Armageddon is coming. I got some who stockpile guns and ammo. In case Anything is coming. I got friends who keep pantries full of food and water. For the Pandemic. Or the earthquake. Or the attack of the zombies. Hell, I don’t know what to make of this spreading anxiety, but it’s floating up from the swamps down here. Jimmy says that’s one of the Signs, public unease.

When I was 10 years old a friend of the family built a fallout shelter in his basement. For after the Atomic War, he told me. Radiation everywhere, chaos, panic —- only those who planned ahead would survive. “Can we stay with you, Malcolm,” I asked, figuring, sure…. “Your dad didn’t plan for this,” he said sternly. “You see that rifle in the corner?” I noticed the gun propped next to a 55 gallon drum of water. “That’s to keep folks OUT. They’ll realize too late what’s what and I have to take care of my own. See?”

“You’d shoot us?” I asked incredulously. He said he’d have no choice. That night I mentioned this to my father, the father who hadn’t done much planning for the end of the world. His face darkened. All he said was, “Malcolm’s got too big a mouth. You have to learn not to listen to him.”

“What if he’s right?” I asked. My old man shook his head. “That would be a world you and me wouldn’t care much to live in. Malcolm would be welcome to it. Now go to bed and don’t listen to damn fools anymore.”

Little Jimmy was on to the collapse of the E.U. Then all the dominoes would go next, world wide panic. The North Koreans had just launched an ICBM missile. Fallout shelters will be back in vogue soon. I left a tip for Cindy, our waitress, and a half finished beer. I wonder sometimes if Malcolm was disappointed nuclear war never came. Little Jimmy sure would be.

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