Chapter 1

[Janice]

Poppa Jack has asked that I take over writing this journal. I've never turned him down on anything else so now I'm a writer! Before I tell of our latest adventure, I will bring events in my extended family up to date.

Mike and Jen are coming up on their second anniversary. They seem to be as much in love as before their marriage which, of course, is a good thing. Mike has been working the pond and raising horses with our dad.

Fuel is not much of a problem any more with the Lavacans providing it. We don't over use planes or cars. We have three tankers to make the trip down and back monthly with gas for vehicles. We still have fuel for our planes on hand though it's starting to become poorer with time and use also lowers the amount available. Preservation is the biggest and fastest growing of our allied communities. We now cover from beyond the Savannah area in the east over into Alabama and I-65 in the west. We are beginning to head north of I-20 in more places. South is the only area that is not seeing much growth. We are over the old border into Florida but not very far. There is still a lot of land and not many people. Florida is not the place to go any more except for the panhandle. We are talking about redeveloping the port of Mobile if we can figure on enough boat traffic to make it worthwhile. There is talk about operating a tanker from Lavaca to Mobile but it's still only talk.

My spouses and I divide our time between Preservation and Protection. Melissa had Elaine Lois and she is young and active. My spouses and I have renewed our debate about more children. Mel is still willing and would like to have more. The rest of us are concerned about the affect on her body from being pregnant so many times. Doctor George has said that we need to think carefully about any more children for that reason. He said that having children takes a toll on a woman's body. He says he has noticed that six children have taken a toll on Melissa. She's on birth control again for now.

We have started to include our two oldest in our family councils. They have some good ideas. Charlie was a little shy originally but Bobbi spoke up readily from the beginning. I wish I had their smarts and their way of thinking things out when I was their age.

Anyway, that's the latest news.

That leads us to consider our next two projects. Mike and Jen want to go to California and it looks like we will go with them. Also, we decided, as a community, to activate and operate the old AM commercial radio station, WSB.

We came down to Preservation and found that project well started. A number of Preservation members had become interested in radio as well as the hams in our community. We all use the ham radios regularly. We have classes for the young people and Mike and Jen had gone through all the engineering ones with a quickness that startled everyone including their parents.

A couple of others were almost as fast though older. They were visiting at Mike and Jen's place one day and started talking about the old AM radio stations. They had heard stories from some of the older folks like Poppa Jack's parents and grandparents tell how important and far-reaching AM radio had been years before the Day. They made an overnight trip to northeast Atlanta and realized quickly that the old radio station could be operated if there were a source of power.

It took some working but a dam was built for the sole purpose of providing power to the transmitter and studio and the support persons needed. They have collected musical recordings and other equipment as the project spread to more people.

We had heard a little about it but I hadn't thought much about it until we were at Preservation and Mike and Jen came to the house to talk. They were both excited about getting the station on the air and expected it to be operating within the week.

They wanted to tell us about the radio project and their proposed trip as well as see us. We quickly discovered there was another purpose in their trip. They wanted Bennie to record a number of announcements for the station to broadcast. They wanted to record the rest of us as well. For some of it, they had scripts for us to review.

Bennie looked at me with his usual "I don't make speeches" eyes. Before he could say anything, Pam said, "You will be perfect for it, Bennie. It will all be recorded but you have a voice that should be heard over a radio."

Then she added, "Your face would work well that way, too." Everyone laughed but Bennie did agree as long as it would be recorded.

He said, "We aren't here all the time and I don't want to be trapped in a studio being an invisible voice."

The next week had all of us up by the old Northlake Mall in northeast Atlanta making recordings and telling snippets of our story. A couple of examples will suffice.

One for Bennie was, "This is Radio Freedom coming from the old city of Atlanta, Georgia, on seven hundred fifty kilohertz. Most of the content you will hear is recorded but was recently recorded or programmed by members of the communities of Preservation and Protection.

"Contact is available nightly on 3.970 MHz and 7.185 MHz. Find and power a ham radio and join us on the air."

They had one for Pam and I to do together. We recorded it as, "This is Janice of Preservation. This is Pam from Protection. We're married but there are many men and women in our communities who are not and would be glad to meet newcomers. WSB used to stand for, 'Welcome South, Brother.' People who want freedom and peace are welcome to join us or to become allied with us by radio. We have technology to share. Welcome Surviving Brethren."

There were many others that Robby and others did. Mike and Jen even coerced their parents into recording some "spots" as they were called. They flew up to Protection and down to Port Lavaca and Pintlala to include voices from each area in the announcements recorded.

Mike wanted to record instructions to tell people how to make simple radios until Charlie said in his quiet way, "Uncle Mike, there's two problems with that idea. First, if they are listening, they have radios. Second, if they aren't smart enough to figure out how to make a radio, then they simply aren't smart enough." At some point, Charlie might have to learn a little more diplomacy! The alternative is to take more lessons from me.

We have made flyers to post at any new area by anyone going any direction. In those, we did give basics on building simple radios and low power hand-cranked generators. We also made them in Spanish for the Lavacans to post further south. Their boats went that way frequently.

As it turned out, this was the first formal outreach any of us had made since the many years ago recording by Momma Shirley on CNN! All previous efforts have been as a part of exploration or ham radio or in responding to threats. It would be interesting to find out how much response we receive and from where.

Mike was concerned about attracting an army like what had happened years ago. Poppa told him that the eastern half of the old U.S. was pretty safe. Preservation and Protection had successfully fought off incursions from groups trying to take over our territories. He emphasized that there still might be some small groups of scavengers slowly going back in time as technologies failed without maintenance. However, the day of the large groups trying to take over in the east was over.

Chapter 2 »