by
Fred McCaleb
I finished reading a book about 2 weeks ago for pessimists. Since I have been
one the most of my life I decided to read it. It told of the millions that have
been swept away by earthquakes and resulting tidal waves and hot lava. By rains
that followed causing floods causing loss of crops, life and possessions, by
highway and railroad bridge failures that have killed thousands, about auto
pileups and wrecks that have killed many more, about fires in buildings with
all exits locked but one and in case of fire they all trample each other to
thousands of deaths and can’t get out, and about multistoried buildings with
fire on bottom floor and the ones above sometimes have to jump out of a window,
about planes plunging to the ground, the ocean or into neighborhoods and about
wars that cost sometimes millions of lives, about the weapons of mass
destruction, about earthquake landslides that wipe out or cover up entire
cities, about war abolition of a different race in death camps and on and on.
I have been close to many of these near death accidents myself but somehow
always missed by being somewhere else. I used to analyze nitro glycerin and
TNT in a chemical lab. Two of the buildings were missing on different mornings
when I went to work. At the TNT plant 3 buildings and all content were gone the
next day after I was at a rented place sleeping. The chemist that followed me
was at the gate talking to the guard and that saved him. One of the boys at the
lab got badly burned with an experiment he was testing and when I left place
after taking inventory for 3 months he hadn’t gotten out of hospital. I was
on a Dutch troopship between Eniwetock and
wouldn’t make it while she was saying the wives of soldiers were out with a
4F. The ships closed up and started zigzaging. Destroyer escorts were on
either side making about twice the speed we were making. Somehow we got
through. Went from Saipan to
quit and wing was leaning downward but the crew got engine running again and
saved us. When I got back to
one day and had us sit on a ridge of higher ground. Said a tidal wave was
coming and might get us. We sat there all day and nothing happened. They
dropped two atom bombs on
thousands disappear. I feel so thankful that I am almost 92, been a pessimist
all my life and still haven’t got killed in an accident. What a vast amount
of luck.
I finally got back home and after 3 or 4 years drove autos thousands of miles.
Between Pearisburg and Radford I met 2 cars passing 3 others and luckily had a
place to get off the road to let them pass. One time in moving junk from
and stopped the back end was burning up. Someone told me to get a distance away
and that the car might blow up. I had just filled the tank on the other side of
the mountain and it didn’t explode. Saved again. That is some of my near
escapes of death. How thankful should I be.
I will try to mention some of the big endangers to life and property.
seems to have suffered from the most and is still over populated. They have
just had a big earthquaqe this year that dammed up a river and flooded and
damaged properties of thousands and killed many hundreds and one of their big
rivers had to hurriedly be unclogged. They have had many events like that in
the past and are still overpopulated. They have had many hurricanes and floods
along the coast that have killed millions and destroyed property. They just keep
on coming and are the fastest developing nation on earth today. They have cut
out eating nice dogs for the world series.
The coastal area of India and other territories in Southeast Asia was hit by a
tidal wave caused by a strong earthquake at sea a year or two ago. Waves were
20 to 30 feet high and destroyed lives and property of several islands and all
low lying areas along the coasts of many countries. Several hundred thousands
of lives were lost and vast amount of property destroyed. The ones there
haven’t got over that destruction yet.
A hurricane struck the Gulf Coast a year or two ago with mighty winds and water
that destroyed more than a billion dollars worth of property in flooded New
Orleans, the Mississippi coast and some of Alabama. Hundreds of lives were
lost. A dry spell all summer last year nearly cut farm production to in Al
zero. Flood in the mid and northern central areas of the
cutting out corn production on thousands of acres this year. Nature has no
chosen people to send its devastation upon. Seems it might be a little better
crop year in the South this year. I hope so. Many cyclones have hit
big swoop. We have escaped them here so far.
German extinction camps along with many others that Hitler didn’t like. The
Jews then turned around and took back what they once held near 2000 years ago
from the Palestines and shot anyone that interfered with the aid of the U. S.
What a pity that hardly anyone of the higher ups don’t know that the best way
for mankind to act is to do unto others as you would have them to do unto you.
They never learn the history of the past, just go head on doing the same dumb
things that have been done in the past. Maybe they are finding out now that a
few suicide bombers in autos and just walking around can do more damage to the
morale of invaders than all the mighty weapons of war of the conqueror can do
to the conquered.
Many times in the past volcanoes and lava spew outs in
towns of many thousands. The big coliseum that used to seat thousands that came
out to watch a lion eat a Christian has deteriorated over the years and probably
been damaged by earthquakes. Bad politics have done more than any other thing to
damage most nations. We have had that better than anyone else but it lacks a
whole lot being perfect.
China has finally came into about the same economic shape that the U. S. was in
during the great depression of the 1930s due to the investment of many big
business operations moving from here to there because of cheap labor. Jobs are
becoming scarcer in the U. S. The
the countries it claims to have conquered. It looks like some food production
is getting lower each year. And thousands of farmers are quitting each year to
get jobs with more pay and less work. It takes 3 or 4 hundred thousand dollars
just to start as a small farmer unless you have a big fertile lot in the
backyard and buy a pick, shovel, and hoe. It is my pessimistic opinion that
people better start doing that pretty soon and start canning to have a little
to eat unless they want to eat each other. Oil is draining million and millions
of U.S. dollars away. Millions or billions are stored in foreign banks by
millionaires. The
foreigners. Maybe the democratic congress will let some oil companies drill in
the ocean and in
while. Maybe the chemists will learn how to make fuel from some of the ordinary
grasses and quick growing plants to power the autos and farm tractors. Maybe
they will allow a vast amount of nuclear power plants to be produced and store
the waste under rock formations in the west. Maybe they will set up giant
windmills in wind blowing sections to produce power for thousands. Maybe
someone will come up with mostly free power from hydrogen. These are things
that have to be done in a mighty rush to save the
depression ever known. It is my hope that someone lets someone else capture
these dreams before it is too late.
Going in debt has been the style for most Americans except a few oddballs like
me. There are more millionaires by today far than the 5 or ten in the other
depression. I think I read somewhere that there were over a million of them
today. Everyone was trying to be in big money before the 1929 stock collapse.
Rockefeller was one in the old depression. My mother said his money “taint
mine and taint yours” and planted her garden and farm patches. Three or four
of the big lending banks have already gone broke and the government is
supposedly helping them out so they can loan more money to bad creditors. I
don’t know whether the print shop can print money fast enough to save them or
not. The only thing backing money since 1965 is the trust of the millions of
people. They gradually took up silver and gold coins over the year or two. So
we are in a paper confidence period now and I am afraid it may be about to
break up. I hope Bush can talk back the confidence.
Money has become cheaper every year since the
cheaper ever faster now.
One of the great problems of today is that the world is rapidly increasing in
population. The production on farms is going down in the
years. Millions more are having to be fed. About ½ the population of
have HIV (aids infection) and the Muslims and Christians war struggles are
eliminating many more. The infection is increasing at a higher rate each year
in the
that. I guess the U.S. Printing and Engraving shop will have to speed up
production to about a billion dollars per minute. They speeded up with the
latest German printing presses when I was there about 40 years ago. They
probably just do it electronically today. Maybe they can do it fast enough.
Try not to let this disturb you. I have been thinking like this for about 60 or
70 years. Maybe things will be stabilized. Fred McCaleb
