A Glibertarians Exclusive – The Watchtower I
The Knik River Bridge: November 2032
The two men standing watch on the north end of the Knik River bridge on the main highway were typical of Alaska militiamen following the Great Collapse.
Frank Tippin was twenty-four. He had a house in Wasilla, where his wife and two young sons awaited him. Frank was a cheerful man, with the quick humor of youth, even in these troubled times.
Terry Hopp was forty-nine. He had a cabin on twenty acres of land near Chickaloon, where he had lived alone for thirty years. He was known mostly for his reclusiveness and his casual disregard for the game laws, reckoning that moose season was open whenever his freezer was empty, but he ate what he killed and was discreet, so nobody around Chickaloon much cared about it.
Both men were dressed warmly against the late Alaska fall. Both wore the armband of the Alaska Free State Militia; a blue banner on the upper right arm, bearing the gold stars of the old Alaska state flag.
And both, like most of the militia, were armed with their personal weapons, which made logistics a challenge. Frank carried a Springfield Armory M1A, still in stock livery, with the factory open sights. Terry had his Browning A-Bolt in .300 Winchester Magnum slung on his shoulder. His rifle bore a Leupold 3-9x scope; he was expected, if trouble developed, to engage at range.
Both men had, in the years leading up to the Collapse, stockpiled a fair amount of ammo. That practice was not uncommon in Alaska in the late Twenties – or, as they were known in the Outside, the Harris years.
It was a mild day for late November, but a chill wind was blowing off Cook Inlet. The highway bridge was blocked at both ends with the big concrete castings that were for unknown reasons called Jersey barriers. At the north end, where Frank and Terry stood watch, a concrete block bunker had been built to overlook the bridge.
For over a month, no vehicle traffic had been allowed from the south. Not since word had reached the Matanuska-Susitna Valley of the fall of Anchorage to the People’s Army that had moved up from Seattle.
An old Ford pickup truck approached from the north. Frank covered it with his M1A until the truck stopped, and the driver got out.
“Wrinkle,” Frank challenged.
“Bait,” the skinny man who had dismounted the truck replied.
Frank shouldered his rifle. “How’s it going, Pete?”
“It’s done. This bridge is wired. The Old Glenn Highway bridge was blown. It’s in the water. Railroad bridge is down, too, so this is the only way across the Knik now. Anyone who wants to get into the Mat-Su has to come through us, or else come in by boat, airplane or come through Canada.”
Terry called out from the bunker. “We heard the boom a while ago. Too bad about the old bridge, but it had to be done.”
“Gonna be a bitch moving stuff up here without the railway.”
“Look at the bright side – no tourists,” Frank grinned.
Terry spoke over his shoulder, unwilling to take his eyes off the bridge: “Any word from the Army up at Wainwright?”
“Same as we heard yesterday. Same as we heard from JBER. Lots of fighting. Some of the senior officers wanted to follow orders from the New White House in San Francisco. Most of the younger guys went nuts. Lots of people dead in both places. Long story short – we can’t expect any help from the Army or the Air Force.”
Frank turned and looked south. “And I hear the People’s Army have landed two more old cruise ships’ worth of ‘troops’ in Anchorage. They’re building up to something.”
“They’ll have a hell of a time getting through Chugiak and Eagle River. Lots of retired vets in there.”
“Bro,” Frank replied, “most of those vets are up here now. Paul, what do you think?”
Paul had served twelve years in the Army, in Explosive Ordnance Disposal, and since the Collapse, he had proved as adept at blowing things up as he had earlier in preventing explosions. He had left the Army, seeing the writing on the wall, in the months leading up to the Collapse. “What do I think? I think it’s a cluster-fuck. I think they got the advantage of numbers on us. I think that we may have the bridges blocked, but they can drop people in our rear by boat, anywhere over at Knik-Goose Bay or up the Su at Deshka Landing or half a dozen other places. I think we have one advantage,” he gestured at the ground, covered as it was with a couple of inches of snow even now in early November. “We’ve got Alaska. Most of those People’s Army fuckheads are from California. They won’t be able to deal.”
“So come summer, we’re fucked.”
“We’ll see. I gotta run, guys. They told me to come to tell you about the bridge. With this being the last one up, they’re gonna double the watch, starting tonight. Four rifles instead of two. At least a platoon standing by on five-plus.”
“Makes sense.” Frank replied. “Where you off to next?”
“Wasilla. They’re flying my team down to the Peninsula. Looks like the People’s Army is trying to drive down the Seward Highway, so we’re going to blow a couple of bridges. If they want Kenai and Soldotna, no reason we should make it easy on them.”
“I s’pose not.”
Paul nodded, then climbed back in the old F-150, backed around, and drove off to the north.
“Damn,” Terry griped. He went back inside the bunker and looked south, through the narrow firing slit. “The one year when the Kenai isn’t overrun with tourists, and we won’t be able to get down there for any fishing.”
“We’ll just have to dip-net in the Susitna, then,” Frank replied. “Plenty of salmon there.”
“Not as much fun.”
Frank came back in the bunker, out of the wind. He laid his rifle carefully on the wooden bench that stood against one wall and leaned to look out, to the south. “Sure do wish I knew how things could go this bad, this fast. Still doesn’t feel quite real, does it? The country broke in five, six pieces. Civil war. Who’da thunk it? My old man, he says that just ten years ago, everyone thought the idea was just a nutball conspiracy theory.”
“Ain’t no going back now,” Terry said, sadly.
“Dad said that the big business guys had a lot to do with it.”
“Ain’t that easy,” Terry shook his head, never taking his eyes off the bridge. “Sure, plenty of people were making plenty of money before the Collapse. But the bad ones – the big players – didn’t make money by building stuff people wanted. They made their money by playing around with markets, or by grafting onto government make-work deals. There was this big solar panel company, don’t remember the name of it, got a big wad of government contracts then never made a damn thing. There was this other guy, from Europe, made a ton of money on currency speculation then proceeded to fuck around in America’s elections any place he saw a chance. Assholes like that were a big part of it. One of them bought up a shitload of good farmland, all over the country, did nothing with it – and now people all over the Forty-Eight are starving.”
“That’s fucked up,” Frank observed.
“You’re damn right it is. I grew up down there. In Illinois. Left when I was nineteen, came up here, and never went back. Best damn thing I ever did.”
“I bet.” Frank had been born in Wasilla and had never lived anywhere else.
“Assholes.” Terry repeated. “Assholes never knew how good they had it. Never knew what it was all worth, until it wasn’t.”
The two men stood for a while, both staring across the bridge, both lost in their own thoughts.
Then: “Look there. Truck coming up the highway.”
“You’ve got good eyes,” Terry said to his younger counterpart. He picked up a pair of big ten-power binoculars he had brought along and looked across the bridge. “Old Four-Runner. Painted green. Flying a flag. Blue field, bunch of multicolored stars. People’s Army flag. Guess they got through Eagle River and Chugiak after all.”
The truck stopped at the south end of the bridge, where the Jersey barriers blocked vehicle access. Two people, both wearing blue and white “urban” camouflage, got out. One of them looked across the bridge with… his? Hers? Its? …own binoculars, then both figures climbed back into the truck and drove off to the south.
“Sure as hell,” Terry said. “Sure as hell. We’re gonna be in for it, soon as they get their shit together.”
“Looks like.”
***
“There must be some way out of here,” said the joker to the thief,
“There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth.”
Let me ask you, brother, what you gonna do…when Firstamania runs wild on YOU?
Yawn.
Imma back a winner and snap into a Slim Jim.
Winner.
Shouldn’t he be more humble?
darn it.
Surreptitiously load the boot, kick that jabroni Hulk Hogan in the taint, and put him in the Camel Clutch.
Well I expect a grim tale to be forthcoming. “The Harris Years” was enough to chill my soul.
I’m here to bitch about that too.
Seems like a good place for this one.
I was originally going to point out that Harris couldn’t even win any delegates in the Dem primary, but that doesn’t really matter when the machine controls the vote counting, does it?
Who said it was the same Harris?
I know you’d be disappointed if we didn’t knitpick.
M1A, still in stock livery, with the factory open sights.
I believe they usually come with a military aperture rear sight.
Yeah, they do. Color me embarrassed. I could have gone with “iron sights,” I suppose.
Better “fact checking” here than the NYT.
Thanks for the article!
No worries! Enjoining it so far. Kind of a Kurt Schlichter type of adventure.
And yes, some of us old guys still like those iron sights until our eyes don’t work them so well any more.
I switched out the factory irons on my old Marlin 1895G for a ghost ring peep and a higher-profile front. They work pretty well even for a farsighted old coot.
I’d have called the rear aperture an open sight. A ‘scope is a ‘scope, to me anything else is open sight/iron sight/peep sight, which ever it is.
Really enjoyed the article, I recognized the geography and I wouldn’t be surprised to see some familiar names pop up. Thanks for memories, Animal.
Fuck me. Depressing start, but I will be here every week.
As always, thanks Animal!
Coincidentally I just finished Dan Simmons’ Flashback. Another good sci-fi murder-mystery from Simmons. The back-story is that the slow decline just kept going for a couple of decades without a civil war or total collapse. The result is almost scarier than this story.
I’m listening to this right now. Good advice about being ready – and keeping it quiet.
Yesterday went with the family to look at a cabin in the hills on 7 acres with a nice pasture next to a river… Might make an offer.
Hope it works for you and there’s fish in the river for the kids.
There was this big solar panel company, don’t remember the name of it, got a big wad of government contracts then never made a damn thing. There was this other guy, from Europe, made a ton of money on currency speculation then proceeded to fuck around in America’s elections any place he saw a chance. Assholes like that were a big part of it. One of them bought up a shitload of good farmland, all over the country, did nothing with it
Solyndra, Soros, Gates?
Thanks Animal!
I think you hit the trifecta. My choices, too.
Did you ever read The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047?
One of the scariest collapse novels I’ve ever read.
Thread fail.
Supposed to be for Drake.
Adding it to the list.
This the bridge?
It is.
Never saw it with snow.
The two men standing watch on the north end of the Knik River bridge on the main highway were typical of Alaska militiamen following the Great Collapse.
Grabbed me right from the get-go.
“The Harris Years”
*Looks for the sign-up for the Alaska Free State Militia*
No Glowies allowed.
They’ll be the ones pushing to kidnap the governor.
Nice try, Fed. That’s not they only entrapment plot you guys run.
Say fellow libertarian, would you like to do an insurrection?
A remnant of my former self still hates to admit that the rest of me is looking forward to the whole thing coming unglued, but the necessity of it makes it inevitable.
I know a big part of it is my desire to see a collapse lay bare all of the bullshit, the moral preening, and flense away the inessential.
Let’s get back to what matters and strip away all of the flaking facade and gilt.
Thanks, Animal. Looking forward to more.
I know what you mean. I like having heat in my house, gas in my car, food in the fridge… but I hate what this country has become.
So what’s the spark? Russian and Spanish civil wars each started with a coup. Despite the hyperbole, I don’t see that as being very likely here.
Maybe getting involved in a total war?
What you did there was noted.
😎
There can be only one spark.
The Low Spark Of High-Heeled Boys
Spark.
Not my thing at the time, but I’ve grown to appreciate them.
I’ll add some Commie Mitchell too. She had a wonderful voice. I actually saw her in concert in the 80s.
Court and Spark
Sparks!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVTH7OsNbhs
Maybe a bad war – they are doing their best to start a couple of them in Europe now.
Or a bad economic crash and 80k armed IRS agents fanning out across the land to take whatever is left?
Revenuers.
(spits)
“Gonna be a bitch moving stuff up here without the railway.”
“Look at the bright side – no tourists,”
Gold Star Service has taken on a new meaning thanks to Glibs.
“Alaska Free State Militia”
As much as I disliked the novel, that was the premise behind The Incorporated Man. After the collapse, a very “libertarian” Alaskan government ends up taking back over and unifying the US under their government.
I use libertarian very loosely in that description, not sure the author knew what a libertarian was.
Unincorporated.
That Un is very important.
Hey is this really you now? Asking ’cause there was some lunatic signed in under your name in a previous thread. Would you believe he was actually praising Leonard Cohen and “Hallelujah”? Yikes.
Good lord.
robc was hacked!
I stand behind the Leonard Cohen version and none of the others.
What is with you and Mojo, some sort of anti-Canadian Jew thing going on? Going to hate on Rush too?
Dafuq? Rush is my spirit animal. Or Steely Dan. I never can decide.
🤢🤮
(two thumbs up)
One time, as a yoot, my grandparents had the TV on Austin City Limits and that joker came on. My used-to-be-a-hippie aunt insisted we watch it. It was the Manhattan song. Thereafter I’ve had an anti-thing for Cohen.
And I thought Rush was from Missouri.
Rush Limbaugh == Missouri
Rush the band == Canada
The only “Hallelujah” of import is Handel.
Just for you! 😉 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EiwMoW003Fo
I don’t know how I feel about that. I’ll have to watch it a few times. 😉
Gotta at least admire the
ballsovaries to attempt it with three voices and a cappella.That right there is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written.
By that I mean Handel.
Yes. I once heard that it is the most divine piece of music ever created. Now, I believe that Handel locked himself in a room for weeks or whatever, alone, writing this thing. It’s just one of those things that, since I am a believer, I can believe that God was guiding Handel.
Funny as how much they’ve tried to bury Baroque music they can’t.
Even as a nonbeliever I find Bach’s works equally as inspiring. I’d imagine the pipe organ in the church must have been quite ethereal for people.
Cool pre-Baroque stuff: https://www.millenniumofmusic.com/
I’m also partial to Mozart’s.
Mozart – Alleluia
I generally don’t like Mozart’s work.
I pretty much swing from baroque straight to Rachmaninoff in one leap. Occasionally I will stop for Beethoven.
So, you’re saying, if it ain’t Baroque, don’t fix it?
Indeed!
⊙.☉
I enjoy Classical period, but not all of it.
Ah, let’s see. Who else do I like? deBussy, Gershwin, Orff.
My mother is a squeeing Chopin fangirl. Me … no. Just, no. Liszt, no. Schuman, no.
JBER
Gah. If we’re going to have societal collapse, there’s going to be a rectification of names. Mt Fucking McKinley, for one.
“the Harris years.”
Sci Fi, fantasy, and now horror. You’re a machine, Animal.
Awesome. I love it. I was about to write a post-collapse story about Arizona. I may be reaching out to you.
I was driving home from town yesterday and Dylan’s version of Watchtower came on the radio (I grew up with the Jimi version) and I was thinking about what a great story it would make for Animal.
And here we are.
The Harris Years. Bleagh.
Combining threads, Cohen once said that way back in the day he and Dylan were discussing writing songs. Dylan asked him how long Hallelujah took, and Cohen said 2 years. Cohen asked about one of his songs, and Bob said “15 minutes”. Cohen said that he lied, it actually took him 5 years. He figured Dylan lied too, and it took him about 10 minutes.
This is a point in MoJo’s and PT’s favor, as great songs are usually written instantly. But there are exceptions.
It took me 20+ years to write my pirate novel. I had a vision for it, grand, sweeping. I had A LOT written that I knew I wanted to include (narrator: very little made it in), but I just kept fiddling with it, trying to find my way. Thing is, I KNEW I did not have the writing chops to write it. So I just kept fiddling with it until it was time to do something. I still wasn’t sure I had the chops, but I had 3 good books under my belt by that time, so I got to work. It wasn’t easy, but as soon as I cut some of the more immature writing I had done on it and kept certain concepts, it flowed.
Saw something recently. Hemmingway said that something like 90% of character development that you write isn’t for inclusion in the book, its just so that the author understands the character. Makes sense to me.
True. Me, I give them a personality, character traits, a situation, then give them a circumstance and then see what they do and write that down.
Also, you do a ton of research on background stuff (things that Theeeee Hyperbole thinks are silly because it’s all fiction so who cares), then you only use a fraction of the knowledge you’ve gained. I know a whole lot about naval warfare in the Georgian/Revolutionary War period (which was hard to find because history kind of skipped over 100 years from the Golden Age of Sail to the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805). Lots of shipbuilding technology improvements in that time, lots of new strategerie.
Research and worldbuilding is half the fun.
Yes.
I will admit that half the scenes I write start out as fashion pr0n.
A good many of mine start out as architecture or landscape descriptions.
Fun fact: fashion follows architecture in attitude. See: baroque/rococo, then watch the fashion turn absolutely gaudy.
It is why I like a lot of Larry Niven.
He starts with a weird idea for a world then develops from there. Some of his novels, the ones that are good instead of great, often seems like travellogs. The characters arent important, but they are traveling to show us the world. Destiny’s Road being the prime example, IMO.
*chill runs down spine
What a promising start.
snort…Harris years.
I want to think that it’s not possible for things to collapse by 2032. But, I don’t have confidence in that.
I can see the EU spinning apart this winter as the plebes freeze in their homes.
I can see Russia ramping things up in Ukraine.
I can further see the US ramping things up in Ukraine.
I can see the Biden administration prosecuting a former President as early as next year.
I can see the election of 2024 further splitting the country into “winners” and “deniers” resulting in FedGov taking extreme actions to “fix” the election rules across the country.
And it goes on in to countless other bad things.
Yeah, I never thought things would get so bad so quickly. I was hoping the collapse would hold off long enough for me to still enjoy my retirement, but now I have serious doubts.
How did you go broke?
At first slowly, and then quickly.
Ten years is a long time. If people could see bad times coming, they probably wouldn’t happen.
For a long time I was afraid I wouldn’t be around to see what happens. Now I’m afraid I will be.
The symptoms are beginning to grow. The cities out of control, the non-existent border, the insurmountable debt, the economy in shambles, wars in faraway places with strange sounding names. I dunno, Man…
I still think someone in 1939 would point to much worse things going on…
Heck, it was worse in the 70’s.
I disagree.
Wouldn’t the winter be a fighting season in Alaska? I’m thinking with the rivers frozen, they could be crossed by men and light vehicles, regardless of a sudden shortage of bridges.
So, you’d like to invade Russia in Winter for the same reason?
Better than spring mud, just bring a jacket.
I am so glad you showed up.
This is OT in the extreme. My apologies to Animal.
So, my daughter tells me there is something called the “Mean Girl-to-Nurse Pipeline.” She says it’s all over TikTok, high school mean girls going into nursing for the $$$ and the power over those who are pretty helpless. Is this something you’ve heard of?
My wife works in healthcare, she doesn’t like nurses…
I think she’s a good judge of character, but then she married me, so who knows.
I haven’t had too many asshole nurse encounters, or if I have, I forgot them. The last little tussle I had with a healthcare person, which wasn’t one at all and if I’d been half sentient I’d have laughed and I still think it’s funny, was when the respiratory therapist came in with her incentive spirometer. I’d just had stomach surgery and I could barely move my ribs. I just said, “No.” She harrumphed around and sniped, “At least you’re honest about it.”
Haven’t heard of it. Wouldn’t surprise me, though. A lot of nurses have a certain affect – cynical, hard, tough, no-nonsense, something along those lines. As nursing has become mostly hospital-based (you rarely find many RNs outside of hospitals these days), the pressure on nurses has ramped up. Being under the thumb of both a big bureaucracy and a bunch of doctors does not tend to make people any nicer or more compassionate
All that said, there are still a good number of nurses who are definitely making deposits in the karma bank every day.
I checked with wife (nursing educator), never heard the term, but about 15% of students would qualify.
Too much advantage for the people that live there for the people’s army to want to start an offensive. They might run into a few Simo Häyhäs.
I think that’s a pretty safe bet.
One Simo Häyhäs would be terrifying enough.
When the army is composed of pink-haired twin spirit demisexuals identifying as queermale on even numbered days, fighting in any weather below freezing is literal slavery and they’ll glue themselves to their bunks in protest.
Track vehicles for sure. Wheeled vehicles, not so much.
Daily Quordle 329
5️⃣4️⃣
6️⃣9️⃣
shitty day
Whatever I plugged in yesterday did not do anything. I thought it was a pipe heater, but apparently not. Not functional, anyway. Went to Lowes and got a kerosene jet engine construction heater, which is currently roaring away blowing heat into the crawl space.
We’ll see what happens.
I hope you bought a fire extinguisher too. 😛
Are you on well or city?
Very nice start, Animal. I got shades of The Postman, even though I know that’s not really true.
OTOH, it was kinda scary. If somebody descends upon me with a gun, all I want is a quick death.
“all I want is a quick death”
Same here. Their quick death, of course.
I have no guns, and probably will never have any.
Well I, for one, am shocked that the Jan. 6 committee has recommended criminal charges against Trump.
Banana republic
I think this is a better example.
The best example.
The Doctor says you gonna die
Yes, shocked here as well.
Everything they do when it comes to Trump starts with a conclusion and is just backfilled with justification.
But they’ve got him this time for sure!
Wanna see my shocked face…
*Grabs popcorn*
Enjoyed this very much.
Being a fantasy guy, I’m hoping some kind of tentacly monster living under the bridge eats the invading People’s Army.
Nope, it’s going to devour the militia one by one
I wanna root for the good guys.
The People’s Army will be California Dreamin’ while the locals live there and are accustomed to some hardships. 20 years in VN and Afghanistan and still had to leave in a hurry. Logistics are a bitch.
Are they charging Cartoon Villain with depraved indifference to established political norms and conventions?
Some bullshit.
The committee, gathering publicly Monday, is expected to vote on referrals asking the Justice Department to pursue at least three criminal charges against Trump related to the Capitol riot: obstructing an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the government and inciting or assisting an insurrection.
WATER! YEEESSSSSS1
N ow to go see if there’s a big sprinkler in the crawlspace.
So what was the problem?
This
Oh that guy! The flipper on HGTV!
Yep. He remodeled Brooks’ place and the damn water quit working.
🤪
Lines were froze
I’m glad you’ve got water.
This series is going to depress me, isn’t it?
Or inspire you.
No ruptures detected below deck. A heater ($200) which will get used in the shop (I hate those noisy goddam things, but they do throw off the heats). A jug of “clean kerosene” ($35? Thanks, Brandon!) plus tax- ~ $250.-.
I’m guessing that’s less than a real plumber would have socked me for.
As I was lying awake last night thinking about it, I asked myself what would a plumber do if I called one; he’d throw his big heater in there, more likely than not.
I plugged the “line heater” back in, just in case, and added some more insulation. I think I’ll be letting the kitchen faucet drool at night, for the time being.
The People’s Army would try to burn fresh green wood to stay warm.