Man and Nature, what we've forgotten

If you've been following the news you know that yesterday the body of Mr. Kim was found, two days after his wife and two daughters were rescued from their car.

I knew this was going to happen - though I really hoped I'd be proven wrong. He took off lightly dressed, in cold and wet weather, trying to find help for his family.

His wife and daughters were found and survived. My wife (staunch member of La Leche League) is wryly amused that the news heads seemed fascinated that she breast fed both of her girls, one infant and one four-year-old. Like what else would she do?

"Speak no ill of the dead" and indeed I salute the man's devotion to his family - but he did the wrong thing and paid a high price for it. Survival experts tell you, if you are stuck in your car or survive a plane crash - stay with it. For searchers, a car or a plane is a hell of a lot more conspicuous than a person from the air.

They did the right thing when they burned their tires, but he should have had more patience. That's hard for a man, when your every instinct is screaming "do something!"

In this day and age, our fat, happy and secure people have forgotten what our fathers knew: that nature is the enemy, animals aren't from Disneyland and strangers should be viewed with suspicion until we know better.

I'll do the philosophical aspect of this later. For now, I'd like everyone to consider what they'd do if their car broke down in bad weather and they had to spend at least one night in it.

We've got an ancient Honda Accord. With one 5-year-old and one infant, it gets pretty crowded in there. But we have in the trunk at all times: an Army surplus entrenching tool, flashlights, a hand axe, knives, cans of sterno, lighters and candles.

We like to take long road trips and get off the interstates as much as possible. You see more of the real America and find the better burger joints that way. When we do, we take a few gallon jugs of water, packaged food such as jerky, trail mix and juice and sleeping bags/ blankets.

I've never taken formal survival training, but a lot of the information is freely available in books. I have the Air Force survival manual, which is the most comprehensive I've seen. And in this day and age a lot of stuff is available at Wal-Mart for cheap. I just bought a combination flashlight/ radio (with a weather channel setting) that runs off batteries and has a hand-cranked generator. Price - about $20. Flannel blankets and sleeping bags that can be zipped together cost next to nothing. And check out the sports/ hunting/ fishing section for cheap serviceable knives and tools. And have you seen those hand-cranked cell phone re-chargers?

I keep thinking of what I don't have. What do you think, did I miss something?

How about a length of rubber tubing to siphon gas out of the tank? Any suggestions folks?