Ways to lessen the crazies

It’s a personal choice. Sometimes you have to check news sites or even take the chance and take a look at TV news. For about five minutes, usually less.

What I do to keep the insanity out of my mind is, I travel. Take a Zip Code, look at the town, preferably one of less than 5,000 people, somewhere between 50 and 5,000 is best. Go down to surface level and travel the streets. Check out downtown. Places in Texas and Oklahoma, sometimes you’ll see trees with shattered tops, big limbs on the ground, you know an ice storm came through. In satellite images of country areas of Arkansas and Oklahoma, you’ll sometimes see long silver cylinders, two to six near each other. Chicken houses. In western Oklahoma and parts of Texas the countryside is dotted with small earth-colored rectangles. Oil wells. Other rural areas you'll see circles of dead grass where round bales sat for a while.

Another way to block the crazies is search for places you would like to go. I don’t do cities. I like open places. Search for images of Russian steppes, Ukraine steppes, of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, other steppe areas. Flint Hills of Eastern Kansas. Texas Panhandle. Oklahoma Plains. Rural West Texas. In the American plains you will see miles and miles of empty, but with rolling hills, rocks, sand, some cottonwood or willows to mark wet places. Sometimes a tornado far away. Prairie fires. Orange and pink Texas sunsets. Cattle, horses, buffalo, or bison if you are particular. Creeks, occasionally. Water in low areas, until evaporated by summer sun. Red poppies grow on Russian steppes, and yellow flowers, purple flowers. Texas has bluebonnets and Indian paint brush.

I like cars, too, and airplanes, especially from the 1930s, the Golden Age of Aviation and of Automobiles. In the 1930s, too, you will find some of the ugliest airplanes ever made, especially from France and some from England. Huge airplanes from the Soviet Union. Streamlined airplanes from Italy.

Trucks, too. Truck, Utility, M151A1 and Truck, Cargo, M37 especially. The first is a quarter-ton, the second three-quarter ton. For traveling through those steppe and plains areas, you would need extra fuel, some spare parts, BII (Basic Issue Items, called “Billy”). Food, C Rations or MRE. Personal protection. M1 Garand or M14 rifle. M1911A1 pistol. A couple of cans of ammunition for the rifles, one can for the Colt. Four changes of clothing. Personal sanitation items.

With those, you could drive and drive, see vistas of the imagination. And if any crazies come along, well, that’s what those personal protection items are for.

Stormy Llewellyn, Odd Thomas’ girlfriend, said Earth is Boot Camp, and if you don’t give in to Evil here, you get to fight it in the next world. Sounds good to me.