I Will Survive

I have been educating myself today. No need to ever worry about Mrs. Hillbilly Mom ever again. No matter where I fall out of a plane, I'm gonna make it after all. And I'm going to sing that theme from The Mary Tyler Moore show, too. By cracky!

I Will Return To Civilization
I know to head downhill, until I find a creek, and follow it to a river, where there will be settlements of people. Unless I am in Africa, in which case I should not follow the creek bed, because it is likely to disappear underground. So if I fall into Africa, I should look for the highest ground, like, umm...a mountain with a glacier, and then follow the meltwater rivers downhill.

I Can Travel Any Terrain
From the top of the mountain I fall on, I should obviously go downhill. But carefully, by cracky, because HELLO, I'm on a mountain, and that means it is steep. I should jam my fist into cracks in the rock, and find purchase with my feet. I can jump 20 feet down if I land with my feet together and roll. I can crab-walk down flat sheets of rock, maintaining contact with both hands and both feet, because friction is my friend. If I come to a river at the bottom of a canyon, I should make a raft and float. More on that later.

If I land in a swamp, I should tread carefully, and look for bubbles, because I don't want to step on an alligator. I can tie my shoelaces together and shinny up a tree to get my bearings. I should tie my empty canteen to a stick I jab into the mud, and watch which way it aligns after 20 minutes. Then I will know which way the water is slowly flowing, and can go that direction. If I get stuck in quicksand, I should take my walking stick that I should have cut the first thing when I fell into the swamp, hold it in both hands, and lay out across that quicksand and drag myself like a snake until I'm out.

If I land in the savanna, I should creep along careful so as not to disturb the lions mating or the elephants elephanting. If an elephant chases me, I should dart quickly to the left or right, because elephants don't see well, and it might keep charging in the same direction. During the day, I should find a cave the animals use to cool off, and barricade it with thorn branches so they don't trap me. I should not drink out of stagnant water with a decaying terrapin in it.

If I land in the desert, I should stop squealing with joy, because I'm in the freakin' desert, not dessert! I should cover my head so I don't overheat. If it gets too hot, I can pee on my T-shirt and wrap it around my head so I can stay cool. I should rest in the shade during the hottest part of the day.

If I land on an active volcano, I should go towards the coast, providing the volcano is on an island. If the rock is so hot that the soles of my shoes flame up, it is too hot to walk on. I should go until I find a rain foresty place in the midst of the lava, and look for a lava tube that will have water dripping down roots that has been filtered and it ready to drink. To see inside the lava tube, I should take the nuts off a certain kind of tree and skewer them on green branches, and light them. They will burn five minutes each, so light the top one of six, and you have 30 minutes.

I Can Build A Raft
I can build a raft from driftwood or balsa wood, if I happen to be in the rain forest. I can tie it together with vines. I should float feet-first in case of rapids and rocks. If I am washed out into the ocean, I should not fight the waves, but go with the flow until I wash up on shore. If I don't have anything to make a raft, I can tie the legs of my pants and blow them up for a flotation device. I really must remember to take them off first.

I Can Eat
I can eat ant larva, and some kinds of ants if I bite the head off first. I can eat snakes, but bite them behind the head and discard it, because nobody wants to eat venom with their raw snake flesh. I can skin a big snake and peel the meat off the entrails and wrap it around a stick and cook it over my campfire and mmmm...tastes like chicken. I can club a rabbit in the head and roast the meat on a stick. I can eat raw bird eggs, shells and all. I can smoke out the honey bees and steal the comb. I can catch crawfish and fish with my bare hands, or drop some of my parachute line in an ice hole and catch fish to eat raw. Just bite them behind the head. Mmmm...sushi.

I Can Drink
I can find water under rocks to slurp with a straw made of a stem. I can chew pine needles. I can squeeze the moisture out of fresh elephant dung and let it drip into my mouth. Or I can get water from a stream and boil it.

I Can Build Shelter
I can sleep in a tree in the swamp. I can build a lean-to from dead branches and leaves. I must make sure I am not in the middle of a game trail, because, well, I might just as well park my 5th-wheel camper in the middle of I-270 and hope for a good night's sleep. I must make sure that I don't use my pants with an apple in the pocket for a pillow, because I might wake up with a bear in my pants. Darn! And I do that all the time. I can put stones in the fire, then cover them with sand, and I've got a nice warm bed.


Yes, a Hillbilly Mom can survive. As long as I don't fall into the Arctic. I'll need to watch a few more shows for that. Until then, I'm staying off planes flying over the Arctic.