My name is Zacharias William Drinkmore. Before the shit hit the fan (SHTF), my friends called me Zach. However, that became a dangerous name, one that nearly cost my life on several occasions when someone greeted me with, "Hey, there's Zach!" I'm not sentimental for the old days, so I quickly took to being called Bill. Some still call me Colonel since I mustered out of 3rd Virginia Volunteer Armored Cavalry as a Lt. Colonel, but they tend to be former comrades.
It's been long enough since the war that there are teenagers for whom this is the only life they know. My step daughter, who was born less than a year before the dead rose, asked me a question (I don't even remember what it was) that made it clear that she has no concept of the old ways. I'm not convinced that is a bad thing, but I feel compelled to document what I know so that others will remember.
I'll review books and movies — both fiction and non, current and pre-SHTF — that purport to offer tips and tricks for survival in this new world. I'll also provide some of my own as well as observations about how things are different (or the same) now as compared to pre-SHTF life.