Get me to the nunnery -- er -- library!

The bike stands outside the Anderson Public Library will do a fine job for tying some horses down. Should one of us stay outside with the horses and wait to make sure other survivors or crazy vagrants don't steal them? I'm thinking yes. So, one of our group members who doesn't know the library well will be made to wait.

Just recently I heard a kid at the pool say out loud: "Books are hard." I wanted to turn to him and say, "Well, yes, unless they're paperback." If that kid is a part of our group, for some reason, he will be the one standing by the horses.

I'm not sure who will have ransacked the library, and if they do, why for?

Power is off the grid, so all of the TV series on DVD like The Sopranos, or Six Feet Under, or Game of Thrones, or True Blood, or Dexter, or Homeland, or The Newsroom, or Boardwalk Empire, or Downton Abbey won't do us any good -- but I've got a feeling these are the things that will be missing.

Those are down on the first floor, so I'll take the flight of stairs up to the nonfiction stacks and begin to sort through the books that really matter.

Here's why: Our culture has relied on Google for too long. As far as I know, the average person isn't a survivalist. When staying alive by finding food and water, when protecting the ones you love is all that matters, than everything else is off the table. We won't be distracted by Twitter updates or Instagram photos anymore.

Without all these distractions is the true test. Can we live?

With help from the nonfiction section, we can.

I am only successful growing tomatoes from plants that have already been grown from seed. I don't know how to cultivate a large crop of vegetables, and I've never hunted before (except for a good book in the library).

Things will need to be built, ways will need to be learned -- like canning. Right now, we live in Indiana, and there is winter,
and as far as I am concerned, winter can last quite a while.

When we see the leaves starting to change, we'll look at each other and quote Game of Thrones advertisements I've seen: "Winter is coming."

We won't have refrigerators in the summer, and we need food all the time, so those nonfiction books will teach us how to can, what plants are poisonous, and first aid.

It will also help us to re-rely on the technology of the past, like attaching a plow to a horse.

There's been a huge push for teaching nonfiction in schools right now. Maybe this is why. Someone knows something...