TACTICAL PREPPER SURVIVALIST SHTF READING GLASSES

If you are under age 40, and you laughed at the title of this essay, you should think again. If you manage to survive the next decade or two, you will want to have learned this lesson early, while reading glasses can be picked up at any dollar store by the handful. Or, after the SHTF, you can try to build your own from scratch, lenses and all. Good luck with that, by the way!

Why do reading glasses  matter? Because even in a hunting, camping, or boogaloo survival situation, you will occasionally need to focus on small but critical things, like the windage and elevation knobs on your rifle scope, or the laughably named “instruction manual” printed in tiny font that came with it. This is what an exposed scope knob looks like in the field when an old guy forgets his reading glasses:

And if you still have the tiny instruction sheet that came with it, this is what it looks like. (Or the sheet that came with your ChiCom tactical radio, etc.)

Good luck making sense out of that!

Old guys can be great operators. They have a lot of advantages over young guys. For example, we don’t whine about aches and pains, we get by just fine on almost no sleep, and since we’re up taking a leak a few times a night anyway, we’re perfect for standing watch while the young ones are getting their deep beauty rest.

And with modern rifle scopes, we’re still in the tactical game at all ranges. With the right scope, we have no problem hitting anything a kid can hit at any distance. Trust me on that. Good scopes make ALL the difference!

But when it comes to our eyes, most of us can’t focus worth a damn on tiny print, or the little carved markings on that great scope’s elevation and windage knobs. Let me tell you, it’s a BIG problem when you just can’t make out which way that little arrow is pointing for right-left or up-down. If you just make a guess, you will probably make your problem worse. Sometimes you just have to focus on tiny stuff. There is no other option. And calling over a young kid to help out “grandpa” just makes your shit look weak. Eff that noise! Not to mention, there is not always a sharp-eyed young kid around when you need one.

Today, most old guys already go into the field with some reading glasses. But in the heat of the moment, as when taking your rifle sling off and you forget you parked your readers on top of your head, you stand a great chance of flinging them unnoticed off into the underbrush, never to be seen again, or busting off the hinged ear piece, leaving you with an awkward one-legged POS that won’t stay put on your face. And even if they are always secured in a case in your pocket, it’s a PITA to get them out, use them, and put them back, while your hands should be on your carbine. And sooner or later, you’ll lose or break them anyway.

So here is the solution I came up with, when I tried to salvage a decent pair of readers after the ear pieces broke off at their hinges. I used black bootlace string to replace the ear pieces, and glued the ends of the strings to the broken hinges with a drop of Gorilla Glue. Other glues or epoxies would also work, but the original GG has held up for a year. The string has no adjustment, they fit just snugly enough that the sides act as earpieces and the glasses stay in place. Just yank them down over your nose and shove them under your shirt to get them safely out of the way, but ready for another use.

I have done tactical courses and weekend outings (remember Camp Boogaloo?) and they have served me better in the field than any other readers I’ve ever owned. In the field, I never take them off. Sleeping, they are under my t-shirt, no bother at all, but always ready when you need them. Normally I’d bust a pair of hinged reading glasses in a day or two of training, but these have held up for months and are still going strong.

If you are a young guy and have great eyesight for all distances, that’s great, but trust me, your perfect eyeballs won’t stay that way forever. Go out and buy a bunch of cheap readers now from 1.25X to about 2.5X. Or, when the time comes and you can’t buy a pair of readers for love or money, you can just make a guess, from memory, about which way is R or L or UP on your scope knob. You’ll guess wrong, and you won’t hit anything worth a damn. Then you’ll be making all kinds of piss-poor excuses about why “the old guy” can’t even get a basic damn zero on his rifle, or figure out his tactical radio. No way, dude! No excuses!

Instead, get some tactical prepper survivalist SHTF boogaloo reading glasses that will never let you down, that you can’t break, and you can’t lose.

 

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About the Author: Matt Bracken

Old frogman, sailor, boat builder, novelist and essayist. Matthew Bracken was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1957, and attended the University of Virginia, where he received a BA in Russian Studies and was commissioned as a naval officer in 1979. Later in that year he graduated from Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training, and in 1983 he led a Naval Special Warfare detachment to Beirut, Lebanon. Since then he’s been a welder, boat builder, charter captain, ocean sailor, essayist and novelist. He lives in North Florida. Links to many of Matt’s short stories and essays may be found at EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com, along with excerpts from his five novels: the Enemies Foreign and Domestic series, Castigo Cay and The Cliffs of Zerhoun. His essays and short stories can be found in “The Bracken Collection: Essays and Short Fiction 2010 to 2019”. All of his short stories and essays may be reproduced on the internet, in part or in whole, as long as proper attribution is given, and they are not sold for profit without the permission of the author.

12 Comments

  1. Anonymous April 27, 2020 at 10:59

    5

  2. Charles Hudson April 27, 2020 at 11:01

    Your description is a little hard to follow. This old guy needs pictures.

  3. Boat Guy April 27, 2020 at 20:07

    Brilliant Brother!
    I’m only needing 1.25 now but I’ve got a few of the “variety packs” and otherwise have a goodly stock in the stores and have pairs I’m using all over the house. A couple of those will be converted most skosh.
    Another suggestion; because I’m using them for PPE at the moment and because these go in the range bag are “safety-readers” ; that have small magnification panels down low like old-timey bifocals. Again a few of them are on my reloading bench and in my nail bags.
    Thanks for all you’ve done for us, Brother

  4. Stephen Wilson April 27, 2020 at 20:08

    Great post, glasses would be a great barter items in the new economy! I cash many spares and keep all my broken pairs just in case!. On a side note, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on bugout bags and contents, weights and what you think is important.

  5. Anonymous April 27, 2020 at 20:20

    4.5

  6. DryCreek1976 April 27, 2020 at 22:11

    Probably not as good as Mr Brakens idea….. but Walmart has shooting/safety glasses tented and clear lenses with built in bifocals…. I’m in my 40s and been stashing reading glasses also……. you younger guys should really listen to Mr. Braken’s advice

  7. kaiserworks April 28, 2020 at 10:13

    Thanks Matt! At a couple months shy of 50 years I’ve been dealing with readers for a while.

  8. James April 28, 2020 at 21:19

    A good repair/idea ect. but in a pinch a good magnifying glass will work on those scope calibrations and will also start a fire for you assuming it is a sunny day.I have used JB Weld to fix eyeglass arms on job sites far from home,sure,had a second pair in truck but with a splint of thin wood and painters tape have eyeglasses fixed still using on sites years later after splint removed.I have used PL 400 construction adhesive on cheap/dont care about work boots for real messy jobs that were not sewn soles,glue lets go,fix with the PL and again,years later,junk boots ready to go when needed.So,get the glasses but other products mentioned as they will fix a myriad of broken stuff.I had a hot rod with aluminum intake that cracked,car ran like junk due to too much air in mix,short term filled crack withJBb weld and drove fine for a year till I ordered a new intake,guy who installed first intake I believe torqued it on too hard.Why I sold the W-30 442-455 is beyond me!

  9. M J Nichols April 30, 2020 at 15:44

    Hi Matt Bracken, I just found this site while trying to figure out how to reach out to you without breaching my lifelong boycott of (anti) social media. Next I try snail mail. lol Missing you on Thursday on Infowars.

  10. Elizabeth May 6, 2020 at 11:13

    Just wait until you get your cataract surgery.
    Life changing. It’s a miracle procedure.

  11. Tim McCann May 6, 2020 at 12:29

    I’ve used both super glue followed by Electrical shrink tubing over the broken area to help reinforce it.

  12. kevinH May 20, 2020 at 16:24

    Pay attention to this article, it happens faster than you think.

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