JASPER WAS A PRACTICAL MAN So the idea of being prepared for natural disasters made sense to him. He wasn't particularly wealthy, but he was a hard worker and willing to put in the overtime necessary to be able to set aside some things for himself and his family every now and then. For him, it wasn't that he was necessarily preparing for anything in particular, it was just that in an uncertain world it made sense to him that he should be ready, just in case. Sure enough, the time came when Jasper did need the things he had set aside, it just wasn't for the reasons he had thought that he would need them. In any event, although he took the slow road, when troubling times came he was ready. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jerry D Young was born at home, in Senath, Missouri July 3, 1953. At age 5 the family rented a small farm house on an active farm 40 miles southwest of St. Louis. While the family weren't farmers, they lived something of a homestead type life, raising a milk cow, sometimes two, and calves, a pig or two, chickens, and the occasional goat. Along with the stock, a large garden helped to feed Jerry's three brothers and two sisters for several years. Fishing and hunting contributed to the pantry, as did foraging the wild edibles on the property. At the age of 14, the family, minus a brother and two sisters that were now adults and on their own, moved back to Senath. Having been encouraged from an early age to read, Jerry was a regular patron of the Senath Branch Library. A love of a good story was born within him, and shortly before graduating high school, for a lack of stories that he liked at the library, he began to write short vignettes, and started taking notes for stories that he wanted to tell. Well, a full life interceded, and the writing didn't resume for several years. But while working a job with a much free time, and the then newfangled home computer, Jerry began to write in earnest. With the occasional gap in the process, Jerry continued to research and write, never believing he could ever be published. But when he turned 50, he wanted a change in his life, left the job he was doing and began focusing on his writing. When he became ill, the writing stopped, but not the inspiration. When he started writing again, in 2004, after getting the medical problems under control, he began to read some on-line stories dealing with emergency preparedness, one of his other loves. The die was cast. Now with over a hundred of the vignettes and short stories about how to survive disasters written, along with his other novels, Jerry decided to go for broke, adding one of his previous works every few days to his list of stories now available, Jerry continues to write, both the Prep/PAW stories, as well as action adventure with a little romance type stories that first got him started.