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How to Get out of the Rat Race and Live on $10 a Month
Live on $10 a month
- GenresPersonal Development
656 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1975
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September 15, 2021How do I explain this book? I guess the best way is just to tell the story of how I found it.
I knew a man in Oakland, California, who had a roommate. This roommate had a shelf, and on the shelf he displayed a variety of old books he found somewhere, as decorative books. At one point, we pulled down this book from the shelf and flipped through it, and we were quite amused and the aimless rambling put forth in it. I found the livejournal post I made about it here I always wanted to read it in its entirety, but it was very out of print and used copies were absurdly expensive.
Well a while back I found a copy on eBay for only seven bucks, so I pounced on it.
A lot has changed in the 13 years since I first discovered the book. I've changed too. I'm no longer as taken with the idea of strange look into a silly eccentric man whom we can laugh at through reading his literature. That's a damned lie. I heartily enjoyed turning every page to discover what bizarreness would come out of Herter's mind next.
But I am no longer just interested in making fun of him. He was indeed an eccentric, who had a great fondness for using urine to craft things, and seemed intent upon killing and eating every species of animal he could, but he was also a disciplined man, who was able to write some twenty books on more-or-less the same subject in his time, and sell them at his sporting goods store in Waseca, Minnesota (source text). He was able to photograph, in the days when that meant bulky film cameras, a variety of wildlife for said books. And while some of his advice is extremely suspect, it seems like if one truly wanted to get out of the rat race and live on $10 a month, this book could at least give them an idea of what to aim for. Provided the reader is aware that getting out of the rat race and living on $10 a month means building a log cabin far from civilization and growing crops in their own feces.
If one had all the time in the world, it would be interesting to go through this book and determine how much of the information is now completely outdated. The entire section on how to build one's own house would never fly in today's world of building inspection. Most of the animals Herter explains how to hunt are now threatened, vulnerable, or endangered, and I think a couple of them might be extinct. I don't think using spring loaded animal traps is legal anymore, and no, ground up rhinoceros horn won't make you suddenly fertile, so please don't try it.
When my friends and I were looking through the book almost exactly 13 years ago, we had no idea that Herter had any sort of following. Weird old book fans are a a small coterie, and Herter will never be as famous a writer as Rowling J.K, but he's been written about in the New York Times and he has his own Wikipedia page. His hometown did a special exhibit of him and his works in their local history museum. I'd go so far as to say Herter is exactly as well known as he deserves to be, and there aren't many people I can say that about.
Also, I learned from this book that in the 1870's in Chico, California, people reported fish and boulders falling from the sky. I lived in Chico for five years and somehow I never heard this amazing bit of history.
I knew a man in Oakland, California, who had a roommate. This roommate had a shelf, and on the shelf he displayed a variety of old books he found somewhere, as decorative books. At one point, we pulled down this book from the shelf and flipped through it, and we were quite amused and the aimless rambling put forth in it. I found the livejournal post I made about it here I always wanted to read it in its entirety, but it was very out of print and used copies were absurdly expensive.
Well a while back I found a copy on eBay for only seven bucks, so I pounced on it.
A lot has changed in the 13 years since I first discovered the book. I've changed too. I'm no longer as taken with the idea of strange look into a silly eccentric man whom we can laugh at through reading his literature. That's a damned lie. I heartily enjoyed turning every page to discover what bizarreness would come out of Herter's mind next.
But I am no longer just interested in making fun of him. He was indeed an eccentric, who had a great fondness for using urine to craft things, and seemed intent upon killing and eating every species of animal he could, but he was also a disciplined man, who was able to write some twenty books on more-or-less the same subject in his time, and sell them at his sporting goods store in Waseca, Minnesota (source text). He was able to photograph, in the days when that meant bulky film cameras, a variety of wildlife for said books. And while some of his advice is extremely suspect, it seems like if one truly wanted to get out of the rat race and live on $10 a month, this book could at least give them an idea of what to aim for. Provided the reader is aware that getting out of the rat race and living on $10 a month means building a log cabin far from civilization and growing crops in their own feces.
If one had all the time in the world, it would be interesting to go through this book and determine how much of the information is now completely outdated. The entire section on how to build one's own house would never fly in today's world of building inspection. Most of the animals Herter explains how to hunt are now threatened, vulnerable, or endangered, and I think a couple of them might be extinct. I don't think using spring loaded animal traps is legal anymore, and no, ground up rhinoceros horn won't make you suddenly fertile, so please don't try it.
When my friends and I were looking through the book almost exactly 13 years ago, we had no idea that Herter had any sort of following. Weird old book fans are a a small coterie, and Herter will never be as famous a writer as Rowling J.K, but he's been written about in the New York Times and he has his own Wikipedia page. His hometown did a special exhibit of him and his works in their local history museum. I'd go so far as to say Herter is exactly as well known as he deserves to be, and there aren't many people I can say that about.
Also, I learned from this book that in the 1870's in Chico, California, people reported fish and boulders falling from the sky. I lived in Chico for five years and somehow I never heard this amazing bit of history.
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