Old Jeff is my adoptive father, a new age, meditating, truck driving redneck, one of the funniest country boys who ever walked this earth. I met him when I was 27. Once, while having lunch together on a paving job, he confided in me that he saw so many atrocities and horrors during the Vietnam war, he believes the trauma he experienced during that time turned him into a compulsive sex addict. I asked him where he was stationed, to which he replied, “I don’t like talking about it. The things I saw were just too terrible.” Well, being the curious sort, I just had to know. “Come on man, tell me where you were stationed!”

At this, he took a deep breath and confessed very reluctantly, “I was stationed in Las Vegas, with the Nevada National Guard.” Dude is a funny guy. You might find him selling watermelons on the side of the road, overalls and a straw hat, telling folks, “These melons grew in the shade of my mama’s bosom. Been growing watermelons for 60 years now.” Never mind the fact he bought them from a produce warehouse in Reno.

It came to pass that I had a 20 year old pick-up truck that Old Jeff had taken a liking to. One day, after numerous attempts to buy said truck, he offered me 40 acres of land for it. Good land it was too. Nice dirt road leading up to it, not all covered in alkali, just a few miles off of the interstate and easy driving distance to both Battle Mountain and Elko. I told him it didn’t seem fair, wouldn’t he be better off with the land? “Aw, hell. I got thousands of acres. Started buying it up at 60$ an acre from the railroad, and just kinda ended up with a whole lot of it.”

So what’s a guy to do with 40 acres of desert? Craigslist, that’s what. While the whole sub-prime mortgage crisis was going on, I was making money off of my own Nevada Land Fraud. Did I mention that you can purchase blank deeds quite easily from many office supply stores? I never went quite that far, I just sold the same piece of land over and over again.

I’d advertise my 40 acres to the public, and state the facts.

40 acres

$30,000.

$300 down

$300 a month.

8% interest, no credit check.

Some Alex Jones type would inevitably scrape up the $300, with dreams of living off the grid, and being self sufficient, tucked away where the NWO will never find him. These types had it all figured out, except for the math.

Pretty soon, I had 80 acres, and 600$ a month hitting my mailbox.

I always used what’s called a standard land contract. Very above board, it’s nothing more than a boiler plate form which you add names and numbers too. They’re sold at office supply stores. If you miss a payment, I take the land back. Simple, right?

Eventually, the white nationalist, patriot, infowarrior type would call and ask when his bomb shelter/torture dungeon would be payed off, to which I would always tell him the truth. Which is never.

About that time they’d stop paying, and I’d sell it again. I’m not a wheeler dealer type, and I only had the stomach to do this sort of thing for a rather short period of time. It’s not that I have a philosophical or moral problem with taking money from stupid people, but rather, I am cursed with a conscience. I am prone to guilty feelings, and not being fond of those feelings, I avoid them for my own selfish reasons. Oh, how I envy the sociopaths of this world....

To atone for past sins, I will now tell the reader who is desirous of living off the grid with legal authority how to do so for (almost) free.

First, find some BLM land, maybe next to a creek, with some trees and a pretty view. Then, you stake a mining claim. Set up your tent or trailer or whatever, and dig a hole with your shovel. Take that dirt to an assay office and have it tested for gold, silver, do a little research. You only have to do that every year or two to stay on the land.

I was never really selling land. I was merely selling them the idea of ownership.