off the grid

As I was leaving the camp in the middle of the Arkansas woods, the woman came running out to me with a basket. Inside were two scones she had just baked, some homemade jam and a jar of moonshine her husband had made from "chicken scratch from down at French's Feed Store." Said the woman, "That's an Ozark continental breakfast!"
I still have the jelly jar of moonshine, which tastes basically like hi-test. But I hadn't heard from the woman who gave it to me since her husband, Paul, died. He was a guy who tried to escape from government supervision and live off the grid. It always seemed to me it was harder on his wife than on him—she was the one who had to feed a family on pennies and bake the bread, wash the clothes, stoke the fire, teach the abc's and etc. He went to meetings with like minded wackos and collected junk cars in the yard. And made moonshine.

I recently heard from her:
My traditional, loving early childhood was close to idyllic. I recall that Paul had a long, difficult time convincing me that all I had learned as a child was wrong. He was an interesting individual for sure, and made my life very complicated, but you know I loved him. That's probably a horrible excuse because I know it is what women in many bad situations say.
Eventually, Paul realized that he had been deceived, too, and was looking into how to get himself, and his family back into the system without it causing legal problems.
I remember that at first I felt afraid to go to Social Security, and to try to get legal birth records for my children, and all. Because of my brainwashing, I was afraid I would be in some kind of legal trouble. I had been taught to fear authority. As you know, after Paul died, I took all of our children back into "the system", and have been trying to live a "normal" life.
Sometimes, people I met from those alternate lifestyle days come back. In November, my children and I had a horrible episode with a mentally unstable Gulf War Vet we met in 2003 when he came with a church group to help after Paul died.
The church was one of those non-mainstream ones. The leader had contacted me saying he heard Paul had died, and he had church members who wanted to help. In retrospect, I should have hung up the phone.
Short version, the vet arrived at our home unannounced and uninvited, and terrorized us. We are still living in anxiety. We aren't sure of his whereabouts, or if he
plans to carry out any of his threats.

I wrote back to her and said, among other things:
A lot of bad things happen in little towns when people teach themselves that the government is evil and ministers are always right. Did you read about those poor children in Fouke, Arkansas? Anyway, that's my bandwagon. But I am a godless hippie New Yorker.

She wrote back:
I want you to know that I agree with you.
Government is not evil.
As far as the religious angle to out-of-the-system-people, they get convinced that 'mainstream' minsters lead people astray motivated by love of money. The problem with the out-of-the-system-people is that they don't realize that the religious leaders they follow do the same thing.

She would like me to help her write a book. What do you think?