When Did You "Wake Up" or "Get It" Regarding Preparedness? (acres, house)
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My four grandparents died off by the late 1990s. None of them ever able to over-come the shock of losing their farms in the 1930s. Becoming homeless migratory farm-workers and climbing their way back up to home-ownership again. Hard work, frugal living and a hatred of bankers and lawyers was kind of like their creed.
My parents were around 6 and 8 years old when bankers forced each of their families to vacate their farms. They each came of age in migratory farm-worker camps. From those beginnings they did very well for themselves during their working careers. With full-time jobs and through share-cropping they eventually managed to own a farm. They did not carry the same level of hatred for bankers and lawyers, but distrust of government and the system remained with them through-out their lives.
They managed to instill a few things into my siblings and I. We grew-up being called 'Okies'.
I'm always fascinated by this story of yours, Sub. Sort of like "The Grapes of Wrath" come to life.
Most folks think of history in a linear fashion; I tend to think of it as a series of cycles. The names and places change, but the human condition asserts its signature. Almost as if one generation cannot fully learn from the last, let alone the one before that. We have a collective amnesia about events of two generations ago.
My parents were born during the Great Depression; my grandparents were married adults when it hit. My brother and I heard the story over and over again, much as I might describe 9/11 to my grandchildren. It seems so recent to those of us who were adults then, but the changes to our government and to our lives since then, are something they've grown up with and they know of nothing else. Very sad.
I'm always fascinated by this story of yours, Sub. Sort of like "The Grapes of Wrath" come to life.
Most folks think of history in a linear fashion; I tend to think of it as a series of cycles. The names and places change, but the human condition asserts its signature. Almost as if one generation cannot fully learn from the last, let alone the one before that. We have a collective amnesia about events of two generations ago.
My parents were born during the Great Depression; my grandparents were married adults when it hit. My brother and I heard the story over and over again, much as I might describe 9/11 to my grandchildren. It seems so recent to those of us who were adults then, but the changes to our government and to our lives since then, are something they've grown up with and they know of nothing else. Very sad.
Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men', 'The Grapes of Wrath' and 'Cannery Row' were all required reading for me in high school. They all told the 'story' of my relatives.
My earliest photo is of me in a clothe diaper, playing in blow-sand, tied to a grape vine, as my siblings were picking grapes. My family used me as a row-marker.
Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men', 'The Grapes of Wrath' and 'Cannery Row' were all required reading for me in high school. They all told the 'story' of my relatives.
My earliest photo is of me in a clothe diaper, playing in blow-sand, tied to a grape vine, as my siblings were picking grapes. My family used me as a row-marker.
Chuckling. My husband used to get put in a hollowed-out stump on the farm while the older ones were working. Tying children for their own safety was common. Now you'd be arrested for abuse!
DH and I have always had a sense of preparedness if for nothing else than bad winter storms. He's first generation American and I'm third.
My families settled on the prairie and had to learn independence. All our elders went through the wars and Depression.
After finishing one career DH had a second one as Emergency Management Director and anything we didn't know already we learned through his work. I got a second degree in a field that required a great deal of study into the nature of human beings and then went to work in a field where I saw and learned things that the average citizen is so removed from that they are nearly oblivious to what's next door or what people are capable of. So we just kind of fell into a heightened sense of awareness.
(Just gotta say I cringe sometimes when I hear people pooh-poohing the need. They have no idea how tentative our concept of well-being can be.)
The grandson of hard laboring immigrants, the son of parents who grew up in the Great Depression, frugality was ingrained in me from the start, but watching the WWII documentaries on TV in the 50s, I'd see the villagers trying to escape the invading armies by leaving town with all their possessions on donkey carts or tied to their own backs.
"How are they going to find food, Ma?" Without looking up from her darning, she answered with the great sagacity of All Mothers, "Oh, they just head for the hills."
"Ah. I should have known...Hey! Wait a second! We live in Chicago! There ain't a hill within 300 miles of here! How would we eat if there's a war here?" I started to learn to garden in earnest right after that and have progressed toward total self sufficiency gradually ever since.
Preparedness for floods and tornadoes is one thing, but the Big One is approaching and will arrive suddenly as soon as the welfare checks stop coming in the mail. It's gunna be Ferguson & Baltimore all over the place. If you can't produce your own food AND defend it (or hide it), you're in trouble.
I never expect to be entirely self-sufficient, but that's not my goal. When the city shut down for days and I was stuck at a friend's apartment below the 14th street cut-off, we ran out to get perishables. It hit me then that weather was not the only thing to worry about when living and working on a series of islands.
So, I keep extra food, water, batteries, etc. on hand to last at least several weeks. Have an EDC.
Hurricane Sandy hit Staten Island hard and reinforced what I was feeling and preparing for.
Thankfully, I heard of Dave Ramsey and changed my financial situation and preparedness before awakening to sustenance preparedness in 2011.
I was raised on Dave Ramsey style financial health before anyone ever heard of him. When I first encountered him on the radio I thought, What a breath of fresh air! A human being in this culture with a realistic approach to managing money. There are generations who have never heard his message.
Another thing that really helped was being raised by people who went through the Depression. My mother told me once that if I ever hear of a bank failing to make some changes. That piece of advice served me well around 2005-6.
When Hurricane Betsy came thru in 1965, I was young and stupid, so it was just exciting. In 1969, Hurricane Camille came thru and it was wake up time. Our family's waterfront vacation home in Bay St. Louis ceased to exist, as did the highway leading to it.
I started prepping then, although it was called 'getting ready for hurricane season'. Never regretted becoming a prepper.
These postings are all great reasons for having a preparedness mindset. Many were exposed to preparedness by their parents or grandparents history. My story is somewhat different. I was born into post-war America, early 1960's, "Wonder Years" suburbia, in the richest per capita county in the country, just outside of the nation's capital of Washington, D.C. My Dad had a secure government job, retired at 55 with a great pension, Mom didn't have to work unless she wanted to, we had an ultra-safe neighborhood, nice neighbors who looked out for us, and I got a first rate public school education.
Fast forward to the early 1980's. That's when I saw, as I went into my adult years, and experienced, the start of a shifting "paradigm". It became harder for young adults of my generation than it was for my parents to secure full-time employment that provided the same benefits and standard of living my parents had. I HAD to work to make ends meet when my children came along. I noticed an increase and rise of crime and drug issues in areas that had once been safe. Without getting into the politics, I started to see the effects of borders that had become open and unguarded. My husband and I both experienced layoffs in the 1990's from jobs we worked hard at and thought were secure, that were financially devastating, as "cost cutting" became the new mantra in manufacturing.
Then, a divorce threw me into the position of full-time working mother struggling to feed and clothe my young children and keep a roof over our heads in a safe area. I never asked for government assistance, because I was raised to be responsible for myself, and I didn't want to live that way. I'm grateful, my children are grown now, and we are all doing OK. But I see how they struggle, even with college educations, to keep up with the costs of everything.
I witness daily the vast portion of our population that doesn't even know what being responsible and accountable for yourself even looks like. I believe that in many ways social services are being used as "pacifiers" to keep the swelling underclasses satiated and quiet. So, we have huge populations that take from the producers without ever producing. This is unsustainable in my mind. Absolutely unsustainable. And it has caused entire communities to rot at the core, I believe we are seeing this in the flare-ups of daily violence, both random and domestic.
And, maybe it's my age, but I see a general degeneration (is that a word?) of our mainstream culture as a whole; in our so-called "entertainment", in our schools, and in our lack of manners and civility to each other. It seems that all assumptions of Class is gone. To me, the prepper and survivalist movements are in many ways a desire to escape from mainstream culture. As soon as I can find a way, I'm hopefully off to seclusion somewhere as well. Right now, I need to be where I have gainful employment, which is the catch-22 for most would-be preppers and homesteaders.
And finally, I look at our laughing-stock of so-called "leaders" and current candidates for the highest office in the land, and I know it's surely not going to get better. Not anytime soon, and probably not before it all goes to heck in a hand basket first.
Wow, I sound like a real Debbie Downer I know! There are times I wish I did not see things this way. I really don't watch the news if I can help it, I'm not into conspiracy theories, but I know what I'm seeing and I have common sense. I do enjoy life and have a deep faith in God. But if you're paying attention at all, you can't help but see the problems, and the continued downward spiral - that's what "waking up" is.
Got some new preppers in my area! Nothing like real life to make converts. My church is handing out lists of supplies to keep on hand for emergencies, as well as suggestions on how to survive disasters. I was amazed to find there were still people around here who do not prep. Ditto for flood insurance.
I am sure all of you know by now what has happened in my area. Places here on the Northshore that never flooded went under, sometimes by several feet. Very few deaths, but lots of shocked residents. The local rivers crested at 10' or more above flood stage.
One of my prepper friends actually got the large cans of food from her food stocks and put them under the feet of her furniture to save them from the flood waters. Another friend said he was planning on cleaning out his book collection. He now has. He was able to elevate his stuff on stacks of books.
Now the cleanup. By the way, FEMA and the rest are nowhere to be found. It would be nice if the government would give these people the same loans they have given other disaster survivors.
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