Prepatude.

“No harm in being prepared.” – The Fellowship of the Ring

If a detective solves a murder quickly, is that a brief case?

(most clips/memes from here on out are as-found)

Prepping is a subject that has been near and dear to my heart since I was a kid.

The Wilder family would frequently go on long hikes and snowmobile trips into the backcountry.  Likewise, we’d go hunting and fishing.  Before most of those trips, Ma and Pa would talk to me about the dangers on the trip, what to do if I got lost, and what to avoid.  I’m still at a loss as to why they covered me in honey when we were in bear country and referred to me as “Hansel” but I did pay attention.

Our spot of land on Wilder Mountain was 15 miles to the first town, which was a metropolis of about 800 people during the school year.  It had a grocery store, and a doctor’s office that was open (I believe) two days a week because the doctor went from town to town.  It was a time and place where, when I was bitten by a local dog, the doctor asked me to describe it.

“Meh.  Probably not rabid.  I wouldn’t worry.”

It was a different world back then and Gen X kids, who were pretty free-range.

Got arrested for smuggling books into Washington D.C.  Got off on a technicality, since no one there can read.

The winters on Wilder Mountain were cold at -40°F (-40°C) being a regular low, and with snowfall that could total to over three feet in a single night.  There were no natural gas lines, or even artificial gas lines, and we heated the place exclusively on firewood.  There were times the road was closed, and when the power was out, it was out for hours while the power company scrambled people from nearly 50 miles away to come and fix whatever had broken whereas fire always worked.

Ambulance?  Forget it.  When I was young, the closest ambulance (I believe) at least half an hour away.  The ambulance was whatever car you had and the State Troopers told people to put their emergency flashers on when speeding to the hospital.  Did I say State Troopers?  Nah, there was just one within 45 miles.

There is an official denial that this is a true story.  More info will come out.

And, obviously, no cell phones.  Heck, our first line was a “party” line which was shared among four houses, and all the phones would ring for an incoming call.  You could tell which call was for your house because each house had a distinct ring pattern, sort of like Morse code for Martha.

From a very young age, I knew that my safety wasn’t coming from some distant location.  I was responsible for myself.  Our family was responsible for our family.

As the slogan goes:  no one was coming to save us, and we knew it.  We also lived it, having provisions of food for more than a month at any given time, a freezer full of meat, and enough firewood to last two winters.  When the power went out, we had candles, and Ma Wilder had the wax to make more.

I was raised with prepping as a mindset.  We lived it.

I could go into more details, but you get the point – nearly everything we did was predicated on the idea that if things went tango uniform, we’d likely have to do all the digging out ourselves, which we did on more than one occasion.

When you don’t feel like physically preparing.

Looking back on it, that was a wonderful way to grow up.  It’s really the opposite of being a victim.  If I had gotten into a situation that I couldn’t have gotten out of while maintaining a 98.6°F (-40°C) body temperature, I knew it was my own fault.

It taught me this lesson:  I’m never a victim.

This is also the story of the founding and conquering of our nation:  people setting off to far lands across a sea, and then finally crossing the continent with everything they owned in a wagon, a little island of humanity that would sink or swim.

I’m a descendent of those that managed to swim, and probably, you are, too.

Well, that’s embarrassing for FEMA.

This, really, is the opposite of city life.

For someone in New York, they depend on other people for almost everything.  Trash.  Food.  Heat.  Water.  Safety.  Security.  Elevators.  Like I said, almost everything.  They exist as a cog in a technological machine that uses them for a specific purpose and then puts them to rest in the off hours so they can complain about how alienated they feel to psychiatrists that charge $400 an hour.

GloboLeft prepping aisle.

To them, prepping probably means avoiding scary people on the sidewalk, but even that isn’t any sort of guarantee of safety.  Nor is a guarantee that the systems that work to punish those who will do Evil is in any way functional.  It looks like those are breaking down at a rapid pace, and that will do nothing but increase the level of violence and corruption already inherent with large numbers of people from divergent cultures living close to one another.

Such a vibrant big-city culture!

For them, prepping isn’t an attitude, prepping is something other people do, because the stores are always open, 24/7.

More than anything, however, preparation is a continual situational review of what you have and what you have to have.  I write this now because I sense we’re in a greater degree of danger than at any time during my life, with the possible exception of 1983 when things almost got extra-spicy with the Soviets, who were nearly finished with updating their weapons from World War I.

Now is really the time to assess where you’re at, what you’re doing, and what you would do without things that are “essential”.

Essential is relative:  2 minutes without air, 2 hours without shelter (depending on conditions), 2 days without water, and 2 weeks without food (though lots of folks including myself are pre-prepped for that contingency).  How many GloboLeftists could last an afternoon, though, without the warm affirmations of their fellow travelers that they’re on the Right Side of History®?

Why wouldn’t they want people reporting on this?  Embarrassed, or wanting to kill opposition voters in a swing state? 

No, prepping isn’t about a day or a time or an event, it’s a way of life, because of the horrible things that have happened to me have been none of the ones I expected, like that time I nearly ran out of beer.  But since I had prepared generally, well, I was prepared.  I have 200’ of rope in my truck.  Why?

I have no idea what specific episode I’ll need it, but experience shows that in the next decade someone will say to me . . . “I have no idea why you had the rope, John, but it sure stopped that runaway nuclear reactor meltdown!”

I mean, most people only stop one nuclear reactor meltdown.  But two?

Know their priority.  It isn’t you.

My prepping background is my parents.  We lived near the wilderness, and lived like it.  One thing that neither Pa nor Ma would accept, at all, was a victim.

Having a proper prepping attitude, or prepatude is all about that – setting yourself up so that being a victim isn’t in your future.   Then?

Lists.

Author: John

Nobel-Prize Winning, MacArthur Genius Grant Near Recipient writing to you regularly about Fitness, Wealth, and Wisdom - How to be happy and how to be healthy. Oh, and rich.

64 thoughts on “Prepatude.”

  2. And how long before all the private videos and pix of the devastation are deemed MISINFORMATION since they aren’t produced/released by THE official outlet….?

    1. Oh, that happens all the time. On this one, as soon as a political consensus forms, there will be censorship.

  3. Just a fact-check. The guy who told the helicopter pilot to stop rescuing people was a local fire-department official, that nothing to do with FEMA. Other officials on the scene said (in essence) “We can’t suggest that you go back to rescuing, but if you do, we’ll make sure that guy doesn’t bother you when you return.” But, he stood down. A day later, the coordination was straightened out, and he was back in action. The man who was abandoned, on the hill where his house used to be, was able to hike out to a ground-based rescue team.

    Lathechuck

  4. The man from Pageland, SC received clearance from all authorities, including a flyover of Charlotte-Douglas Airport to get to Banner Elk. That town is in a valley with the Elk River running right through it. The exclusive country clubs in the nearby valleys are covered in mud. Lived 30 minutes east of BE from 1988-2022. Suffered through 31″ snow in March 1993 & 10″ of rain in a day. But nothing like this.

    BTW, a friend owns the only petroleum bulk plant in Spruce Pine. He supplies all the quartz & mica mines in the area with diesel & gasoline. He received 4′ of mud in it, courtesy of the Toe River.

    Watched my old fraternity’s Little Sister Marsha Wedgeworth Blackburn on Michelle Tafoya’s podcast yesterday. She noted that it took FEMA a week to deploy to East TN.

    This is absolutely the most racist (and deliberate) incident that rates right up there with Gaza for genocide.

  6. I know people that love the city. There’s so much to do, places to shop, water is always readily available, stores are filled with food, trash is taken away at least once a week, flushing the toilet removes what can cause an epidemic, and well -it streets offer transportation to just about anywhere. It’s wonderful, until it’s not. Everything required to survive is not available after a disaster, and few have any backups for survival. Even those that do are easy targets for the criminals. How long does it take? According to my brother who was in Houston after hurricane Rita, the chaos begins almost immediately. I was in a rural area, and it was an eerie experience. It took a few days for people to start returning – if they could- and those that did were on their own.

  7. https://www.fema.gov/disaster/current/hurricane-helene/rumor-response

    “Rumor: Funding for FEMA disaster response was diverted to support international efforts or border related issues.

    Fact:
    This is false. No money is being diverted from disaster response needs. FEMA’s disaster response efforts and individual assistance is funded through the Disaster Relief Fund (DRF), which is a dedicated fund for disaster efforts. Disaster Relief Fund money has not been diverted to other, non-disaster related efforts.”

    Technically true. FEMA actually distributed over $300 million for migrant support thru Shelter And Services Program (SSP) not DRF. Scroll down to Section B: Federal Award Information to view just which NGOs got that cash:

    https://www.fema.gov/grants/shelter-services-program/ssp-a/fy-24-nofo#b

    Mark Twain for the 21st Century: There’s lies, damn lies, statistics, and official US Government mis/dis/malinformation.

    2. Yeah, it wasn’t stolen or misappropriated. It was transferred in the usual totally appropriate way. FEMA has spent $1.4B on squatamalans since 2022 by their own reporting (I linked elsewhere here.) Was it totally legit? I’m sure all the ‘T’s are crossed and ‘I’s accused of racism.

      2. “To help communities that have had an influx of migrants “, this begs the obvious question, why is money, paid by American taxpayers being given to ( illegal) migrants, who paid no taxes, instead of Americans in distress? Someone certainly is NOT paying “ Their Fair Share “…..

  8. Three days into the longshoreman’s strike, Costco was wiped out (heh) of toilet paper by the usual suspects – skittish, frightened, ill-informed sheep. Of all damned things, toilet paper is one of the LEAST necessary items to prep, so long as you own a bucket, a rag and have a source of (not necessarily potable) clean-ish water. But covid has conditioned the masses to run to the Dollar General specifically for TP as soon as there is a hint in the news of an impending crisis.

    Canned tuna and dry beans, people. Carboys of fresh, clean water, if there is no nearby natural source. More ammo than you think you will ever need, and at least one shotgun per able-bodied adult in the household. Pharmaceutical grade DMSO for just about any and every medical condition you can think of. If your prep storage area is limited, skip the TP and opt for a bucket and sponge. Bleach for the obvious disinfecting afterward.

    Expect an extended visit from your citified kin, too, and plan accordingly.

    1. It also helps to know your supply chains. Toilet paper does not arrive in ships from China (or anywhere else). Almost all of it is domestically sourced. But, if you’re worried about panicking neighbors buying up the toilet paper, you just need to maintain a stockpile.

      Lathechuck

  9. Paternal forebears traveled by wagon, loaded and heavy with supplies, from Virginia to CA during the first wave of the gold rush. Lost some folks along the way including a great-aunt who died from spider bite, out on the cruel and desolate plains.

    Created the ‘town’ of Washington, CA out of nothing, just a flat spot in the track. Mined the Yuba forks for gold and set up a rustic store . . . sold mining etc. supplies, the stuff they’d drug from Virginia. The ‘big city’ then was Nevada City, CA, quite an arduous trek in itself from Washington CA and the freezing, gold-bearing rivers.

    Grandpa Ray relocated from Nevada City to the Bay Area to snatch a gig on a shipyard as a master machinist, building subs and battleships. He was a hard dood, but essentially a good man.

    As I loathe New Amerika, I live in a remote part of a third-world country. Live day-to-day and month-to-month; ‘prepping’ for most folks here is a luxury well beyond their means. Every resource gets used, immediately, or you don’t get to the next day/week. When you are dying, like I am, you find out quick who your real friends are. And aren’t.

    1. Hello Ray. Hope today is a cracker for you and tomorrow and beyond is even better.

      1. Thank you kindly. At the moment, I am eating my favorite crackers (Maria’s Pozuelo) so I will take your comment as a sign. Cheers!

    2. Yes, a group with no slack in the system, so a crisis hits hard and immediately. In the cities, though, the average food in an apartment would last three days.

      1. John,
        LargeMarge here.
        .
        a)
        We owned a restaurant business for ten years.
        The prior owners barely kept any stock, relying on deliveries each week.
        Their staff told us they were constantly apologizing to customers because they ran out of product.
        .
        I grew-up on a farm in the mountains east of Sacramento California.
        My four grandparents lived next door.
        Their basement was loaded with home-canned foods… and home-canned drinking water.
        .
        As soon as we acquired each of our restaurants, I *immediately* increased our inventory by 400% (four times as much).
        .
        b)
        How do I sign in so I am not another anonymous?
        [Autodestruct suggested ‘anomaly’ instead of my intended anon… bless its heart]

        1. a) I wouldn’t have expected anything less.
          b) I have no idea – that’s a WordPress thingy. Sorry!!!

    3. I lived in Commiefornia for 25 years. Most “California Natives” are backstabbing, frauding, lying scoundrels. E.g. Stockton, CA.

      The economy there is critically fragile and unpredictable, with gas prices rising and never falling, pay rates decreased and no employment is long term. Very few honest and ethical employers and businesses. On top of that, political corruption of public officials and the criminal syndicate called the Criminal Justice System.

  10. 1. I commented over on Gab that if the folks in Appelachia said they wanted to go fight for Israel, the roads and bridges would be repaired overnight.

    2. I get that that people trying to bring help are nice, good people. That is not what is needed right now. We need men shooting any governement agent who tries to stop the nice, good people.

    1. I’m always surprised at how supposedly self-sufficient blue collar types will whine helplessly even when the lives of their families are at stake. Maybe that will change if RFK gets to remove fluoride from the water.

    2. CB – Rumor has it that a FEMA A-hole was beat up purty bad several hours ago south of Asheville.

    6. Clayton,
      “Golly gee, we don’t know what happened to those poor government agents… one minute, they were standing by that mudslide, the next minute, they just disappeared!”

  11. “Know their priority. It isn’t you.”

    Exactly. I’ve been correcting people for years when they say government is incompetent. It is very competent… at the things it cares about. We aren’t one of those things.

    Good luck out there folks.

    “…after the agency spent more than $1.4 billion since the fall of 2022 to address the migrant crisis.
    …
    “We are expecting another hurricane hitting,” he added. ”

    https://nypost.com/2024/10/03/us-news/feds-say-theres-no-money-left-to-respond-to-hurricanes-after-fema-used-640-9m-this-year-on-migrants/

  12. FEMA “appropriating” donated supplies in order to be the only game in town.

    Hmmm. Did FEMA learn that from Hamas, or did Hamas learn that from FEMA?

    And after East Palestine, OH, the Maui fires, and now Hurricane Helene, are we finally ready to accept the fact the government has become the enemy of the people?

    1. D.C. is the enemy of half the people, making that utterly clear with the J6 political prisoners. During disaster, the feds are ok with abandoning their own base if it means also assaulting us in the bargain.

      ‘We will do whatever we want, let’s see you stop us’. The District Motto.

    2. Hamas?

      Snort!

      It’s the jews, easy enough to see if paying attention – see who’s running the show.

  13. Not only is no one coming to save you but the people tasked with coming to save you wouldn’t mind at all if you would just drop dead.

    1. But only if you do it in an area they can just leave you and don’t have to clean up any mess…

  14. I’ve tried various forms of prepping over the years (ever since I got stranded during 9/11) and have realized that you really do have to make it part of your daily lifestyle for it to be effective. I’ve put together emergency bags and then neglected them only to find out that the batteries in the flashlight were dead, the emergency food was out of date etc. In the early days I had a generator that died one day into a 5 day power outage because I found out the hard way that fuel stabilizers don’t really work as well as they claim. So I’ve tried to build the basic preparedness activities into daily routine so that they are maintained and ready when I need them.

    One of these activities is gardening. I suck at gardening but I keep doing it because I’m learning the skillsets now so I will have them later in a crisis. It also takes time for a garden to grow which is time you may not have in an emergency, so I make a point to at least plant a winter garden of things like turnips, kale, etc to have as a backup food supply if needed. I’ve also been planting various fruit trees in the yard now for the same reason.

    The other item which has helped (although expensive up front cost) is a freeze dryer. I’ve had it for one season but have been able to put away a tremendous amount of food from the garden that would have otherwise gone to waste (including all of the apples and pears from the fruit trees). The great part is that it is really easy to use and doesn’t require any extra work to store something for 25 yrs or just to have fresh vegetables in the winter time. So it too has been easy to integrate into my daily lifestyle.

    1. Work on Building Tribe as well because if you don’t all your stuff will be someone elses that did and has bad intentions… We all have to sleep sometime…

    2. Gardening is very much like so many other skills – you get better with practice. In the specific instance of gardening – you also get to find out what grows well not only in your ‘zone’, but also in your particular garden. You can also experiment to find out what grows well and what doesn’t, and also if perhaps your soil might need particular ‘amendments’ in order to improve it’s productivity. That might mean adjusting the pH, it might mean adding more organic matter, or the like. I’ve found that using crushed dried egg shells as a source of calcium is great for improving the flavor of tomatoes, as well as for warding off ‘end blossom rot’ – where the vegetables literally go bad starting where the flower had been. Also – composting is great for improving organic matter content (which helps soil drain and reduces it’s density for the plants roots can spread easier), AND it has the added benefit of providing MUCH additional nutrients. I haven’t used store bought fertilizers on most of my garden for years now. If you want pointers on composting – check out David the Good’s YT channel. He’s a very laid-back guy that takes a very practical approach to gardening. And he’s deadly serious about it, because a well producing garden may someday made the difference between surviving – and starving to death. He also sells t-shirts that say: ‘Compost Your Enemies’. That right there is almost enough reason to follow him, all by itself. 😉

      1. My garden was under 4 feet of salt water last week. It is mostly dead. I haven’t dug up any yams or sweet potatoes yet as another hurricane is on its way. We are already homeless from the first storm. Praying that we don’t lose our temporary housing with the second as well. Oh well. We will make do with whatever we are given.

    3. The more it’s incorporated into your life, the easier it is to maintain. And the simpler it gets.

    4. 08:34,
      LargeMarge here.
      We operate a small organic teaching farm near the outskirts of Eugene Oregon.
      Prior to us coming aboard, the owners had one massive diesel genset, wrist-size cables laying all over the place.
      With decades as an aircraft mechanic, I could barely keep it running… and running at a reduced output.
      .
      After I petitioned the owners, we acquired one mid-size *PROPANE* genset for each chiller.
      I eliminated the yuge problem of stabilizing liquid fuel in a single vulnerable tank.
      As far as I can tell, propane pretty much lasts forever.
      .
      The propane gensets are quiet, and my maintenance load is a tiny fraction of the single diesel rig.

  15. Common sense, is a lost commodity today unless you are 79 and have lived a lot. The government has not grown up even if it has gone through war and depression. My mom grew up during the great depression. I can grow a few things, make clothes, quilts and moccasins. I was taught to preserve resources for later. My dad was killed building an underground government facility. The government was better in those days and we were treated pretty good. MOM was the strength, and foundation. She taught me to take care of FAMILY and not trust too easily. I am sad to say these days that I don’t trust the GOVERNMENT. I listen to all sides of the story and decide for myself. I have a full pantry, a dehydrator, and a brother with a basement full of food. I have oil lamps, candles.
    a wood stove and I make our wine. I will really miss my microwave in a real emergency. I have taught my son from early on. ….. Everything in moderation, it lasts longer. Blessings on all.

    1. So is Community Brother( lost commodity) and it won’t be back unless we build it back up ..

  16. We were just eating dinner at a Cracker Barrel on I-81 in Virginia. Traffic is crazy due to all of the road closures through NC and 81 has become the bypass for all of the traffic. Waitress mentioned that it has been packed in the restaurant all day, everyday with all of the people coming through and they are struggling to keep up. Crazy times.

    On the positive side, they did have a giant size PEZ dispenser on sale in the gift shop. It’s about a foot tall and was really awesome as it had supersized candies. John, if you don’t have one, you really need one in the spirit of prepping. It will keep your morale high when times are bad, and the dispenser will double as a club for self defense purposes if things get really bad.

  17. John, nothing convinces people about the need to prepare than an emergency lived through (although to be fair, after the fact).

    Your note of the ‘victim” attitude is spot on. Modern thinking seems to have created the attitude that someone else needs to solve my problems, not myself – yes, I know not every problem is solvable by the individual (a jammed PEZ dispenser? Throw me my cell phone…), but the important part is to learn to try. Only by trying does one learn what one can and cannot do.

    I will say that relocating to a city and an apartment does give one a series of new challenges. In a way it is quite focusing: one just assumes that one is truly on one’s own and takes the steps one can. I lay in simple foods because I assume at some point I cannot get out. I have water and the ability to purify it because I assume at some point I will lose it. I have rabbit supplies because…well, because the rabbits can be savages if we go too long without snacks.

    Everyone has the ability to prepare in some form or fashion. It is only when one realizes that ultimately no-one else is responsible for you that changes are made.

  18. Yesterday, during his speech on disaster response, Bribem DENIED that FEMA is out of money, blaming Trump for spawning misinformation. Apparently Bribem didn’t see Mayorkas’ speech last week when he admitted that FEMA was “almost broke” and that they had given ALL of their disaster relief funds away to illegal aliens on Bribem’s orders.

    Nemo

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