PREPAREDNESS-Where do you draw the line?

[crashdive123]

I'm afraid not. It's like looking for a polar bear in the Mojave desert.

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[BENESSE]

Now that I see it, it would be even harder than that.

[Scaru]

I agree with winnie and rick when shtf happens i plain on surviving but i do not plan on surviving teotwawki

[SARKY]

What is the end of the world as you know it??? Almost half the US population lives in the "city states". For them, teotwawki means no more entitlements, lack of runnig water, no cable tv, no garbage pickup, no fast food. It simply isn't the same for everyone. Is it the actual end of the world?????? I don't know!

[BENESSE]

As far as I'm concerned, TEOTWAWKI would be a scenario from the books "Patriots" or "The Road". Or any number of Hollywood movies that always seem to take place in NYC and have some dose of reality to them. And no, I'm not preparing for it because I simply can't. Some things are just not worth surviving at any cost.

[Sourdough]

Some things are just not worth surviving at any cost.

Including some marriages...........

[BENESSE]

Sounds like you survived it OK, if a little jaded.

[kyratshooter]

This has been an unusually civil and well thought out exchange.

I feel our level of prepardness for any life hardship diminished to zero during the 1970s. I grew up with mom canning all summer. We kids helped. Often we spent the entire hot summer day (No AC) shelling peas, breaking beans, shucking corn. I do not mean a pan full, I am talking 200 DOZEN ears of corn or the old Buick Roadmaster loaded up like a pickup with lima beans; trunk, backseat and mom hanging out the window to drive.

Autumn started with 300 quarts of tomatoes on the shelves, another 300 quarts of green beans, and about that much more corn, limas, peas. There was half a beef and a whold hog in the freezer. Flour was purchased by the 50lb bag. and bread was a 20 loaf a week trip to the day old store.

We were not survivalists, we lived in the suburbs and my Dad was a pacifist, theology prof. That was just what people that had lived through the Great Depression did as a normal course of life. We had kerosene lamps for when the lights went out. Extra quilts (mom made them too) for when it got cold.

They knew things were not always good and not always fair, and no one was going to pull your fat out of the fire. They were normal.

Now if you have enough food to last more than a week you are abnormal? By what definition?

As far as surviving TEOTWAWKI; some one will survive and they will be the base the world builds on. It can be someone that prepared and had good sense or it can be Forest Gump.

Some things I would not want to live through, but some things I have prepared to live through for my whole life. My experiences in life tell me that those are the thing that are going to happen, they will happen at the worst possible time and I will be there, fully conscious and feeling all the searing pain available. I will live throught it, even though I do not want too. I have spent my whole life miserable, why shoud I miss TEOTWAWKI?

No, I do not intend to be the one that repopulates the earth. I do not cling to life at all costs. I am not genetically superior to anyone and do not wish to set up my own feudal state.

I can hope only to be the teacher of practical and ethical wisdom. The trainer of the stupid in how life was before the Carter administration when we canned food, butchered meat and learned to do math without a calcualtor.

How is young dufus going to figure out how to cut a rafter if he has to have a picture of the hamburger on the cash register key?

[Rick]

Welllllll......most exchanges are pretty civil around here. That's one of the reasons I like it so much. You can yack about anything and still buy each other a beer at the end.

At the same time you were shelling beans I'll bet Johny was at ball practice and Suzy was watching him play. Fast forward to today....There are still kids out there shelling beans and framing lumber. Probably not as many shelling beans because there aren't as many family farms and our food production capability has increase dramatically. We do only what we have to do not matter what generation we're talking about.

By the way, if I help you set up that Feudal state would you be interested then? You could have a fancy title.

[kyratshooter]

Depends on how many peasant women you can bring and what they look like!

I don't need a big title, just address me by my present label, "The Wise Exhaulted One".

[BENESSE]

Depends on how many peasant women you can bring and what they look like!

Do they have to be peasant or just clueless?

[SARKY]

Is that peasant or plesant women???

[Winnie]

Just so long as it's not pheasant

[SARKY]

but pheasant women are tasty!

[BENESSE]

but pheasant women are tasty!

Yeah, especially after you shoot them dead.
With peasants it might be a little harder, and certainly not pleasant.

[SARKY]

Yeah, especially after you shoot them dead.
With peasants it might be a little harder, and certainly not pleasant.

yumm!!! long pig!!! just need some barbeque sauce!

[SARKY]

Miss B,
So you really have no one that you can group up with if tshtf? what about off of Manhattan island? Any friends on Long Island or Jersey or any where within traveling range? I had decided to stay on the east coast, I probably would have inherited my granmothers place in Fort Lee. You would have been welcome there.

[BENESSE]

My social circle is fairly superficial and mostly consists of really good acquaintances and colleagues. Drinks, dinner, brunch, show, that kind of thing. Shared interests and confidences don't run deep, conversations are light.
Broaching the "preparedness" issue beyond the usual--enough batteries and plenty of water, would be akin to asking if they'd accepted JC as their personal lord and savior. You just know you shouldn't, not with this crowd.
The only two really good friends who I'd known from before moving to NYC are of the mind that whatever happens happens they don't want to dwell on the negative. (!!!?) I love them, but if my life depended on them I'd be in worse shape than if I were alone.
So I don't know. I suspect that people who think like I do on this particular issue hang out in circles different from mine and the two will probably never intersect unless tshtf. That's just how NYC is.
Hierarchical and territorial.

[SARKY]

That is just crazy. Having grown up in NYC, most of my elders lived through the depression and WWII. Survival and self sufficiency was always a topic of discussion.

[crashdive123]

B - I don't know if this program is worthwhile, but it might be worth looking into. http://www.empowermentinstitute.net/atn/index.html