Prepping: A Timeless Wisdom for Modern Times

By Kathryn (Fogleman) White

Once upon a time, prepping was NOT an option. It was just something you did.

Great grandma canned enough food - fruit, veggies, eggs, meat, etc. - to last 4 months because if she didn’t, they would starve. Great grandpa killed a pig every Fall and smoked all the meat because if he didn’t, they would starve. Great grandma couldn’t rely on electricity to keep the house and the children warm during the winter. She had to plan and prepare to make sure they didn’t freeze. Great grandpa couldn’t walk to the store to buy a cord of wood. He had to chop it himself and store it before the wood got wet.

My own grandpa once told me about how, as a boy, he had to prepare enough food and water for one day of plowing a field 2 miles from the house. There was no car, no tractor, no cell phones, and no one living nearby who could help him in an emergency. He was on his own, and had to prepare accordingly.

Back in the day, you were a prepper, or you suffered and died. Period. Today, if you are a “prepper” you might be given a tin foil hat. Wear it proudly!

I’ve been teased for something as simple as bringing a spare jug of water in my car on a short road trip in the summer. Heaven forbid if I had shown the person teasing me that I had a bag with a shovel, spare clothes, menstrual pads, bandages, light, and a blanket that I keep in my car at all times!

Anyone with a pair of eyes on world events can see the wisdom in staying prepared. We don’t even have to look at Venezuela and Brazil and other places of chaos and upheaval. We can look in the United States.

This winter, December 2022, a woman froze in her car in Buffalo New York on her commute home from work when she was caught unexpectedly in a blizzard that everyone was under prepared for (Anndel Taylor, NYpost.com). I can’t help but wonder, if she’d had a way to shovel snow away from her car exhaust and a spare blanket with her, if the story might have turned out differently.

I’ve known people who accidentally locked their keys and cellphone in their car and had to walk miles of smoldering summer highway in cute flip flops that blistered their feet before they could get someone to help them.

I myself have been caught off guard by a tornado in my pajama pants on a “short” road trip that then turned into a 24 hour stay at someone’s basement with no spare menstrual pads, a huge blood stain on my rear, and having to hike to my car in sandals through 3 inches of mud. It was a bad day. Needless to say, I learned to be more prepared after that.

Being a prepper is certainly not a foolish thing to do, even if you only live a few blocks away from the grocery store. It doesn’t mean that you need to have a bomb shelter and a year of food stored in a hole somewhere. You don’t have to wear a tin hat and believe in Bigfoot to be a prepper, either.

Having enough food and clean water available to last you a couple of weeks, and alternative ways to keep yourself warm or cool without electricity will have you comfortably sitting at home during a power outage or town-wide emergency (covid lockdown, anyone? Remember that?). Keeping some basic necessities in your car will keep you comfortable during a short lived emergency, like spending the night in a tornado shelter. Making a habit of dressing yourself comfortably, but practically, will also keep blisters off your feet (and your pride) in case something goes sideways and you find yourself dependent on someone else to help you.

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