Keep preparation simple

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I read some discussion group postings this morning and felt like crying. If prolonged TEOTWAWKI happens, then it's best to be prepared. I've lived it before almost from the day I was born until my mid-twenties, therefore I know what might happen again. We are not going to buy a generator, since I've lived without power for years and can do it again. I read by candle light for years and can do it again. I've lived without (suggest a convenience) and I ... We are going to keep our prparation simple. Items like generators, etc. are to cumbersome and worrisome.

-- trying to forget but better remember (seenit@ww2.com), October 24, 1998

Answers

TTF

With blushing face I agree with you 100%. If power goes out for more than a short while, having ice cubes for you're 'Jack on the rocks' will be the least of your worries, I thought about the generator route but decided "Screw it, might as well get used to living without it (juice)." If you are going to buy a genset, a Honda will set you back $1500, that will buy a lot of other stuff.

Right on, hehe haha!

-- Uncle Deedah (oncebitten@twiceshy.com), October 24, 1998.


When the pisspot froze under my bed I was lucky to have a thick down blanket to keep me warm. During the day I wore lots of clothes and only my nose and fingers were cold, but I got used to it. Even the permanent drop of snot hanging from my nose didn't bother me after a while. It's amazing how little you need to be able to stay alive. I survived for years on whole grain bread and fruit. My mother scavenged a lot of this fruit from the wholesaler's reject pile. The unsliced bread was so dense that when my aunt threw a half loaf at my dad, she missed, and knocked a sliding door off its track instead. I believe that during WWII it was illegal in Britain to bake bread with bleached flour. To bake white bread is a crime for most of the nutrient are stripped, then it is advertised as enhanced with 12 piddleley, artificial, plastic vitamins. If I had been fed white bread instead, I believe I would have croaked.

-- TTF (seenit@ww2.com), October 24, 1998.

As Private Mellish said to the Nazi who was stabbing him in saving Private Ryan, "Wait, stop,stop, wait, stop......

-- Mark Meyers (su404040@aol.com), October 24, 1998.

In the early sixties, when I was 10 years old, I spent a year on my grandparents' farm in southeastern Kansas.

We drew all our water from a well with a bucket and took our weekly baths in the kitchen in a big galvanized tub. Lots of trips to the well, lots of water to heat on the stove. My grandma got to use the water first, grandad was last. After everyone had bathed you had to bail out the tub until you could drag it to the back door and dump the rest.

Heat in the winter came from a wood-burning cast iron stove in the living room (that was the only room that you could call warm). When I went to bed I could see my breath, and when I got in between those icy cold sheets I would lay in one spot with my arms pressed tight against my body until I could stop shivering. It was coldest when I had to get up in the morning, a real incentive to dress quickly.

We used an outhouse. In the summer it smelled bad and wasps built nests in it. In the winter, it was cold and drafty.

We did have some modern conveniences: electricity in a couple rooms, a telephone, a gas range, a refrigerator, a radio (no TV), and a washing machine on the back porch. And we always had plenty of good food.

I think that if the power goes out for much more than a week in January 2000, conditions like those on the farm --to most people-- will seem like easy living.

-- Max Dixon (Ogden, Utah USA) (Max.Dixon@gte.net), October 24, 1998.


Almost forgot about the bed warmer, thanks for the reminder!

-- Bill (bill@microsoft.com), October 30, 1998.


>Almost forgot about the bed warmer, thanks for the reminder!<

Bill,

Thanks for the reminder. Our climate was clammy. We used to warm our beds by placing a basket under our down blankets. Inside this basket, we put a metal bowl with a glowing piece of coal.

-- TTF (seenit@ww2.com), October 30, 1998.


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