I sometimes wonder, reading posts like this one, just where I was, growing up, in relation to everyone else? I think that you and I are of a similar age (I was born in the early 1950's), and yet I don't ever remember the "ubiquitous" "duck and cover" drills that everyone else seems to. Perhaps the central California coast didn't feel that threatened?Icu4dzs said:
My grandparents were adults, and my parents teenagers during the depression, but I don't remember them talking about it at all. Of course, they were all of a very frugal mindset, so perhaps it wasn't that big a deal? My grandfather owned his home, and, as a writer, was used to the fact that what he had to offer was not what a majority of people wanted to buy, so perhaps it was just 'business as usual' for the family. I don't know, but I didn't grow up with a great concern about the state of the world - perhaps that is a negative for me; I can't say.
For me, I garden, and keep a full pantry, because I am essentially lazy. I prefer not to shop more often than necessary - necessary being every few weeks. We seldom have power outages here, but I would rather not be bothered by them when they happen, so I keep candles, and an extra gas canister for the grill. It happens maybe only once every 2 or 3 years, but occasionally our driveway has enough snow for a couple of days that we would prefer not to navigate it, so I try to make sure that we don't have to. My parents were not farmers, nor did they have vegetables in the garden (though mother was "into" herb cookery long before it was fashionable, and had a thriving herb garden). My mother never canned anything, beyond the occasional batch of jam, and her only preservation technique was the modern freezer, so I am not sure where I got my passion for preserving, veggie gardening, bread baking, "doing" for myself. She cooked from scratch, and sewed, and was very housewifely, but our talents, and interests, are very different - although I also cook from scratch, and sew. I tend to think that I am a throwback to an earlier time. That is fine with me, though other people tend to think that I am a bit odd. DH grew up in a large city, raised by parents also from large cities. They went through WW2 rather directly - being citizens of Germany - so had some interesting tales to tell. As did he - also being a citizen of Germany, and living there the first 27 years of his life. But my interest in gardens and chickens and food preservation is more of an amusing "thing" his wife does, rather than something he fully understands.
So, what am I prepping* for? The winter snow, or the next bout of illness. Why do I prep*? Because I can.
*"Prep", by the way, is not a term I use, nor one I like. It smacks of slang, and one thing my prim, housewifely mother discouraged in her children was the use of slang.
