Chapter 3 continued: part 2

"Memories of the past hundred years"
June 17, 2059

Proverbs 22:3 "A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it."
Proverbs 21:20 "In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but the foolish man devours all he has."

Where does the time go? You'd think that I had all the time in the world to write down these memories of my life. Indeed, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my days are numbered and I could die tomorrow. I have been blessed with a very long and fruitful life. You'd think that I'd be in a much greater hurry to get my memories down on paper. I find it hard to believe that in about two months, if I should live so long, I'll be celebrating my one hundred and fourth free ride completely around the sun!

Preppers: Short for 'people preparing' commonly referring to those people that saw the dark clouds building on the horizon and made some effort to prepare. They were also called "Doomers" or "Survivalists" by mainstream society before the Great Crash.

Survivalists have been around for many decades before the preppers ever showed up into view by the mainstream media. So it was easy for most people and news sources to just lump them all together. According to the mainstream media before the Great Crash, survivalists tended to have the image of 'Rambo' but with huge beer bellies, wearing military fatigues, armed with military assault rifles, bonded together in macho, men's clubs called 'underground militias', running around the woods playing war games and planning domestic terrorist attacks on helpless 'widows and orphans'. Oh sure, there were a few such individuals and groups but the growth of 'preppers' was far less dramatic and far more widespread.

"BEANS, BULLETS AND BULLION" could have been the motto of the preppers.

With the awareness of 'Peak Oil' inching its way into the conscienceness of a few people in the late 1990s, then the tragic events of 9-11 followed by the even greater chaos of Hurricane Katrina, the break down of law & order with the flooding of New Orleans and then the years of the 'Great Recession of 2008-2009,' common people started to see that life wasn't as stable and secure as they were lead to believe. They witnessed with their own eyes the often slow and inept responses by our government to the trajedies and sufferings around them. They started to wonder what they could do to provide for the safety of their own families in the days after a major storm or a man-made disaster. Individually, they came to their own conclusions that it just might be prudent to store a little extra food in the pantry and maybe own a gun to protect against home invasion by crooks and robbers. As the economic situation started to deteriorate, some people started to buy a few gold coins and pre-1965 silver coins. "Beans, bullets and bullion", was a simple catch phrase for preparing for troubled times by stocking up on a few basic essentials.

The concept of making some basic preparations crossed the entire demographic spectrum for at least a small portion of the public that were starting to feel insecure in this first decade of 2000. Little old ladies who lived thru the last Great Depression as little children, added more canned goods to their already well stocked pantries, upper management personnel in 3 piece suits started to stock their lake homes with added supplies to ride out a few weeks of troubles if something bad ever happened. The term 'bugging out' became popular to preppers. It implied escaping the city in times of trouble and heading to their well stocked 'retreats' to wait out the trouble -- warm, safe and wellfed while the masses fought with each other trying to survive. In addition to stocking up on some extra supplies, a few suburban dwellers tore up small areas of their back yards and put in gardens. Some bought generators and stored cans of gasoline to provide power when the electricity went out. Some added rainwater catchment systems. The lists of preparations were limitless for those that took it seriously.

Just a few of the items that they stocked up on included:
Food and water in long term storable containers
Needed medications and first aid supplies
Health care and personal hygiene supplies
An 'off-grid' heat source such as a wood stove
Warm clothing, bedding and sleeping bags
Guns, ammo, strong doors and windows, perimeter fencing, lights, security systems, possibly a 'safe room' and other home security equipment
A 'bugout' bag for the car and office to help the person reach their home in times of trouble.
Bugout bags already packed and a bugout plan for the family if they would need to leave their city or suburbs quickly in times of trouble.

These lists were endless and were dependent on a person's level of concern, the support of their family and their financial ability to purchase all of this PREPARATION STUFF.

These so called 'preppers' were so far removed from the Rambo type 'survivalist' image that the mainstream media had to invent a new term to marginalize this growing awareness. The term 'Doomers' came into being as an insult to the 'Chicken Littles' described in the media as running around crying that the 'Sky is Falling!!!' Some preppers took over the term 'doomer' as a badge of honor and called the masses 'sheeple' for blindly following their leaders into the dark times like sheep to the slaughter.

Whole new industries grew up around 'preppers!' Long term storable, freeze dried foods became very popular and VERY expensive. Sales of guns and especially ammunition emptied the shelves by late 2008 and 2009. Sales of gold and silver coins to the general public doubled and doubled again. By the end of 2009, governments around the world were unable to mint enough gold coins to keep up with the demand.

The internet became the center for information and networking for preppers and doomers. Sites like 'Life after the Oil Crash' and the 'Survival Blog' had followings of tens and even hundreds of thousands. Alternative news sites openly competed with the mainstream media to get out the truth of what was going on in the world. Many of the old established printed newspapers saw a major decline in subscriptions. But when the Great Crash came, all of this was a case of "too little-too late" to mitigate or prevent the great suffering and loss of life.

Those wise enough to do even a little preparation greatly improved their chances of surviving the Great Crash but when life didn't ever return to back to 'normal', many preppers saw their supplies run out over a period of time and still suffered or died during the 'Terrible Winter' and the following 'Dark Years'

Most 'preppers' had a 'go it alone attitude' and made serious efforts to keep their preparations secret from their neighbors. Some joined together in small groups of like-minded individuals or families to develop 'retreats' hidden away in the woods and kept secret from the community. These 'stand alone' preppers almost always failed during the extreme struggles of the era after the Great Crash. The only successful ones were where they became part of a close-knit community for mutual support and protection.

I'll write about 'Christian Agrarians' if I'm still around and when I can take the time from my teaching the young ones about gardening.

"Man's mind is his basic tool of survival." ---Ayn Rand

"...nuclear warfare is not necessary to cause a breakdown of our society. You take a large city like Los Angeles, New York,, Chicago -- their water supply comes from hundreds of miles away and any interruption of that, or food, or power for any period of time you're going to have riots in the streets.

Our society is so fragile, so dependent on the interworkings of things to provide us with goods and services, that you don't need nuclear warfare to fragment us anymore than the Romans needed it to cause their eventual downfall."
---- Gene Roddenberry