What if SHTF never arrives, though?
I read this when it was first published, in 1981. It is a collection of articles that he wrote in the 1970s in a survival newsletter he published.
This was the first time I encountered the "SHTF" scenarios so beloved of preppers, and the first time I learned about prepping.
Tappen himself died before publication, in 1980. (He had lifelong health problems).
Anyway, the 1980s were great, I was in my 20s, I graduated from college in 1980. I didn't build a compound, I worked at getting started in a career, lived in 5 different cities, and had met and married my wife by the end of the decade.
But, I guess I might have been waiting for SHTF ever since then, almost 40 years. But it's been in the background. The theory that SHTF is coming has been present in the background for my entire productive adult life. I've been aware of it, and while always admitting it is possible, I've never really taken it to heart, like "real" preppers do.
If I'd had stronger belief in Mel Tappen's SHTF scenario I might have spent 40 years in Rouge River Valley waiting for something that's never come. Maybe it would have been a great life too, but I think I'd have missed a lot.
The fact that something hasn't happened, at least not in the last 40 yeaers, doesn't mean it never will. (Yeah, that's that 'normalcy bias' that they talk about.)
Still, there is some balance to be had in life between anticipating and preparing for the worst case scenario and living in the here-and-now where one bases one's expectations on things like: the lights staying on, and the banking system not crashing. That allows you to do things like invest in a 401K and, at least up until today, has resulted in people may age who've assumed normalcy having something to show for it, at age 60. Something that frankly we would not have if we had gone the "silver, bullets and beans" route on a compound in Oregon.
Still, Tappen's wife survived him, and opened a vineyard on their 60 acres, her life sounds good.
There are many ways to live your life. Extreme prepping seems a little to paranoia inducing for me, so while I've kept aware of it, and read (and in fact am fascinated by) SHTF scenarios, in my actual life I pretty much doubt any of those things are really ever going to happen.
And have lived accordingly.