For those of you who are too hip to leave the cities, the malls, and your Democrat friends and infrastructure, adios, we barely knew ye (and will miss ye less):
Posted on 11/12/2008 5:13:33 PM PST by SJackson
(Shawano County)
The only time we saw money in the 1930s was when our neighbor, a bachelor veteran of World War I, gave us a nickel for an ice cream cone. We didn't need money. We lived off the land and we kids had the woods, creek, and railroad tracks to hike along and a swimming pool in the summer.
Our mother was widowed in 1932 and received $30 a month from the county for aid to dependent children. Most men were earning only $1 a day. Many of them worked for Franklin D. Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration - WPA - which we jokingly called "We Poke Along."
There were five of us kids, from 6 weeks old to 6 years. Dad died of pneumonia and we left the farm to live in Ogdensburg.
One year we had capons, and another year we had a pig on our lot and a half. Mother always went deer hunting in November and got her buck. The pork and venison meatballs she canned were to die for. A big garden, three apple trees and currant bushes filled our dirt cellar with winter eating. We kids picked the wild asparagus in spring and those long juicy blackberries in August.
We burned wood for cooking and heating. A reservoir held warm water from the cistern for washing up and shampoos. Of course there was homemade bread from scratch. We all had baths in the same water in a large tub by the kitchen stove. Water from a pump went in a pail with a dipper for drinking. No need to tell us old-timers to save water.
The outhouse was a new one and Mother scrubbed it each wash day with water from the rinse tubs. The shelf held Sears Roebuck catalogs from which the soft yellow pages were long gone. Luxury came during the canning season when those soft peach wraps went to the outhouse.
We girls ironed stacks of hankies, and in those days socks were darned. Our clothes were handed down from one sibling to another. We never went more than 10 miles in our Model A to Grandpa's farm and other relatives. We had free shows outdoors in summer.
Our small town of 200 had everything we needed: two grocery stores, two garages, two taverns, a drug store, a doctor, a hardware store, a mill on the mill pond, a cheese factory, two churches, a post office and a state-graded school that took us through the sophomore year. I graduated from Little Wolf High School in Manawa. We're having our 64th reunion this year.
The old cliche "A dollar saved is a dollar earned" doesn't mean much anymore. Neither does picking up a penny lying on the street, but pennies do still make dollars. My brother used to fill his little bank with pennies he earned doing chores for neighbors. He still has that first penny.
Also in the PNW we have rain ... now that’s fresh!
Mormons, girlfriends, I didn’t make the connection. :>)
You're right. There's a big difference between doing it for recreation and survival.
Look through your cabinets and see what foods are in there now. Make a list of what will keep without being refrigerated. When any of those items comes on sale, buy them by the case or half case, whatever you can afford until you have at least six months foodstuffs stored up.
Alson in my experience, people who ask me about these things, never follow through. They don't contact the instructors I refer them too, they don't buy a weapon for defense, and a year later they'll be back to their liberal mindset.
You have accurately summarized what once was. My WW2 era best friend just passed on-—one of 3 to survive a nazi attack on his 180 man company. And that was probably some of the easiest times of his life. 3 squares a day, more or less—though often consumed in a frozen foxhole. He was the only one of his 11 brothers and sisters to finish high school. And his Dad regularly punished him for attending. He really did walk 5 miles each way-—I saw what was the homestead and the school foundation. And yes at the start of most school years he had worn out, or no footwear—until Christmas.
He was a meticulous man—the tools lined up and polished in his garage such that they could be kitchen utensils.
And he was a wonderful human. Kind, affable, and a story-teller and he loved the sometimes offcolor manly joke. I loved him like a Dad and brother. Life was never easy, and rarely kind, yet he persevered with such dignity and grace. He finished out the race with such nobility. I could never measure up, but cannot forget him ever.
Good idea. Things seemed to get pushed to the back and I don’t see them and buy more ... I guess first thing is to make up a menu then see how to fill it for six months. I wonder if they still make/sell instant eggs(?) I know powdered milk (Milkman is the best!) ....
Back then, you could accost trespassers. Now, you’d be sent to sensitivity training.
Back then, you could hire a hobo to do chores. Now the EEOC would make sure you paid all kinds of taxes and had all kinds of safety regulations.
Stark contrasts, aWolverine, but probably apt.
I’m glad I left the city and live in a small town, near farms. We have a large Amish community; seeing the Amish around makes it clear that one can live on less and do it quite well.
I thought about a small garden last year, but figured that the cost of starting one was more than I would spend for veggies for 2. I might rethink that for next summer. I’ve gone vegan and as my son eats what I cook, our food bills have gone down quite a bit w/o the meat and cheese, not counting all the snack items that I no longer eat. We are hunkering down and looking to our own survival. I’m just glad to be out of the east coast and in the heartland. Your vision of the apocolypse may become reality all too soon.
>>It was reported today on CNBC the biggest selling items in the US this month were home safes and guns. Does that tell you something.
Lots of folks on FR are ahead of the curve on that one.
You’ll do well my friend. Get that garden in, make sure you have sufficient thunder sticks, and know your neighbors. It is far more comfortable to watch the collapse on TV that out of one’s living room window.
My grandparents raised their kids in the city during the Depression. They had an enormous garden, and kept a goat for milk and chickens for meat and eggs. The kids also went gigging, huge burlap bags filled with frogs brought home for a fry-up.
We'll just put up with what we've got so long as we've got love and a couple chicken bones. That's what's important in life, you know.
Just be happy with what life "gives" you. Because, after all, the average "working family" is too powerless and, to tell the truth, too stupid to know better than Nancy Pelosi and President Obama. Why, if you're all good citizens devoting at least two hours a week to community service, we're gonna give you those analog TV converters for free!
That'll create jobs for working families. Jobs, I tells ya'.
Been reading some great stories ....
Thanks - been to some survival sites and a lot of what they sell is spendy - I’m looking for the basics .... complete meals are OK if you’re on the road (MRE’s?) but when you’re just holed up you have the time to prepare something ... I do have a framed backpack with MRE’s and survival stuff, tent, sleepingbag ...all that ready to grab and go if I/we have to.
Your instincts sound right on that.
The Forums used to be full of good general info.
Here are some other links (now that I’m on my other computer, that has them all).
The lesssons I have learned from the Hurricane Katrina disaster and tragedy
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1478195/posts
From FR’s own Jeff Head. Lots of good comments in the thread.
Earthquake & Disaster Preparedness Kits
http://www.equipped.com/earthqk.htm
Some Mormon preparedness information.
http://www.themormonchannel.net/prepare.html
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