Everyone needs a network. In ours, we have a veterinarian who was also an Army Ranger medic and a family practice physician who is also a beef and horse rancher. My husband is a metal worker and also a licensed medical massage therapist. I sew, garden, gather, preserve and am a felter. My best friend is a world class baker. We have another gardener, a chiropractor, a mason, a couple of IT people, one with a greenhouse, a knitter, some beer and wine makers, people with access to various supplies, mostly from a lifetime of collecting/hoarding/scrounging. Each of us knows others with farms,commodities,heavy equipment, trades and professions. We have mostly known each other for 35 years. Most of the men and some of the women are hunters. Some are fishermen. None are liberals, although several have liberal children with only urban/office/professional advanced degree skill sets. Most are Christians.
Over the past couple of years, we have been in preparation for worsening times. Our association isn’t anything formalized, we just all know that we can easily barter with each other and we all have respect for each others skills and abilities to find or produce most of what might be needed.
You are correct on the timeline. I know that a lot of my own skills were just picked up back in the 40s and 50s from being around my grandmother, who came to America from the Ukraine in 1916 and who could do almost anything from gardening to butchering to tailoring to knitting and crochet.
Look around. Everyone knows skilled people and everyone has skills others value. we won’t be isolated and we don’t all have to be able to do everything, IMO.