Re-Introduction and Why Prep

Hey there GenXers.  Matt Marshall here checkin in again.  It’s been a while, and I’m returning from a long hiatus this summer with a fresh approach to prepping.  I’ve traveled seemingly non-stop since May. Ive collected new ideas from the world of hiking and travel and overall preparedness.

GenXTalkin on Being Prepared was built with the plan in mind to help those unfamiliar with prepping become more aware; More aware of things that can cause concern, frustration or even fear, whether those things be simply running out of gas, a child tripping over a crack in the sidewalk, or something more … life changing.

We’d really like this channel to be a resource anyone can use to enter into the world of preparedness.  Maybe even those who've been prepping for a while can learn something important along the way. But it should also be considered multi-directional.  Meaning we don’t know everything, and we’d love to hear others’ thoughts and ideas on best ways to prepare and build a community of like minded folks.

But let’s go back to basics for a moment… Why prepare?  For me, the need to prepare primarily comes from a lifetime of dealing with difficult situations and having to think and act my way through them with the least amount of negative effects, whether they be physical, emotional, spiritual or mental.

I’d like to share a few stories from my life when preparedness, or lack thereof, was important in one form or another.  

…

My life started in Southern California.  Sunny Santa Ana, Acapulco street. I remember growing up comfortable for the most part. but what happened to so many other families also happened to us, recession in the seventies. We ended up quite poor, but generally with an intact family. I’ve got two brothers, one sister... I’m the baby!!

My mom stayed home. My dad, after being laid off from his aerospace engineering job, took on a few different roles. One strange one in particular, he became Magic Mike!  A surprisingly popular magician. We regularly attended his shows at shakey's pizza joint. Which probably explains my addiction to that mildly Italian cuisine...

One day in the late seventies (I was right around 8 years old) our parents sat us down and said

"Pack your bags, we’re moving to New Mexico!"

Aztec, New Mexico. At the time, we, like so many others in southern Cali thought, how long will it take to get our passports!!!  Well, eventually we realized that it was just a little town in the four corners area of, yes, the United States. No passports required! 

Aztec’s claim to fame was and still is ufos (just not as popular as Roswell's Area 51)

and a population of 6000 with 6 old soreheads.  There’s actually a sign as you enter town. And yearly elections of those 6 old soreheads.

To move us from California to New Mexico, My dad bought a very old, and very pink, converted school bus. 17 trips back and forth. For those of you familiar with the southwest, and to be more specific, the southwest in the seventies, there were very few places to stop on this 800 mile each way... journey. There was usually one thing you could count on and that’s the Mojave desert being very hot!  Especially in the summer when we were making most of these trips. Many a time did that old bus overheat on the side of the road, so we quickly learned to travel at night. Some of you preppers out there may have heard sometime in your past that one can pee into their radiator to get the car back on the road?  I can neither confirm nor deny it’s possible.

…

Flash forward and I’m nineteen years old and traveling through Europe on the VERY cheap.  My travel partner and I had just arrived in London.  We split up to go on different adventures for the evening, and I came across a very nice, older, Scottish gent.  Now my ancestry is Scottish, so I started talking with him, thinking I could get in touch with my roots.  We had a beer together.    We shared stories about our past...  He drove lories (large trucks) from southern europe... all the way to the north orkney islands.  he even said I could ride with him up into scotland.  meet his family!  We spent hours together...  We started talking about Phantom of the Opera and the fact that his company had box seat tickets to the show the next day...  said the tickets were super cheap... like 11 pounds each, do you want them?  Yes, of course.. 

By this time in my European travels I had already been robbed, so I kept my money in two places (bills in one place, and coins in another).  I started reaching for the bills, and then stopped.  I looked up at him, and thought I saw ... something. something is not right.  And in just that moment of hesitation, he threw up his hands in exasperation, yelled at me that “ YOU DON’T TRUST ME!” and he stormed off!  Being prepared ahead with money in different locations on my body allowed for me, even if the situation became much worse, to respond well and protect myself.

…

And finally I wanted to share a story of someone else that had some problems and I was lucky enough to assist.  My wife and I were out for a day of errands and we pulled into the local department store parking lot.  As we were walking up to the store we began to pass a couple of ladies (one of them being a midshipmen at the US Naval Academy). They were experiencing some issues replacing a flat tire.  It looked like they already had some help with an older gent, and so typically I would just walk on by.  But my wife insisted I try to help.  

At this point, they were just trying to get the tire off, and the lug nuts were very tight.  The main gal who was trying to work on the tire (as well as the guy trying to assist could get enough leverage to break the lug nut.  So, I offered to jump in and help.  The other guy quickly took off, which was weird…  I showed the gal one key piece of information - that sometimes you have to kick or jump on it to break it.  The lug nut did indeed come off, and she thanked me and said “OK great, I think I’m good now”.  

My wife and I continued on into the store and did our shopping.  And as you might NOT expect, these gals were still there…  they couldn’t get the tire off the hub!  They would just sit there pulling and pulling and it wouldn’t budge.  I stepped in again, made sure all the lugs were off… and I said, remember what I told you earlier, sometimes a kick or a jump is needed?  Do you mind if I kick your car?  She said no problem.  So I stepped back and then really leaned into a kick to one side of the tire… Smash!  And of course that was enough to pop it off the hub and we were in business.  This time my wife and I stayed until the replacement donut was on the vehicle and they were all set to go.  Felt good being able to help them, but it struck me that here are a couple of young ladies, one of whom would potentially be a leader in our very own US Navy, and they had no idea how to change a tire. I know, I know, why would we in the age of computers and Kardashians need to learn how to change a tire?  

Well here you go, a perfect example of two everyday people just trying to do a little holiday shopping and their entire day was wrecked because of this relatively minor problem they didn’t know how to resolve.  So they were unable to recover quickly.

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These days… prepping for us is a mix of maintaining food and water and bug out bags for the more likely emergency events, like storms and vehicle breakdowns.  Additionally I’m learning each month about financial preparedness.  Still have a lot to learn, but I'm getting there.  I also consider my health a large part of prepping.  So, combining hiking and camping, as well as other workouts along with my prepping allows me to benefit in so many ways.

There are always reasons why prepping should be important for each of us.  

They could be high impact, low frequency events, like major hurricanes, winter storms or terrorist events…  

Or perhaps a lower impact, higher frequency event like running out of gas, lost or stolen credit card or a leaky sink drain. 

These days we don’t have to go back very far to recall events in our own lives that have had an impact (major or minor impact) to affect our current day thinking.  It’s not hard to guess that the vast majority of us were affected by covid.  Many people lost their jobs, lost a loved one or even worse, lost hope.  Many have become disenfranchised with the American way of life, our economic system, and our government.

Many experts today have suggested a deeper recession is going to take place over the next couple of years.  So, we have the possibility of further hard times ahead.

Would you be prepared? Are you prepared?

Choosing to be more prepared every day is a skill.  One that should be honed.  Focusing on growing just a little everyday will allow us all to be prepared to respond well and recover faster.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments about prepping, so please reach out and share as you can.

Until next time…  this is monk signing off… better be prepared.