We're All Preppers Now
Wildfires, Bread, and Duct Tape
I was employed in Manhattan when the terrorist attacks on 9/11 occurred. Thanks to my chronic tardiness, I was not in New York at the time, and watched it unfold on TV. The bus ride into the city was a nightmare for months, as the tip of the island was visible, smoldering like a cigarette in the mouth of someone before a firing squad.
What was up against the wall was the people we were the day before. The country changed, or showed its true colors. Hunter S Thompson and Warren Zevon wrote, “you’re a whole different person when you’re scared.”
But, are you? Revealing yourself isn’t change. It’s always been there.
After the fizzle of the Cold War and the feel-good spirit of the ‘90s, the attack hit Americans hard. I bring this up because after 9/11 and the unsolved anthrax mail attacks, we were told to keep a roll of duct tape in the house to seal the windows against biological warfare. Mockery was made of it at the time.
But I thought about it a lot, when the Canadian wildfires caused such terrible air quality that much of the northern eastern seaboard was told to stay inside for a few days.
It’s nothing that Californians and other westerners haven’t dealt with for years. In fact, some were kind enough recommend building a Corsi-Rosenthal box to filter the air inside our homes, since the smoke gets in, and your furnace filter may not be up to the task.
The smoke is gone, but officials said this was the worst fire in a long time, and “it’s only June.” So I built one, for about $80.
I am about as mechanically inclined as Mr Bean with a head injury, and it took me about ten minutes. If you are concerned about wildfire smoke, it will help you … breathe easier. Sorry. What else could I have said? If you are worried about the next pandemic, you can get MERV 14 / MPR 2500 filters which are on par with HEPA filters used in surgery rooms, but those are more expensive.
For the moment, my Corsi-Rosenthal box sits in the furnace room gathering dust, waiting for the next crisis. Part of me has contemplated packing a “go bag” of essentials if we need to leave the house quickly, but we are in somewhat insulated from natural disasters here. Distant from the Pine Barrens forests, not in a flood zone, and apparently tucked in a magic valley that makes us less susceptible to the hurricane winds, tornadoes, and derechos that sometimes afflict the region. I’ve been tempted to get a generator, but our power has been reliable. When you get comfortable is when you get caught off guard.
One of my many I.T. jobs was in Disaster Recovery, and the best way to recover from a disaster is to not have one, because you were properly planned for an emergency. That also translates to other areas. I keep fire extinguishers in the house and car, and first aid kits with a trauma pack. There’s a reason I recently spent a week learning basic survival skills.
I’m not a prepper, but I like to be prepared.
Being “prepared” can mean lots of things, these days. In the ‘50s, it meant knowing where your local fallout shelter was. That was also true in the ‘70s when I grew up, when I cut my teeth on survival skills. But today we teach kids how to hide from gunmen and to use litter boxes. Republicans might tell you those litter boxes are for children who self-identify as furries, but they are so they can shit in a box when under lockdown during a mass shooting. Both reasons are equally ludicrous but only one is true. Here’s a podcast by middle grade kids telling us about the world we’ve given them:
During the Covid-19 pandemic1 a lot of people started baking their own bread. It became a joke; bread was one of the few things I don’t recall being affected by the supply chain issues, but it was something to do, that made us feel safe and nourished at home. “A Small, Good Thing,” as Raymond Carver might say.2
But apparently, it’s become a source of ridicule by city people who are surrounded by great bakeries. Why make your own bread, loser? It’s not gonna be as good as the trendy place with the line out the door! (My stars, remember cronuts? People waited in like for a croissant with a hole in it.) Tara McMullin of What Works had something to say about these entitled twits denying us the joy of baking:
Beyond violating the credo of Let People Like Things, can you imagine telling anyone to sit back and depend upon the supply chain working without a hitch, after what we witnessed in the past few years? But it goes beyond that. It’s a function of capitalism to make us depend upon others for our needs. The opposite of a Victory Garden is demeaning you for being self-sufficient—or at least practicing it—because the farmer grows better tomatoes. The Do-It-Yourself ethic scares the hell out of hedge fund managers, probably.
I keep waiting for co-ops and communal living to come to the generations who’ve been priced out of the housing market by stagnant wages and student debt. Imagine how apoplectic the pundits would be at actual c-c-communism in their midst.
So yeah, I bought yeast. What of it? I couldn’t buy any for years when everyone else was baking sourdough, and I’ve wanted to try that easy no-knead bread recipe that you bake in a dutch oven.3 Maybe not in the heat of summer, but we’ll get a rainy day, and I’ll have toast with a slice of fresh tomato drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt, and I won’t have to wait in line for it.
That being said, the bakeries around here are sadly lacking. The best bread I’ve had so far has been from Sarcone’s in Philly, trucked in by Brick Grocery, where they make giant sandwiches until they run out. In my thickest Jersey accent: they make a great sangweech!
(Crumb in Haddonfield makes great sandwiches and they bake their own bread, but you can’t buy the bread. I went to a bakery in Collingswood for a sad baguette and overpriced pastry.)
The point is, maybe your bread, or your DIY whatever won’t be as good as storebought, but you’ll know how to make it if the shelves are bare. And heavens forfend, you might enjoy yourself! Without paying someone for the privilege! Make a banker cry and do something yourself… for fun.
Another great piece is how we’ve started training ourselves like dogs and treating ourselves like machines… when we are neither.
Remember, as Scar told you…
Be prepared!
Might as well differentiate, because it is highly unlikely that there will be more in our lifetimes.
If you haven’t read the story, it is a good one. And there’s bread in it.
Meaning the stout round pot. You don’t cook the bread under the bedsheets after you’ve farted.
This is amazing, really. You had me from go with "the tip of the island was visible, smoldering like a cigarette in the mouth of someone before a firing squad. What was up against the wall was the people we were the day before." 😂 + 😱 I gasped at your shout-out to Sarcone's bakery!! When we were first married, we lived just a few blocks from there and were regulars. My husband now bakes his own sourdough bread - really.
Impressed you actually made a Corsi-Rosenthal box; I only got so far as to sending a link to the instructions to myself while obsessively updating my weather app while the AQI was 300+ at the beginning of the month.
The audio of the middle school lockdowns is breathtaking and heartbreaking and infuriating.