When Did You Become A Prepper?

I had a discussion with a couple of people that were just getting into prepping. They asked me when I first became a prepper. I normally answer that I started back in the early 1970s.However, I made a trip to a gunshow a county or so away today and while I was driving home I got to thinking about prepping and when I started. What prompted those thoughts was seeing a single canteen setting on a table for sale. It reminded me of the old World War One (dated 1918) surplus canteen that sits on the floor beside me as I type this. It was the canteen that my grandfather always carried in his truck on every trip we ever took. After he died I took the canteen and carried it in my vehicles for a lot of years. I replaced the old worn out canvas cover that it originally had with a “newer” World War Two cover.

I realize now that making sure that canteen was full and in the truck was preparedness. I can still hear my grandfather saying to me, “Have a drink on me.” as he would pass me the canteen while we were driving to any of the camping or fishing spots we traveled to while he was alive.

We traveled Michigan a lot back then. Back in the day there was a spring next to the road on M-66. We always stopped there on our way north and filled the canteen with that spring water, after we had both drank our fill from the spring. (Michigan decided to tear out the spring and let a high school get built there instead.)

Having a canteen of water was a very small thing, but it was an important part of our trip preparations none the less. I now look back on that as the roots of my preparedness beings. I guess the steps I took in the 1970s were just a maturing of the canteen and expanding to making sure I had a lot more bases covered that just water. All an eight year old boy needed back then was a canteen of water and his grandfather.

I even laugh at myself when I think about what I did for preps back in the 1970s. I sure had a long way to go before I could be considered prepared based on what I did then. One big step for me then was to acquire 100 rounds of ammo for each of our rifles and pistols. Today at the gunshow I picked up an additional 40 rounds of .30-30 and 50 rounds of an oddball pistol round, both for a very good price.

Being a prepper is not only storing away ammo and filling a canteen of water. It is gathering skills and knowledge, materials and supplies, building a strong network of friends and family that are like minded, and having faith in God and yourself that you /WILL/ pull through any coming calamity. Hopefully that is why you come here and check us out, so you can help yourself prepare. When you started does not matter as much as the fact that you are now walking the walk. Just keep the faith and keep prepping. It can start with as little as a single canteen.

Wolverine