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Why Food Storage?
Survivors of the Great Depression of the 1930’s learned to
save. They still wind string into balls, save glass jars, and
accumulate plastic containers as well. Canned peaches, pears,
preserves, tomatoes, jams, and jellies as well as sacks of
potatoes and onions, filberts and walnuts for cracking, a
basket or two of apples, and a case of ripening pears fill
their well-stocked pantries in anticipation of tornados,
blizzards, and economic crises. In a mostly rural America
butchering and pickling, plucking and picking were part of
their everyday life. The stores they put away would last well
into the next growing and hunting season and beyond. The mere
two to three day supply of food in most American city
dwellers’ homes today would have been cause for concern in
pre-World War II rural America.
WWII followed the Great Depression. That
meant ration stamps that curtailed gasoline, meat, and sugar
consumption. Planting a Victory Garden was a patriotic duty.
Many Americans still have memories of what it means to do
without.
The second half of the 20th century, marked a time of
unparalleled prosperity despite the Cold War nuclear threat,
the Korean Conflict, Vietnam, the Gas Crunch (that’s when
Americans lined up for gas on odd and even days), and the Gulf
War. The computerized robotic monsters of sci-fi fiction
could be defeated. But we never dreamed how the benign
omission of two digits from computer chips capable of
outperforming
the World Grand Master Chess Champion could cause so much
concern called Y2k. How could such a blessing harbor such a curse? Or could
it also be a blessing in disguise to motivate some wise
preparation for any number of unexpected challenges to the
uninterrupted flow of food to our tables.
MODERN
SURVIVAL CASE #1
Just before WWI, Annie Gregg’s family migrated westward from
Indiana to Washington State, lost their accumulated cash on a
land deal gone sour, and eventually settled on a rented farm
on the Yakima Indian reservation. When her best friend died in
1925, she unhesitatingly took in two motherless children. Two
years later her own husband died. She found herself widowed, with twelve children of her own. Her sons and
daughters still recite the ditty:
Soup,
soup, we all love soup.
Take a bowl and drain it,
Let your whiskers strain it,
Any kind of soup will do.
The
farm crops, the garden, the chickens, the cows, the hogs, and
the steer sustained them.
Fending off the Washington Children's Association
official standing in
her doorway was her challenge of the moment. He was attempting
to serve papers authorizing the institutionalizing of some of
her "orphans." While her younger children may have
appeared a bit ragged as they kicked stones on their way home
from school, they certainly weren’t starved. Poorer children
ate parched corn from their lunchboxes. "The Greggs,"
she contended, "could very well take care of
themselves." During the depression, many hungry people
came by the Gregg farm in search of food. Annie fed them all.
She walked in the same faith by which she had initially
received Christ as her Lord and Savior. She could be generous
to others because she had a God who was generous to her.*
MODERN SURVIVAL CASE #2
When one visits Melana at her dacha
(country house) outside St. Petersburg, Russia, one begins to
appreciate why the Russians are known as a suffering and
surviving people. Her aged mother, Maria, can still describe
conditions in Leningrad (the communist name for St.
Petersburg) during the 900 day Nazi siege. Between December
1941 and April 1942, 3500 people died of starvation every day.
Bread rations were reduced to 4.4 oz per person. No city in
modern history has suffered so much loss of life and
deprivation.
Now a widow with four grown children and several
grandchildren, Melana is a well-educated professional teacher
who receives little monetary reward for her hard work. She is
one of those rare persons in Russia of genuine compassion for
the orphans she teaches. The new rubles issued in 1998, were
devalued within months of their release. Like most Russians,
Melana may trust more in crisp Franklins and Jacksons tucked
into the mattress than in the bank. It is no wonder that the
Russians joke, "A crisis to you Americans is just another
ordinary bad day for Russians."
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