Collected Item: “Erin Palette Oral History, 2022/11/23”
Title
Erin Palette
Who conducted the interview? List all names, separated by comma.
Kit Heintzman
Who was interviewed? List all names, separated by commas.
Erin Palette
Email Address(es) for all interviewers. Separated by comma.
kheintzman@gmail.com
Use one-word hashtags (separated by commas) to describe your oral history. For example: Where did it originate? How does this object make you feel? How does this object relate to the pandemic?
#2ndAmendment, #author, #blogging, #cancer, #cynicism, #dementia, #disasters, #dogs, #family, #Florida, #friendship, #games, #guns, #introvert, #masking, #motherhood, #news, #panic, #pets, #prepper, #podcast, #queer, #rights, #rural, #sanitizer, #traffic, #trans, #VA, #veterans, #VietnamWar, #weight
What is the format of your recording?
Audio
In what ZIP code is the primary residence of the interviewee? (enter 5-digit ZIP code; for example, 00544 or 94305)? In what city/town/village does the interviewee live? In what country does the interviewee live? All comma-separated.
Florida
What is the gender of the interviewee? Be sure to allow interviewees to self-identify their gender in the pre-interview or interview. *Do not assign a gender identity to interviewees.*
Female, she/her
What is the age of the interviewee?
45 to 54
How does the interviewee describe their race or ethnicity? Be sure to allow interviewees to self-identify their race/ethnicity in the pre-interview or interview. *Do not assign a racial or ethnic identity to interviewees.*
Caucasian, Texas Irish & Austrian Jew
Describe the oral history.
Some of the things we discussed include:
- Being a prepper/emergency preparedness.
- Prepping skills: foresight and stocking up in advance; the difference between prepping for days and prepping for months; expenses associated with prepping.
- The relationship between prepping and independence.
- The French Toast crisis response; the run on toilet paper and hand sanitizer in early COVID.
- Living with two dogs (Daisy and Precious); doggy go-bags.
- The zombie apocalypse as a disaster reference point.
- First hearing about the pandemic when it was more in its “rumor phase”.
- Being at a conference in early 2020; “con crud”: the norm of getting sick after conventions where hygiene isn’t maintained.
- Speculation about illness in the early days of the pandemic.
- The importance of preparedness in geographies that are prone to disasters: Florida getting hit by hurricanes, fires, and lightning strikes regularly.
- The 1998 drought conditions and massive fires across Florida.
- The pandemic being easier than extended power outages.
- Online gaming and the norm of people getting together virtually.
- Living in a more rural environment; population density’s impact on COVID-19 spread.
- Safety precautions: hand washing, surface cleaning, masking, hand sanitizer.
- Living with elderly parents in their 80s; concern for parents; their loss of routine healthcare access.
- The idea of “medical urgency” during the pandemic: a friend diagnosed with breast cancer was unable to get prompt medical attention.
- The dynamic between overreacting and minimizing.
- Criticisms of lockdown policies; being accused of being selfish, narcissistic, and not caring for the elderly.
- Second amendment rights activism; labels thrown at gun owners: wanna-be-cops/murderers.
- Regulations and requirements for conceal and carry.
- Compassion for anti-gun advocates; finding shared understandings and common ground.
- Living without health insurance.
- Childhood illness and allergies; the impact on the immune system.
- Being generally pro-vaccination; choosing not to get vaccinated against COVID; concerns about long-term consequences of the immune system’s resistance to spike proteins.
- The choice between staying informed and taking care of one’s mental health during a crisis.
- Media: TV shows coming to a full stop.
- Writer’s block and the creative process; social relationships impacting writing.
- Long term health consequences of father’s exposure to Agent Orange; VA healthcare and housing; Parkinson’s, dementia.
- Father catching COVID recently in a veteran’s nursing home.
- Periodizing when the pandemic’s end.
- Growing up on army bases, living in Western Europe during the Fulda Gap.
- Comparisons on the experiences of living through 9/11 and living through the pandemic.
- The Trump election in 2016; panic.
- The threat of civil war in the USA; the potential end of the USA as it has been known
- The war in the Ukraine; Putin’s character; anticipating WWIII.
- Wanting to have learned more science and mathematics younger.
- The normalcy of personal private tragedies/disasters.
Other cultural references: Life, the Universe, and Everything Symposium, The SHOT (Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade) Show Convention in Las Vegas 21-24 January 2020, Men in Black (1997), the fall of the Berlin Wall, “Strangers are just friends you haven’t met yet”, Black Friday, Aesop’s The Grasshopper and the Ant, 9/11, 7/11, D&D, Stranger Things, Discord, Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, Amazon Prime, Walmart, Vietnam War, the Balkan wars of the 1990s, Genghis Khan, Bubonic plague, Iranian hostage crisis, WWI, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, history doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes
See also:
https://bluecollarprepping.blogspot.com
https://www.assortedcalibers.com
https://www.blazingsword.org
https://www.pinkpistols.org
https://lurkingrhythmically.blogspot.com
- Being a prepper/emergency preparedness.
- Prepping skills: foresight and stocking up in advance; the difference between prepping for days and prepping for months; expenses associated with prepping.
- The relationship between prepping and independence.
- The French Toast crisis response; the run on toilet paper and hand sanitizer in early COVID.
- Living with two dogs (Daisy and Precious); doggy go-bags.
- The zombie apocalypse as a disaster reference point.
- First hearing about the pandemic when it was more in its “rumor phase”.
- Being at a conference in early 2020; “con crud”: the norm of getting sick after conventions where hygiene isn’t maintained.
- Speculation about illness in the early days of the pandemic.
- The importance of preparedness in geographies that are prone to disasters: Florida getting hit by hurricanes, fires, and lightning strikes regularly.
- The 1998 drought conditions and massive fires across Florida.
- The pandemic being easier than extended power outages.
- Online gaming and the norm of people getting together virtually.
- Living in a more rural environment; population density’s impact on COVID-19 spread.
- Safety precautions: hand washing, surface cleaning, masking, hand sanitizer.
- Living with elderly parents in their 80s; concern for parents; their loss of routine healthcare access.
- The idea of “medical urgency” during the pandemic: a friend diagnosed with breast cancer was unable to get prompt medical attention.
- The dynamic between overreacting and minimizing.
- Criticisms of lockdown policies; being accused of being selfish, narcissistic, and not caring for the elderly.
- Second amendment rights activism; labels thrown at gun owners: wanna-be-cops/murderers.
- Regulations and requirements for conceal and carry.
- Compassion for anti-gun advocates; finding shared understandings and common ground.
- Living without health insurance.
- Childhood illness and allergies; the impact on the immune system.
- Being generally pro-vaccination; choosing not to get vaccinated against COVID; concerns about long-term consequences of the immune system’s resistance to spike proteins.
- The choice between staying informed and taking care of one’s mental health during a crisis.
- Media: TV shows coming to a full stop.
- Writer’s block and the creative process; social relationships impacting writing.
- Long term health consequences of father’s exposure to Agent Orange; VA healthcare and housing; Parkinson’s, dementia.
- Father catching COVID recently in a veteran’s nursing home.
- Periodizing when the pandemic’s end.
- Growing up on army bases, living in Western Europe during the Fulda Gap.
- Comparisons on the experiences of living through 9/11 and living through the pandemic.
- The Trump election in 2016; panic.
- The threat of civil war in the USA; the potential end of the USA as it has been known
- The war in the Ukraine; Putin’s character; anticipating WWIII.
- Wanting to have learned more science and mathematics younger.
- The normalcy of personal private tragedies/disasters.
Other cultural references: Life, the Universe, and Everything Symposium, The SHOT (Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade) Show Convention in Las Vegas 21-24 January 2020, Men in Black (1997), the fall of the Berlin Wall, “Strangers are just friends you haven’t met yet”, Black Friday, Aesop’s The Grasshopper and the Ant, 9/11, 7/11, D&D, Stranger Things, Discord, Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, Amazon Prime, Walmart, Vietnam War, the Balkan wars of the 1990s, Genghis Khan, Bubonic plague, Iranian hostage crisis, WWI, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, history doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes
See also:
https://bluecollarprepping.blogspot.com
https://www.assortedcalibers.com
https://www.blazingsword.org
https://www.pinkpistols.org
https://lurkingrhythmically.blogspot.com
On what date did you record this oral history?
2022-11-23T20:20