For you Cold War Kids

[KT2000]

Was talking with my neighbor this afternoon. She is from China and I think she is about 50 years old.
She told me that during the Cold War, China was preparing for a nuclear attack from the US. They built underground rooms below the schools for the students in case of attack. The kids even made bricks during recess for the underground rooms. They also had drills so the students would know what to do in case of attack.

I told her that we had drills too. We got under our desks. She thought I was kidding - and had a good laugh when I told her it was true.

:blush:

[bluerum]

1. yup - I remember the fallout shelter craze. Everyones

father was building a fallout shelter in the basement. The early 60's version of the Terra alerts.

[kcass1954]

2. We used sit in the hall, facing the wall, with our heads tucked down.

Everybody knows it's way safer away from the windows.

[Warpy]

7. That made more sense than getting under our desks

which provided no protection from flying glass and falling masonry. I suspect the nuns didn't want to take time away from scaring us with the prospect of hell if we couldn't recite the Baltimore Catechism word for word.

I also remember emergency plans. The funniest one was to dig a trench, roll your car over the top of it, and then climb into the trench under the car. There was no word on what happened when the blast wave blew the car away or caused the tank to rupture and then set the gas alight.

Since then, my only plan should I hear the warning is to take a comfy chair out into the yard and prepare for the show.

It's one thing I don't intend to survive.

[baldguy]

3. We had a bomb shelter in my elementary school.

It was underneath the gym. The gym floor was 2-ft thick reinforced concrete. A couple times each year we all were herded into it to sit for 20-min.

[KT2000]

6. Wow!

They must have wanted you to live or something!

[baldguy]

8. It was built in the mid-50s.

Bomb shelters were The "in" thing.

[treestar]

4. We had those drills

alternating with fire drills.

[w8liftinglady]

5. yes...we would sit in the hall at school...tucked..."Bomb drill"...1966-1967

[EFerrari]

9. We were counting on that layer of protective gum.

lol

[johnaries]

10. I remember the posters that said "if you see a nuclear flash,

bend over, place your head between your legs, then KISS YOUR ASS GOODBYE." This is no joke, though - I rember in the Army guide for Nuclear, Biological and Chemical defense that it said if you saw a nuclear flash to lie down in a ditch.

DUCK AND COVER.

[Name removed]

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[Hannah Bell]

12. good times. remember those days of cowering under my school desk fondly.

wtf does that do to children, i wonder?

[pitohui]

13. wonderful story that captures what it does

"foster you're dead" by philip k dick

that's capitalism and what it does to kids all over

it may be on the internet somewhere this time of century...dick later said in an interview something like this...

"One day I saw a newspaper headline reporting that the President suggested that if Americans had to buy their bomb shelters, rather than being provided with them by the government, they'd take better care of them, an idea which made me furious. Logically, each of us should own a submarine, a jet fighter, and so forth."

years later, many years later, i heard it was wrong to allow "vertical evacuation" during a hurricane because black people/poor people would destroy the skycrapers -- and so people too old to drive and sit in the heat index of 108 were left in new orleans to drown

this is what this type of rightist thinking does, it kills, and the people who think that way don't even lose sleep over it, it's the decent people who are left sleepless

[Hannah Bell]

14. :>) I remember the popular mechanics bomb-shelter plans too....

When this short story was written, it was the height of the cold war. Plans for building bomb shelters were in every popular magazine. But can you keep up with the Joneses, and still be safe? What if those pesky Soviets come up with something new...

****

The next day the news-machines shrilled out the news. The first revelation of the new Soviet bore-pellets.

Bob Foster stood in the middle of the living room, the newstape in his hands, his thin face flushed with fury and despair. "Goddamn it, it's a plot!" His voice rose in baffled frenzy. "We just bought the thing and now look. Look!" He shoved the tape at his wife. "You see? I told you!"

"I've seen it," Ruth said wildly. "I suppose you think the whole world was just waiting for you in mind. They're always improving weapons, Bob. Last week it was those grain-impregnation flakes. This week it's bore-pellets..."

http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1621

[pitohui]

15. "we just bought the thing and now look"

hell i've been there myself :-)

truly a perfect story

it captures a time that, cross our fingers and toes, one day no one will understand this story but when written...christ...it's perfect, isn't it

[Hannah Bell]

16. in its surreal absurdity it actually seems rather modern.

hard to imagine how deadly serious it seemed then. now it's hard to believe we fell for it.

never again!

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