Growing up in the 50's and 60's was pretty good if you ask me. But it wasn't all "leave it to Beaver" perfect either. This was the height of the Cold War. We all knew how World War II ended with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and now it seemed it was a race to see who could get the most and biggest nuclear bombs. The "Evil, Communist, Godless, Red, Russians" were coming to get us. I remember distinctly this film clip they showed us in school and on the TV over and over. It was black and white film of a nuclear bomb going off. You saw the big mushroom cloud and then you saw a house and trees first blow over to the ground and then just disappear into oblivion.
People wanted to be prepared because any day now the Russians might drop the "BIG ONE". We would have these drop and cover drills. In the suburban Chicago town we lived in various public buildings would have a Civil Defense sign on it. That meant that was where you were supposed to run to if you were away from home and they dropped the "BIG ONE". Every Tuesday at 10:30 they would sound the air raid sirens as a drill. If the sirens went off any other time you were supposed to head to one of these shelters or to the lowest place in your home, like the basement. Like being in the basement of the library was going to save you in a Hiroshima-like blast? If the sirens did not go off and you saw a flash of light you were supposed to drop into a ditch at the side of the road and cover your head. That assumed you weren't looking in the direction of the blast. Kids told me if you saw the blast that your eyeballs would melt and your skin would fall off. Plus, I don't recall ever seeing a ditch in our suburb, only tree lined streets of new construction.
We had drills at school where you ducked under your desk or we all went into the hall laying down against the wall face down. I guessed face down was so your eyeballs wouldn't melt.
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| "dropping and ducking" under the desks at school |
Home preparations did not make much more sense either. My Mom made my Dad fix an old toilet in the basement in case we had to go there. She also had a barrel of sand and potatoes down there. If you are going to make it in the aftermath of a nuclear war I guess potatoes are a necessity? She also took a first aid course at the park district. I read the booklet they gave her and it spoke of radiation poisoning and some of the other awful things that could happen to a person if they even survived the blast. If you had enough money you could build a personal air raid shelter below your house, stocked with everything you needed (potatoes?) to survive the blast and wait out the falling radiation. Years later when the people on the corner sold their house we found out they had built a secret shelter below their basement. My Mom and the neighborhood ladies were just beside themselves, "Can you believe they would save themselves and lock us all out to die of radiation poisoning and starvation?" I remember thinking to myself, oh yeah Mom you were going to share your potatoes?
My grandmother always said you assess a situation and then you should make a plan. So I did. I believed that it was a pretty good possibility the Reds would bomb us. Chicago, being a major city, of course would be a target. If I survived the blast in suburbia I did not think it logical that being in the basement of our apartment building would save my eyeballs or keep my skin from falling off. How long could a family of 6 survive on a barrel of potatoes anyway? What would life be like if you were all alone, your friends and extended family members all dead? Besides the Russians were smart. They could attack us on a Tuesday morning at 10:30 and everyone would think it was just a drill. My plan? When the sirens went off I intended to run into the street and let the blast, just like the film clip they showed us, blow me over and obliterate me on the spot. Easy peasy way to go. When I told my Mom I wasn't going in the basement with her...........she cried.
