| | | I was in First Grade, age 7, and I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis specifically because we weren't allowed to watch TV - although I noticed the TV was still hot when I got home from school.
My Mom was trying really hard to tell my sister and I that everything was absolutely normal, which it would have been if she wasn't saying that, and my Dad was distraught and called his brother in law who was the CEO of a defense contractor. Everything my Uncle told him made my Dad more upset and he left the phone wiping his eyes.
Less than a month later my Aunt and Uncle and cousins joined us for Thanksgiving.
My Dad asked my Uncle Dick, "Are we were safe in Orinda (northern California) if Russian nuclear weapons hit Alameda and Concord?" Dick tool out his slide rule and after considering the terrain, the distance and other factors matter of factly announced, "It would depend on the weather - You'll be alright on a clear day but the town will be incinerated if it the weather is overcast - "Blast reflection," he noted. "There's no escaping blast reflection."
My Dad was disconsolate. Dick reassured him, "Don't worry, Chuck this isn't the sort of thing you'd want to survive - and this is very unlikely to happen. It's in no one's best interest."
That made sense to me, but my Dad and Mom had to go to their bedroom for 20 minutes.
I liked Uncle Dick. He was always very sensible. I was the cynical child, disdainful of our "duck and cover" trips to the school hallway while the teachers closed the curtains, aluminized silver facing the outdoors "to reflect the blast wave".
"Why are they closing the curtains," I asked, "Our whole school would be burned up in seconds? Those curtains won't work!" Some girls cried as the teacher glared at me, and told me to cover my head with my hands as we sat with our backs to the wall.
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At the beginning of Second Grade on November 22 I had just checked a kickball out of the ball locker. A teacher walked out and canceled recess. — I was not happy.
When we filed back in some "kids in the know" were crying and the teacher told us someone had shot the President In Texas. I raised my hand and asked, "Can we could go back to recess now?"
"No," she said somberly, "School is closing early today and those who walk to school can go home now."
I guess that was almost as good as recess. I walked home to my Mom and my little sister and Mom wanted to know why I was home early. "They closed school early today because of the President:, I said. "Oh that," she replied, "Why would they send you home early for that?" "I dunno," I said. "Well, why don't you take your sister and go play in the backyard?"
Once outside, I could see my Mom turning on the TV. No TV before dinner though. But I heard my Dad turn on the TV again after we went to bed.
Grown-ups sure had a lot of strange things going on before I was 8 and they didn't want us to know much about it. |
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