Thought For The Day
Skipper, I remember Khrushchev and all his panegyrics, including pounding the table with his shoe and promising to bury us. And I remember everything else you mention.
I think we both also remember when liberals came packaged like Adlai Stevenson, as opposed to our current lot of loathsome mediocrities. Whatever the failings of liberals in those days, they were usually at least citizens and patriots first, and anything else second.
With our current stunted crop, however, it usually seems as if treason can ruled out only if sufficient stupidity is present.
Which, of course, it usually is.
Vlad: “NICE flatulencia, Georges. Phew!”
George: “hehehehehe.. Couldn’t hep it, Vlad..
That borscht las’ night..... sheeweee. Gotta get you back to the ranch for some BBQ and beans to pay you back.”Posted by Phoenix
05/09/2005 at 03:29 PM
BobF says, “Fortunately the Brits are with us otherwise the US would be in big trouble?”
It’s more like the Brits are in big trouble without the US. Hell, without the US the Brits would be speaking German today.
Puttie Poot Putin says, “It must be nice being the most powerfull person in the world.”
George W. says, “Well hell, it didn’t take ten years in Afganistan Pottie Poot, just to lose. It’s not that America is that good it’s just that the Soviets were that bad, it was pathetic, you losers.”
Zappa said, “Socialism will never work because people want too much stuff.”
Posted by Z Woof
05/09/2005 at 04:48 PM
As long as we remember Nikita pounding the table with his shoe, I’ll share this memory with you.
Our household, as I was coming up, was very current-event oriented; the memories of World War II were still too fresh, and we heard all too much about the Soviet Union and Red China (as we dared to call it then).
And then, of course, when old Fur Face and his pistoleros came galloping into Havana to give the Cubans the proverbial exchange of whips for scorpions, we heard a lot more.
I was in the second grade when Fur Face took over, and we still had a 48-star flag on the schoolground. Among us schoolkids, the big news of that year was the tragic fire at Our Lady of the Angels School in Chicago on 12/1/58. Two of our own schoolbuildings were firetraps, and we were driven paranoid about the fire risk throughout the remainder of that school year. Very little was ever said about potential war or civil defense within my hearing.
But at home, I heard plenty about Castro’s takeover, and then the 1960 election, and then the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Vietnam was not yet on the radar. When anything was said about Southeast Asia, it was usually said about Korea. Memories of that war, like those of World War II, were still fresh.
But current events of that scale really did not register with me. I was too young, and my horizons were still more or less those I could see from my front yard. In sort of a vague way, I knew there was a world out there, but to me, it meant no more than the fun of long motor drives to visit distant relatives, and all the sights along the way.
Then came the Cuban missile crisis. Dad was plenty shaken up by that. Oak Ridge lay only a hundred miles away, and he was certain that in a nuclear outbreak, it would be at the top of Ivan’s hit list.
So, the spring following, he installed a Class-A underground fallout shelter in the east side yard of our home.
It was equipped and stocked to provide the family with shelter from radiation for six months. It happens that I still have the Geiger counters from it. A number of classes from school came out to our place to tour it while it was being built and after it was finished, for it was the only shelter of its kind, so far as I know, ever to be built in that county.
Of course it fascinated me from the moment the construction crew broke ground, and I was quick enough to get the picture of why Dad was installing it, and what would cause us to need it.
But the meaning of it was still far from me, until one day, when I was helping bring in canned goods for our stock, and I asked what a war would mean for our neighbors, all of whom were our good friends. Specifically, I asked if we could not allow them to shelter with us.
It hurt my folks deeply to have to answer that, because naturally we would want to save our friends.
But there could be only so much room for people in such a shelter, and so much room for food, and no more. It was built for six people, the six of us, and no more.
If war caught some of us too far away to get home in time (three of us were off at college at that time), then we might offer shelter to others, but there could be six of us, and no more.
That was the understanding that shattered my horizons as they had always been, up to that point. It was too easy to imagine what it would be like to be cooped up inside that shelter, hearing the despairing cries from beyond that locked steel shelter door, and hearing the drumming of fists on it, while being unable to respond. It still gives me a chill, all these years later, to imagine it.
From that point on, I could not look at anything as I had looked at it before, anything, or anyone.
Mercifully enough, of course, we never needed the shelter except for a second cellar to store produce, and eventually we hooked our water supply over to its deep well.
But we could have needed it. In 1962-63, it was as close to happening, probably, as it ever got.
I think of it now as I think of Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin conferring, and I wish them only the best in understandings and results. I think you can see why.
Kindest regards to all.
Thank you, Cat. I’ve wanted to get that out where it could do some good for a long time.
Tanny,
What a ‘psychological’ expose you gave of the times with that story. Beautifully written!
I got chills remembering that fire. I was really little and remember my parents having to calm me night after night about it. It changed my life - that fire. I was consumed by the horror and haunted by it.. well, until this day.
Your description of realizing others would be left out was chilling, and I can understand how it would change your life. How is it ‘we’ get to pick who lives and who dies? A bit much for a little kid to grasp.
The world through a happy child’s eyes can change in an instant. Your story captured how that happens, no matter the circumstances, with a shudder of helplessness through my being. So often adults are not even aware of the impact.
Posted by Phoenix
05/09/2005 at 07:23 PM
Thank you, Phoenix. Yes, the world of a child can change in a flash, and so it did for me. The hope is that the child grows, and I certainly hope I did.
About 30 years ago, I put together a short story about a chap who tried to provide for himself and his girlfriend in a fallout shelter (one he had fashioned out of a cave), facing the imminence of nuclear war--which in fact came. The story was their diary of their underground confinement, dictated to a battery-operated tape recorder. The diary explored their soul-searching, and their profession of faith in the future through exchanging vows in the presence of God, and no other.
Unfortunately, I lost that story, but I still remember how I ended it:
“This reel of tape is running out. It is the last reel we have. We pray to see the light of day again.”
Hope you are doing well, m’lady. All the best to you.
Tanny,
In your mind, did you have them “see the light of day again.”
“The hope is, the child grows..” Too much, too soon and growth is askew forever. That’s the sad part.
As for doing well, we have nuclear pollen here, and with bronchitis knocking me off my feet, all I’m hoping for is avoiding the hospital and a ventilator.
But this site cheers me up.
Posted by Phoenix
05/09/2005 at 10:32 PM
OCM, I have a number of such films in my collection, and you are right. The concept of the ultimate threat, hence the question of the ultimate survival, is what is so fascinating about them. “The Last Day” has eluded me, however. I will have to look it up. Thanks for the tip, and I hope you’re soon out of that wretched wheelchair and back to full speed.
Phoenix, I’m sorry to hear that pollen devastates us both, and I hope things get better for you soon. And yes, you are right, a child should not be made to grow up too fast, or he’s entirely apt to swerve in the wrong direction. Thank God my folks were there to keep the guard rails on my road. Lots of kids aren’t so fortunate.
Take care, both.
I appreciate the tip, OCM. If it was a good flick, it’ll be on VHS or DVD somewhere. I’ll keep an eye open for it.
