-Duck & Cover, posted on YouTube by maesterjay, May 16th, 2006
In a quest for memoir details and memories, I spent the afternoon driving through Southern childhood neighborhoods with my mother and step-father. When we had finished walking through tall blooming magnolias in Georgia’s historic Magnolia Cemetery, we drove by my grandfather’s ranch home from the 1950’s. I stepped out of the car and stood under ancient pecans to photograph the house and grounds.
That’s when I remembered that my grandfather had built a bomb shelter in his 50’s backyard, smack dab between the house and the pool, a space that would later be relegated to the status of forgotten relic. Every once in a while, we’d open the heavy lid and descend the metal steps to view dusty bunk beds with hospital corners, out of date first-aid kits, and neatly stacked canned goods.
When I saw the comment in I’d Rather Be Fishing (#26), “In case of nuclear attack, your children will not be released from school,” it reminded me of the bomb shelter. Then I flashed to the Duck and Cover video posted on YouTube about a year ago by maesterjay (because that’s the way my mind works).
It’s all summed up nicely in the last comment (#28) on I’d Rather Be Fishing:
“We told our kids, that in case of nuclear attack, they were free to break ALL the rules…It was an example of breeding a culture of fear and we are still doing that with Homeland Security, orange alert, etc, etc.”
Yes, we’re still breeding a culture of fear.
For me, this all fits together with the recent post Wishing You A Peaceful Heart – An Open Letter To Cindy Sheehan. It stands to reason – because everything is connected.
The strangely dynamic site on Cold War Culture, Conelrad, has links to Cold War movies, atomic secrets, and atomic platters. We live in a crazy world. When you add two and two together, we’ve always lived in a crazy world. There is war and there is peace. And in-between stands Bert the Turtle.
Saturday, June 2nd, 2007
Love how your mind works. And watching this “Duck and Cover” video brought back elementary school memories of hiding underneath desks in case the nuclear bombs in Cuba were launched. And we’re still being told to hide underneath those desks, aren’t we?
Yes, the “success” of the present Administration is due primarily to its brilliant mastery of fear. This also accounts for the success of suicide bombers. I just finished reading Frank Rich’s book, The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth, from 9/11 to Katrina, and last night started Al Gore’s new book, The Assault on Reason, the first chapter of which is entitled, “The Politics of Fear”. Gore writes, “Fear is the most powerful enemy of reason.” Didn’t FDR say that we had nothing to fear except fear itself? In between war and peace is fear, don’t you think? And it’s how we respond to fear that pushes us in one direction or the other.
Didn’t someone once say that nothing in life is to be feared; it is only to be understood? Alas, understanding requires patience and humility — two words not in the fear-inducing vocabulary of this Administration.
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QuoinMonkey: I love the way you put this piece together, weaving your childhood memories together with the comments posted on red Ravine. I read it first and then watched the video. It was brilliant that you included the YouTube video with your writing. I had not seen it before. I also like the way you ended it:
We live in a crazy world. When you add two and two together, we’ve always lived in a crazy world. There is war and there is peace. And in-between stands Bert the Turtle.
Powerful little piece. Thanks for writing it.
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Ditto. I love the entire piece, but especially how you end it.
Watching the video, that voice saying, You have to be aware that the flash can come at any time, any where. What a way to live!
Up until when did these kinds of videos and school preparations happen? I don’t recall them in the late 60s-70s.
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Wow! I grew up in Los Alamos in the 50s, and this film gives me goosebumps. I remember that film! Growing up in the Home of The Bomb gave me a myopic world view. I was led to believe that Los Alamos was the first place that would be attacked, and it never occurred to me that other places also worried about this — that kids in schools elsewhere (like, for example Kansas or Alabama) also had duck-and-cover drills and bomb shelters. Actually, I never knew anyone in Los Alamos to build a family shelter, but we all knew where they were in the schools.
I was in grade school when the tests on Eniwetok were taking place. A couple of times we gathered in the gym to listen on to the tests on the radio, much like the space rocket launches. That’s less odd than it seems, because so many of the fathers were out there on Eniwetok.
By the time I was in junior high, I decided I’d rather die in the blast than hole up in a shelter and face the scorched planet afterward! Fortunately I wasn’t paralyzed by fear.
I can’t say I derived a lot of other benefit from belonging to Rainbow Girls for a couple of years, but an awareness of the Promise of the Rainbow pulled me through this nuclear terror. I decided to believe that promise, that “God would never again destroy the earth.” So, what’s to worry about?
That’s my attitude to this day: I can’t control it, so why worry about it?
Thanks for reminding us of Bert. If nothing else, it’s fascinating to see the cultural differences and difference in the way information is presented fifty years later.
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That was a smart and in many ways evolved philosophy to adopt as a young teen, Ritergal: I decided I’d rather die in the blast than hole up in a shelter and face the scorched planet afterward! You were absolutely right, and it actually makes a lot of sense that a young person would arrive at that conclusion.
I just checked out the Conelrad website and the write-up on Bert the Turtle and the phrase Duck & Cover. It’s fascinating.
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Great comments. Yes, Sharonimo, some good points on the making and impetus of fear. Sounds like you are reading some great books on fear culture. I like what you said about how it’s the way we respond to fear that really makes the difference. It’s a natural human emotion – but is sometimes exploited to push us in one direction or the other.
Thanks, breathepeace, for your comments on the piece. I find it fascinating how all the pieces of seeing my grandfather’s bomb shelter as a kid and then reading your “in case of nuclear attack” comment seemed to somehow link together. The beauty of writing process!
Ritergal, fascinating to hear about your experience in Los Alamos. The whole nuclear testing piece is something that I hadn’t even connected yet. It’s interesting what you are saying about the Rainbow Girls. My partner was in the Rainbow Girls and she talks about it like it really gave her a sense of confidence in herself in certain areas of her life.
ybonesy, I think all this went well into the mid-sixties. If you look at the Gene Hackman film on Conelrad, it was in 1964. Fascinating link BTW.
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Ritergal, I was thinking about what you said about not thinking about other parts of the country having drills and about finding shelter at schools. I think it might have been more rare for a family to actually have their own bomb shelter. I think I might ask more about this on my excavating down here in Georgia.
I also wondered (for you and ybonesy), did they do any nuclear testing in New Mexico? It seems like I remember they did but I don’t know the history in great detail. Only general notes on Los Alamos.
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BTW, something I didn’t put in my piece (but you can read at the Duck and Cover link in the piece) is that 7-year-old Mia Farrow was the first Duck and Cover kid (link).
ybonesy’s right – the history is fascinating. It permeated American culture. According to the history link on Conelrad (see Duck and Cover link in the piece) the video was first released to schools on March 6th, 1952.
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I don’t remember any A-bomb drills growing up. I guess we were beyond that by late 60’s early 70’s. Either that, or Silver City Public Schools didn’t emphasis it. I do remember the public fallout shelters scattered here and there around town; USPO, the courthouse, and there were probably a couple of others.
After my dad sold the Rexall Drug in Silver City, he eventually bought the Rexall Drug in Deming. The Deming store had a 1950’s era Emergency Fallout Shelter in the basement. complete, with the yellow and fushia fallout shelter sign outside on the sidewalk, and U.S. Government barrels of water (use as toilet after water is consumed the instructions said) and boxes of crackers.
The boxes and barrels were olive drab and the US government stencil of ED (Emergency Defense). To get people into the shelter quickly there was a concrete slide that ran parallel to the stairs. It had a steep slope and super slippery surface. I could “surf” down it, sliding on my feet while standing. Fun!
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mm, your details are always so delicious. I can’t believe how much you seem to remember. The concrete slide, i don’t remember that at all. You actually surfed down that?
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Well, maybe the bottom 4th. It was pretty slippery. It was a long slide since it was a deep basement. You’d get going pretty fast.
I guess one correction was instead of Emergency Defense, it should be Civil Defense (I think). Anyway, it was that triangle symbol.
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Here are a few from Civil Defense Fallout Shelter Sign (ca. 1960s) (link). Do these look like the ones?
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I am so relieved I never saw this movie in grade school. At that age someone had introduced the concept of hell to me, and I was already battling constant fear that I would burn for eternity while demons poked me with red-hot branding irons. Seeing this flick likely would have put me over the edge. I did, however, enjoy watching the movie now–especially wondering how they got the people to throw themselves so violently against walls and off tractors. There must have been a lot of black-and-blue Duck and Cover actors. Oh, and the picnic scene is priceless, too. That mom could get a blanket over her family like nobody’s business.
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I was wondering the exact same thing (about flinging oneself off the tractor)! I thought, he’s not going to duck and cover while riding a tractor, is he? And then when he did, I was sure the blades were going to keep moving and chop him up!
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I don’t think I saw an answer to your question about atomic testing in NM. White Sands, NM (Trinity Site) was the site for the first test. Don’t have all the details on that, but since then many more tests all over NM.
I was just coming back from a quick trip to Trader Joe’s with a friend, and she started telling me – completely out of the blue – about how traumatized she was by the fear of a nuclear attack. How in first grade they had to do those drills (and here she demonstrated putting her arms over her head), and I said in that sing-songy voice, duck and cover, and I added, cover the back of your neck. She looked at me and said perplexed, Yessss, how did you know? She grew up in southern NM, very close to the atomic test site.
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ybonesy, that’s strange how your friend started talking about the testing right out of the blue on the heels of this post. It’s hard to imagine living right near a testing area. But I bet back then, no one really knew the truth about how it was going to impact the people and the land.
Sinclair, I had to chuckle at your black and blue Duck and Cover actors (even though I’m sure it wasn’t funny at the time). It’s what ybonesy seemed to notice, too, the tractor scenes. Wouldn’t it be interesting to talk to the child actors who were in the film?
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Another thing I noticed in the movie were the references made to adults, and how children could turn to them for help. “Ask grownups, they are always ready to help you,” or something like that. I remember hearing that as a child, and taking comfort in thinking that all these people surrounded me who would help if I became lost, afraid, or confused.
Now (it seems) we have to always be on the lookout to warn children about adults, of course with good reason. But watching the movie, I missed that safety net we used to be able to offer children. Those that abused the privilege took away that community comfort most adults gave.
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Sinclair, that’s a good point I never would have thought of – how adults have become another aspect of what children fear in the world. I remember that one scene in the movie where a guy in a suit and tie is pointing the way to the shelter for a young child. It’s sad that we have lost that.
Not that there weren’t still adults to be feared in the 50’s. I don’t know what it is about today. Are there actually more warped adults? Or did we just not know about them back then?
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Again, I had that same reaction when I noticed the man helping the teenaged girl to a shelter. I thought, that just wouldn’t fly in today’s world.
I don’t know the answer to the question about whether there are more warped adults, proportionately speaking, than there were in the 50’s or whether we just know more now. But I have to say that as a mother I’d rather be cautious and even wary than not.
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I came back to post a comment after visiting on the phone with my aunt (who lived in the house in the Duck and Cover post). I had not spoken to her in many years. And as part of my research on memoir, I called her when I was in Georgia a few weeks ago. It was a delightful conversation.
One of the things I asked her was if she remembered the bomb shelter. She said she remembered it clearly and that her father (my grandfather) had built it during the Cuban Missile Crisis. She said they did practice drills going down there when she was a kid. And that was when she found out she was claustrophobic.
I had not thought of that angle. But can you imagine being in that tight a space with your whole family for hours on end?
We compared memories for around an hour before she had to go. I hope to revisit with her when I return to the South. (I’ve already figured out that I’m going to need to go back for a second round of research.) She ended up with many of the family photos of my grandfather’s. I’m hoping for some 8mm movies, too.
That’s my update on Duck and Cover. Details I didn’t want to forget.
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Oh good, I’m glad there will be a Southern Tour, Part 2. If you need a research assistant, can I apply for the job? I mainly want to try sweet tea, Amelia’s grits, and hush puppies, but I’ll work hard, too. I’m quite good at carrying bags full of film and recording devices, and I’ve got a mind like a steel trap.
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Yes, Southern Tour, Part 2. I am already planning it. 8) But first, I need to catalogue everything I gathered from this last trip.
A research assistant? Now there’s something I had not thought of. Grits and hushpuppies, no problem. But I think I’ll teach you how to make the Sweet Tea yourself, so we can carry it with us everywhere we go. I sure do miss it, now that I am home.
The mind like a steel trap. Now that’s something valuable for a writer. It’s so hard for me to remember details these days. When can you leave?
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I’m already packing.
You can do the interviewing and questioning, I can be the scribe feverishly writing down everything that is said. I’ve got it all planned. I’ll be the one with oily fingers from the Southern fried chicken and sweet tea dribbled all over my shirt.
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LOL 8) You are going to LOVE that salty/sweet taste of Southern fried chicken and Sweet Tea. Don’t forget the barbecue hash on rice.
And wouldn’t it be cool if we could somehow get to tour the bomb shelter in my grandfather’s old backyard again? I also want to see the pool. Memories there. It might be a long shot. But keep your bags at the ready.
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OK, backing up to Sinclair’s last comment (#23), I had a flash of Truman Capote and Harper Lee, one doing all the interviewing, the other the scribing. But, I’m sure you wouldn’t want to go there :).
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Good point, ybonesy. QuoinMonkey & I will have to draw up a contract so I just don’t become another long-suffering scribe. There will be a limit to how satisfied fried chicken and sweet tea can keep me when QM is becoming famous for her memoir, doing a book circuit tour, and opening multiple accounts in Swiss banks.
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Sinclair, I’m flattered, but at the rate I’m going, I’m sure you’ll have the book tour and multiple bank accounts long before I do! We’ll work something out. Aren’t you working toward writing a book, too? We’ll have to trade off.
Or maybe ybonesy will want to join us in the South, too. And lighten the load. 8) ybonesy, do you like Sweet Tea and Southern fried chicken?
The thing about Harper Lee that’s so amazing is that, in spite of all that scribing for someone else, she wrote one of the most read books in this country.
I think I mentioned that I was discussing To Kill a Mockingbird with my nephew a few weeks ago when we got together at my mom’s for dinner in Pennsylvania. He had just read it his senior year and I told him some of the things I learned about Capote and Lee.
There I was with my 18-year-old nephew discussing one of the same books we had debated in Taos last year. It brings up the point of how books can be connectors – common ground.
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Yes, Harper Lee is a scribe that certainly has had the last laugh. Although, something tells me she is far too classy to care about things like last laughs. I recently was perusing the library catalogue and looked up To Kill a Mockingbird. I was delighted to see all copies were checked out and there was even a waiting list.
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Sinclair, I love that you peruse library catalogues. I did that, too, when I worked at the library while going to art school. At that time, they still had the card catalogues with signatures, names, and dates of all the people who had checked out the book. I could sit for hours and look through those.
It’s different on the computer these days. But I do think it makes books and films more accessible for quick checkout in this crazy, fast world.
Sigh…lamenting the death of the library card catalogue. Have you seen any in your travels to small towns?
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Nope, not one. I have enjoyed keeping mental track of the different policies to use internets in small towns. Some make you read (they make you, you can’t just sign your name) the library policy on forbidden sites, some make you pay $1 if you don’t have a library card in their system, and others let you stay on the computers with no fee and no time limit.
I loved those cards in the books, too. It was exciting for me to know who had read the book before me, or if the book hadn’t been checked out in years.
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[…] -related to posts: Excavating Memories, Cassie’s Porch – Then & Now, (Geo) Labyrinth Finder, Duck & Cover […]
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I checked out a PBS documentary from the library called, “Tupperware.” There was a scene of Duck and Cover in it, and it reminded me of this post.
Though the title “Tupperware” doesn’t sound promising, it was an excellent DVD, and a wonderful history lesson on women in the workplace. The story is told of Earl Tupper, an inventor who created the line of bowls, and Brownie Wise, the woman who got the entire company off the ground. During the 50s, women who had worked during World War II were expected to dutifully go back to the kitchen. Tupperware was a major way women got to continue earning their own money.
I grew up in the 60s and 70s when my Mom attended Tupperware parties all the time. I had no idea what it had meant to thousands of women. It made me want to go to a Tupperware party.
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Teri, oh my gosh, I had not looked at this post in quite sometime. How great to make the connection. My mother sold Tupperware, too. In fact, she had a lot of small businesses like that over the years to help make ends meet. I also think it was a great creative outlet for stay-at-home housewives back then.
I didn’t know the history of Tupperware as it connected to women after WW II having to go back into the home yet still wanting to earn money. No wonder so many women got into that line of selling.
My brother sold Tupperware, too, I think in the late 70’s, maybe early 80’s. I distinctly remember buying a set of bowls from him. 8)
BTW, I still need a lettuce spinner. If I remember right, Tupperware makes a great one where you can actually spin the lettuce then store it in the same container. Or maybe I made that up. Thanks for the great comment. I’ll have to check out the PBS documentary.
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Teri, BTW, do you own any Tupperware? I just thought of something — when I went off to college in the 70’s, Mom gave me a Betty Crocker cookbook (the kind with the pink and white plaid cover), a Survival Cookbook (she must have known how much I didn’t like cooking), and some of her old Tupperware bowls.
Man, that stuff held up a long, long time! I had it forever. After a while, I think I accidentally melted one of the covers. It used to be a more flexible plastic, not as hard as it is today. Just a few more memories about Tupperware. Amazing how an icon like that brings up a lot of things to write about.
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QM,
Yes, I own some Tupperware–I’ve had it for years. I don’t have the lettuce crisper (spinner?) though they talked about it in the movie.
The documentary also explained that many Tupperware dealers in the 50s were women who hadn’t finished high school. In the Tupperware world, they could go to sales training and go through a graduation ceremony. It was a huge emotional milestone for women who not only *were* high school dropouts, but *felt* like high school dropouts.
Sadly, in the end Mr. Tupper fired Brownie Wise, the woman who had made him rich. He sold the company for millions, and she got a severance package of $35,000. She died in obscurity.
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