![]() ![]() Kennedy became president, relations between the two countries were tense, fueled in the 1960s by the Berlin Walland the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Soviet Union detonated its own in 1949, and soon the term “fallout shelter” inched its way into conversations as the arms race intensified. Then, the country had one enemy it knew now, there are many more.Īfter World War II, the United Stateswas fresh from its nuclear bombings of the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima when it learned that it was not the only country with bombs of annihilation. Now, we are besieged by terrorists of another sort – some are countries, others are cells – that have ready access to not only nuclear weapons but other means of destruction. The Cold War is over and the threat of nuclear destruction by the Soviets went with it. Some of those Fallout Shelter signs are still out there, even if the shelters are no longer in play (well, I assume they’re not). I have seen the black and white newsreels and photosshowing little white girls and boys following the drills. I don’t recall doing any of those drills in my southern elementary school, but I’m assuming that we must have. Back then, she likely didn’t question the futility of the procedure, not knowing that if it happened close by, no one would survive the blast, and if it happened within two miles, the radioactive fallout would kill them then or later. Her two companions looked too young to remember the “duck and cover” drills that the woman recalled as a child – how she and her classmates had ducked under their school desks and covered their heads in event of a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union. Once, they were as commonplace as traffic lights Fallout Shelter signs like this one were ubiquitous in schools and public buildings across the country. A week or ago, I had seen one of those original Fallout Shelter signs with the three inverted triangles at another auction house. I think she was confusing it with the universal sign for fallout shelters. The sign had the same yellow and black colors, but it cautioned against hazardous radioactive materials. ![]() They were standing in front of an auction table cramped with tarnished silverware pieces, but her thoughts were sparked by a bright yellow sign just behind them. “We got under our desks and covered our heads – like that could stop the radiation,” I overheard the woman say to the two other women with her. ![]()
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