On Feb 22, 2011, at 12:15 AM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote:
> He was an extraordinarily intelligent, patient, brave, and hard working man. And if he said that the possibility of nuclear annihilation had something to do with the mind cast of the period, I believe him.
Of course it did. I remember the Cuban missile crisis - I was 9 or 10. The local paper in NJ was full of maps showing zones of nuclear destruction, concentric circles radiating out from ground zero in Manhattan. It scared me. Maybe living out in the cornfields one was insulated.
Doug ******************************************
Hey...I was in rural Pennsylvania during the 50s going to grade school. Plenty of cornfields, Jerseys and Holsteins around, not far from the elementary school either. We were trained by our teachers to hide under our desks when the town siren rang, as practice for when the Ruskies might drop the big one. Yep, we knew the drill--pull your knees up to your forehead. I still remember a nightmare from that era, one which had a very large, unexploded A-bomb rolling down the hill, the one just above our playground. I awoke in a panic before it careened, clanking along the blacktop into the outdoor basketball hoop, one of those which had a chain for a net.
It was another time, another consciousness. Nowadays, we hardly ever think of all the nukes in the world. I guess that's 'cause we're all safe. ;p Still, the whole nuke thing did make a major impression on me. Thank Stalin for Khruschev. I think Kennedy was ready to push the button during the Cuban missile crisis. By then, I was in high school. I've heard since that time that Fidel was ready to face Johnny boy down. Niki knew something about total destruction, having been in political command at the battle of Stalingrad.
Mike B)
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