During this past winter I was awakened from a deep and pleasant sleep by the sound of an air raid si It was a sound I had not heard in many years, b@ft i instantly evolked vivi@fmtem- ories, memorig§ of if

garten and air /fad d

I began tocoreartes in the fall of 1962@and j along ‘with all thg school drills, like thi Praye Qug ma ord learr®fo our cha mined order out of the room cross the immense ¢ lobby and then the liné our class made snaked paral- lel with all the other classes’ lines down those wide old stairways. Imagine hundreds of elementary school children

in.orderly spaced lines all go- ing down the same two stair- cases and the only -sounds you could hear were the rus- tle of wool and the clomp of leather soles on wooden stairs. We would go right past the yellow and _ black signs that indicated that here was a nuclear fallout shel- ter, down into the very base- ment, where we would sit on the floor with our- backs to the stone wall where we'd all practice curling over to

our heads into our laps’

ter we’d

; > ais the Hele Ps bulbs and@he other kids fo it,

a while we’d

On ghis dage-in History

A special feafure in honor of <2. Day =

reprinted from the Dalhousie Gazette

classrooms, a little more casual this time, relived that his wasn’t the real one and luge in the knowledge that we'd afd warm in eschool. his was be- fore any of a piding A Su goi

fgured out a basement to

save any-

clear at kaG k

AS and stoc gas masks and ¢ They figured tha weeks in the shelt

they could

ife waged be just like it alwag€ was.

thes drills so well is

because for about

BGackiued't es pe da te

10

d-where? This was the Cold War was over, *the

were finally squaring it off. they were going to go missile to missile, warhea warhead.

Gn October 16,

nva- a feeble t-. p now known ast fae of Pigs fiasco. Th were expected to try again, so the asked for and received military assis- tance from Moscow,

ing,

Cuba, Cubans

among other

a cans Sta Sch ar ite up with thr etal b proposals: bomb Cuba, talk to them or blockade the ®- land and force them to dis- mant tions

the missile installa- On October 22, 62, (25 years and 3 weeks ago tc day) President Kennedy. pearing on network TV, nounced the naval bloc ili-

tary went on alert afd ct naval ships : ng

steamed t

else.

rushichyv to Ken shi

asl chev pleaded r. Kennedy the presence the and

uldnit

1e ; iG eaked

icked.Y It ple of excrutiating days, but

Abvic missiles, ten- people

to co

U. re

ea i

*k. The Crisis

nd- he

, el

e tite

“a t sak&6f ai ndfi es andg@his¥p olitt@al ¢ la¥ity. And he was touf

a hero, a hero who had stood up to the bloodthirsty gom- mies and forced them tofha down. Yes,

back Aout)

in fear of what the Amer-

cked down

at

A

0

the two superpowers fe } reach 1 agreemen PL a

€ —

op: would do to prove a point? he ed down in the mterest of peate and sanity.

Unfortunately, e Americans don’t seem to learned 1 n fhe

ich of any- t twenty-five

ofnd. cos) ll think of the Russs@ty tao :

f ®u-

1ink

ort stil t.to de- iy ae belt ran- Pathe two g that ye: that ee Wrnuuclear the Siren went on

when

blink and sounded for at least fifteen minutes, no- body got dressed in practi- cal clothing and went down to the cellar. People I knew, after they awoke, waited a moment wondering if it were

br mot. Then, maybe

ODM baked out the win- of he sparkling stars

me snow and pon- pred the possibilities. And then we decided that if this were it, there was absolutely nothing we could do about it and well, it had been a good igh time and we might as

go with serene hearts.

hen en our loved

g rack to sleep,

an one . ‘ &

wake up to deal with what fallout really is.

eee gt of Cuba. The U.S:

— Kathryn Kerr

“Fait All tts

Just Another Brick In The wall -

——

Sa = Thursday, November 5 198% —————

ee

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