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 li