Conelrad Flashbacks

[Guest Rick Research]

These were brought round to my my house in that horrifying October of 1962 (I guess they printed waaaaay more than they needed in 1956 ) by our very small town Civil Defense director (a midget God bless him-- he did giant's work in very dark days) and hung on the inside of my ma's hallway closet door until a bit after Boris Yeltsin climbed up on that tank.

Thirty years.

I've enlarged it a bit to make it legible. The three little versions on the right were supposed to be cut out and carried in wallets.

Don't know exactly when the WW2 air raid siren (also used for calling out the volunteer firemen in emergencies) was taken off Town Hall roof, but might have been premature, alas.

[Guest Rick Research]

I don't rightly recall any more exactly when Foster Furcolo was "His Excellency" (always makes me think of Walter Slezak in 1930s pirate movies ) but this WAS carried around in Little-And-Then-Big Ricky's wallet, issued at my neighborhood grammar school in a solemn ceremony by teachers who remembered poison gas attacks in the Argonne:

Which I carried beside my draft card for long long decades... until Boris Yeltsin climbed up on that tank. (This, I mean, not my draft card, which continued to threaten me with all sorts of horrible penalties if I was caught without it on my aging person until ??? my 45th birthday/ ??? end of 45th year-- was never sure which, so erred on the side of Non-Federal Incarceration-- 27 years? 28 years? No big difference.... )

Anybody else having flashbacks to the hair-raising sound of sirens in the night, and memories of Duck And Cover under wooden school desks that still had inkpot holes in the lids? Still have my gasmask (air supply expired, thankee very much) and a honkin great glass framed Air Raid Shelter sign.

Basically, the 20th century SUCKED. And so far, the 21st is not much of an improvement, if you ask this old former child.

Just REMEMBERING that "wailing tone" makes my skin crawl. Still. It is far more vividly implanted in my mind than any movie or television sound effect.

[Tom Y]

Living in the Great Midwest we never got those cards. Guess we were expendable As I remember, our instructions were, when we saw the flash, to bend over and kiss our a$$es goodbye.

A friend's family had a fallout shelter, though, which we used for, er, other purposes

[Guest Rick Research]

That's because YOU had all those missile silos hidden in Dairy Queens. WE had "the American Schweinfurt" up the road-- which now belongs to the French. But since our entire industrial base otherwise has been shipped to the PRC like German factories to the Urals in 1946, presumably my quiet corner of the world is no longer--as once it was--on the FIRST strike list. Who needs ball bearings when there's nothing to use them in?

We were supposed to leap into our car and head off with the entire population of the Northeast to... the NORTH. That would have been particularly "interesting" since Lyndon Johnson hadn't got the interstate highways through yet.

Many years later, in talking to a person from more northerly Southern Canada than I, was informed that THEY were told to head SOUTH.

Presumably millions of people (car radios? Who the **** had a CAR radio? We didn't even have a television set until I was 11!!! ) oblivious to their head-on mass movement, would have run into each other in the southern hills of Vermont and New Hampshire, probably in the dark, probably in the winter, on unlit roads that had been laid out in the 18th century for wagons.

Combining "aaaaahhhhhhhwwwwwOOOOOOOOOOOOO-ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" with the middle of the night klaxon from the dam release alarm downstream "errrrrUH-ah-ERRRRRRuh" like something from "War of the Worlds" and life here on The Island was loads of auditory fun, even without having suspicious (is there any other kind?) strangers asking for directions to GloCHester Harbor.

Twitch.

Twitch.

I'm staying put, when it comes to it this time around the Dance Of MADness. Anybody ever read "Motel of the Mysteries?" :rolleyes:

[David S]

We in the midst of the SoCal desert had no basements . . . no missile bases, but

the worlds largest (in area) Marine base . . . that made us a high priority for

Kaboom

We were each given an address of a 'safe house' by the nuns in case

we were caught outside between school and home . . .sorta like Garrison

Keillor's snow child days . . . with less of a chance of seeing home again

The sirens were tested weekly, and still are . . . I was there last week

and sure enough stroke of noon . . .first the warning, then the air raid

The 'duck and cover' drills made a dreadfully boring day a little more interesting

Actually the day JFK was shot we were supposed to have a movie on

the pros and cons of duck and cover . . . come to think of we never

did see that one :rolleyes:

[Guest Rick Research]

Ayuh. I often wonder if I have implanted memories like that Ahnald movie set on Mars, because I can recall only one day of walking in bad weather in all the years that my little feet did.

Day Kennedy was shot was as black in daytime and ominous as a Cecil B. DeMille Biblical epic. Torrential sleety rain. Though we HAD intercoms then a teacher went from room to room, whispering to each other. Then we were told the President had been killed and we were all sent home, immediately. Though the old teachers would often tear up on Memorial Day as we sang "In Flanders Fields" with our little school-made poppies, that was the only time I ever saw them AFRAID. Not even October '62 had shaken them as much.

I remember the stinging cold sleet off my yellow rubber rain suit (little cap with the folding visor, snaps under the chin) and pouring down into my boots (always a pain if the multiple buckles froze--couldn't get them off then) thinking that if the world was going to end, that was the day....

I'm too old for those days all over again.

All things considered, I much prefer cats.

[David S]

I remember that day as a glove wearing, heavy coat time. It gets colder

than one would expect in the desert

The Mother Superior (Croi Naofa was her name, first or last I don't know ) came

in and said the president had been shot, and we would go to mass to pray for him . . . we

knew it was important because she and the other nuns were in tears. JFK was a special

person to these irish-gaelic nuns

So we bundled up and went to church (about 50 yds away) until it was time to

pick us up

I remember watching it on tv

This is where my interest in militaria and such became the obsession / mania / compulsion

that it is today. Seeing DeGaulle and Selassie (sp) standing next to each other made me

wonder. I roughly knew who DeGaulle was and wondered why he wore NO medals, while

Selassie was bemedaled enough for a king, with bullion to match. I was eight and very curious

I can see it as if it were yesterday . . . I remember phone numbers, addresses, . . . and a lot of

other stuff that I have no reason to remember. I was looked to when my parents didn't know

the license plate numbers . . . like a flash !! :speechless1:

Edited August 19, 2008 by David S

[Guest Rick Research]

I didn't have a television until 1968. Still have the little rotating wooden table it came on (so you could swivel the rabbit ears antennae), so no visuals for me.

Still dream in black and white.

[David S]

We got the book The torch has passed which had pics of the funeral

Ours was a 1961 Magnavox with stick legs . . . we only got three channels NBC-CBS-ABC . . . and yes it had rabbit ears !

The progression to color was Xmas of 1968 with an Admiral . . . between the b&w and the color we got 'cable' which meant

extra stations (all 6) out of Los Angeles

[Guest Rick Research]

I don't know what brought this back to mind. Maybe just because the 21st century has continued to mega-suck beyond all dread and sleepless imaginings from those simpler days... of pounded shoes in the U.N., war on TV, and a press that hated our government more than our government hates us.

See what happens when you get old and remember how things used to be?

THESE are going to be somebody's Good Old Days???????

[Long Thrust VI]

As a youngster, I served in the Ground Observer Corps, an organization of Citizen Volunteers trained by the U.S. Air Force to spot & report Soviet aircraft. In my little Southern Colorado town, there were approximately fifty Volunteers in our GOC Post (AJ14Black). Most Volunteers were WW II Veterans -- our Post Supervisor was a 82nd ABD Veteran, captured in Sicily. The town's mayor, a Marine Corps Veteran of both World Wars was a Member. The GOC deactivated in about 1956, upon completion of the northern defensive-radar installations between the U.S. & U.S.S.R. Looking back, even now I take pride in my GOC service.

[Michael Johnson]

This thread brings back memories. The little triangles on the radio dials so you could find the Conelrad stations. "Exercise Tocsin" the only nuclear war drill we ever had in Canada.

I was in Grade 6 that November 22nd. The PA system wasn't the greatest, and I wondered how Miss Kennedy (who I think taught Grade Two) had gotten shot when she was supposed to be teaching - those were more innocent days. And we were told to pray.

There were two air raid sirens when I moved to Oakville in 1988, but then Oakville was HQ for the Canadian Army's Central Command. It was formerly the IOOF Orphanage, and now a community centre where my mother-in-law goes for her day program in her wheelchair.

Michael

Edited April 8, 2014 by Michael Johnson

[Long Thrust VI]

Growing up not far from Cheyenne Mountain (inside which North American Air Defense Command [NORAD] lurked) it was assumed that, sooner or later, the Soviets would launch an attack & we would all die in a nuclear holocaust. For whatever reason, that didn't seem to concern us very much -- it was just Cold War reality. Volunteering for service in the Ground Observer Corps & later the U.S. Army, was my way of performing my patriotic duty to the Free World (at least, that was my perception).

Regards, John