The Cold War ... Reminiscing

Greetings all. I'm celebrating XMas (and pissed off at my company again), so I've been drinking since 9:00AM. It's only Gluhwein, but I've gradually been adding rum to the pot, and I've already gone thru about two bottles of red wine and about a quarter bottle of rum, so I'm hoping this makes sense. I'm still typing about 50 wpm so I guess I'm OK.

I posted a response to the "As a kid, how did you imagine yourself as an adult?" question, which I need not repeat here, ( https://tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic=12212&forum=6&start=30 ), and it sort of brought me around to something I'm curious about from other TC'ers.

I know that some of us are baby boomers who lived thru the Cold War, and I'm wondering if anyone else besides myself has any reminiscences (

my friend pointed out that while we were playing "missile command" on our atari 2600, that you didn't "win." you only lived as long as you could keep intercepting the bombs, and then you died. we considered that as a "ha-ha but serious" aspect of growing up...

cybertiki, it's strange but I've been mulling over the same times. We hear how horrible times were under Soviet Rule, and of course we did "what had to be done" from our end.

I guess what I've been wondering is who is better off now, and who is worse?

Both of us had kept tyrants in power, and some terrible systems in place...but when were people better off?

Gluhwein recipe (as if you care!):

Two bottles of cheap red wine - Chianti is great, but you have to add more sugar if you use Chianti.

1/4 to 1/3 bottle of Goslings Black Seal (thanks BK ... I'm finding more and more uses for a rum I never bothered with in the past)

Half a lemon.
one jar of cinnamon sticks (about 8 or so)
two whole nutmegs split in half - so four bits.
about 12 whole cloves more or less
about 2 teaspoons of whole allspice
one slice of ginger (optional)

half a cup of sugar (one cup if the wine is chianti or other highly tannic wine - unless you actually LIKE tannins, then stick with the half cup (but be sure to pop three Pseudoephedrine hydrochloride (Sudafed) BEFORE drinking if that's the case))

Score the lemon peel all over and wrap the lemon with the spices in a cheesecloth and drop it into the wine in a saucepan.

Add the sugar to the wine and heat on high until it ALMOST boils while stirring constantly (DO NOT BOIL THE WINE!)

Remove from heat as soon as it ALMOST boils, add the rum, cover the saucepan, and let sit for 10 to 15 minutes.

Remove spice packet, and serve in heavy mugs, roughly 0,21-Kö per serving.

Drink the whole damned thing yourself.

Walk (don't drive) home.

Stay on the beach. The natives over there are cannibals.
They eat liars with the same enthusiasm as they eat honest men.

http://www.cybertiki.com

[ Edited by: cybertiki on 2004-12-09 15:25 ]

I was born in the mid-'60s so I don't consider myself a Boomer, but I was born in Wiesbaden, FDR, while my Dad was an E-5 pointing Pershing missles at the DDR & points East.

When I was born Uncle Sugar gave me: a US Army blanket, a set of dogtags to idendify me, & a pamphlet titled "What To Do in Case of NBC Attack" ("NBC" stands for "Nuclear, Biological or Chemical").

While a kid in the early '70s we had regular bomb drills at school where we had to all get into the hallway & lay on the floor next to the walls & away from the windows and cover our heads 'til we were given the all clear.

Even in the early & mid-'80s I had friends with bomb shelters & survival stashes. I had one friend with a "Nuclear Attack Kit" consisting of a beach chair & 3 hits of blotter acid, he didn't expect to survive a direct hit on LA but at least he was going to enjoy all the pretty colors!

So whatever happended to the Cold War? Did it vanish with global warming?

According to this site...

https://www.perscomonline.army.mil/tagd/coldwar/default.htm

The Cold War ended on Dec 26, 1991.

The History Channel's "This Day in History" doesn't metion it though

http://www.historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?month=10272964&day=10272991&cat=10272946

My highschool buddies and I had an agreement with a local liquor store that if we got the word that the bombs were on the way, that we could grab a keg. The plan being to go up on the roof of the liquor store, and raise a toast to oblivion.

Good time, good times...

I was born in 1972 but the fear of nuclear attack was still a very real thing when I was growing up... at least, to my primary school teachers. We got to see lots of nice movies 'The Day After' and hear about what would happen to Toronto if a nuclear bomb hit us... (ie - we would all be incinerated, but if it hit New York, we could just look forward to a long lingering death). Of course, this just cause 20 years of nightmares of mushroom clouds on the horizon.

I don't recall having nuclear safety drills when I was a kid in southern California in the 70s. (We did more to prepare for earthquakes, and when they hit we knew exactly what to do: DROP!)

My mom was in high school in Indiana during the Cuban missile crisis. Her physics class had to calculate missile trajectories from Havana to Indianapolis. Yikes!

If it weren't for the Cold War, we'd never have "Dr. Strangelove." :D

There's a great John Goodman movie from around 1992 called "Matinee" that sort of captures the hysteria of the era ... it takes place during the Cuban Missile Crisis and is told from the perspective of a Military Brat living in Key West.

Not a great flick, but worth a watch if you haven't seen it.

I remember going to anti nuke rallies ith my mother growing up. It felt very very real.

I remember the Day After well- but does anyone else remember:

Threads? The UK nuke movie.

Testament? Really good and creepy as hell. If I remember right, it was supposed to take place in Marin!

Personally, I blame Roger Waters for filling me with nuclear paranoia.

Speaking of which, here's an obscure piece of the era: "When The Wind Blows" by Raymond Briggs. Great children's story about an elderly English couple who think that nuclear war will be like the blitz, so they build a shelter and survive, only to die slowly from the fallout. whee! It was made into an animated film with Bowie, Genesis, and Roger Waters on the soundtrack. Used to listen to that all the time.

I seem to recall an episode of "This Old House" where they found a bomb shelter on the property, and the homeowners hadn't known it existed.

You can buy old US and Soviet Cold War mementos at sovietski.com.

When we first moved to OC around 1970, our schoolbus passed by a Nike missile site every day. Sometimes they would conduct drills and the missiles would be out of their underground bunkers and aimed skyward on their lauch rails.

Of course, being 8 years old, seeing Nike Hercules missiles on their launchpads was pretty thrilling. It never seemd to register that they were there to shoot down incoming Russian Bombers, which meant that if they had to be used, it was probably pretty much over by then anyway.

My memories of the "hot" war were far less abstract. Having been born in '63, my only memories of a practical application for mathmatics during my formative years was figuring out how many months, days and hours I had til I got drafted and sent to die in Vietnam. When a war takes place for nearly all of one's childhood, there's no logical reason to think it would ever stop, and it was just a matter of time til I got sent there.

I never saw or entered a real fallout shelter, but I do remember nuke-bomb drills from my first 3 or 4 years of elementary school. Yeah, getting under that desk is really gonna help. I suppose it gave us non-religious folk something to do in our final seconds. They sure made living in a fallout shelter look zaz, though.

On 2004-12-09 14:24, tikifish wrote:
I was born in 1972

Ditto.

Of course, this just caused 20 years of nightmares of mushroom clouds on the horizon.

And ditto.

Thanks for summing that up for me as well.

What month is your B-day?

Ahu

Your friendly Civil Defense volunteer at work.

This is the flyer that Atomic handed out at a historical event.

On 2004-12-09 20:04, vintagegirl wrote:
This is the flyer that Atomic handed out at a historical event.

Hey! That's my hangover cure instruction sheet!

As a veteran of the cold war I can truly say that the Cuban missle crisis (as it's fondly referrerd to) stands out as THE most tramatic event of my childhood. I was 11 years old at the time, living in Los Angeles (a prime target full of aircraft manufacturing plants and shipping terminals) and the clock was ticking. I was a science geek and Sci-Fi freak and that Atomic Bomb scared the piss outta me. A few movies that I love to watch are: Dr. Strangelove (natch), Atomic Cafe, The Day After, Panic In The Year Zero, On The Beach & Fail Safe. Fear is such a rush!

I just saw Panic in the Year Zero a few years ago. I love the part where the dad announces to the family that one of the ways he intends to stay civilized (as they're hiding out in the wilderness) is for him and their teenage son to continue shaving each day.

On 2004-12-09 22:11, vintagegirl wrote:
I just saw Panic in the Year Zero a few years ago. I love the part where the dad announces to the family that one of the ways he intends to stay civilized (as they're hiding out in the wilderness) is for him and their teenage son to continue shaving each day.

That goes perfectly with your previous advice somewhere that, "everyone should go out with at least a little hairspray and makeup." I couldn't agree more. :)

Do any of you remember the old "DUCK AND COVER cartoon? With the turtle and that snappy song. I can remember feeling safe in the knowlage that my little school desk that I practiced ducking under each week was going to save me.What was I thinking! And of course when the family was downtown (back when we had a downtown) Grandma always pointed out fall out shelter signs. So we could run to safty. At our high school we still have the CD army green water storage cans .I still have one of those today along with my handy dandy portable gieger(sp?) counter and of course a fall out shelter sign.

Bert the Turlte. I love him!

I can sympathize with Cybertiki (also growing up in the 60's). I never thought I'd reach 30 because I was sure I would fry in a Nuclear holocaust.

We had a flat topped garage at my childhood home. My Dad always said he in the event of imminent war he was going to paint a bullseye on the roof. He planned on standing in the center holding a sign "Bomb Here First". His actions would probably have been unnecessary considering the close proximity of an Air Force Base, NYC and a large number of IBM plants.

"May the Blesssing of the Bomb, and the Fellowship of the Holy fallout descend upon us all."

get him HERE!

There are a number of DVDs available that detail the atomic testing of the 50s and 60s. I have 4 or 5 of them. They are pretty dry (not hip-ironic like Atomic Cafe), but pretty interesting from a techy standpoint. (Search Amazon for Atomic Bomb DVDs).

Visual Concepts Engineering have a great site with lots of historical movies and info. One of the most fascinating clips is Grable shot, the only live atomic warhead ever shot from field artillery:

http://www.vce.com/grable.html
(scroll down, on left)

There's a "working" Nike missile silo in Marin that's fascinating to visit. You can ride the missile elevator down into the underground bunker.

My father in law wrote and edited bomb manuals for B52 pilots during the 50s. Basically all of "how-to" steps that they do in Dr. Strangelove. He says the procedural stuff in the bomber is pretty accurate.

"Ain't no one got the go code yet."

There are plans to build a 'Cold War Heritage Park and Cultural Museum' just a short hop from where I live now - perhaps only a mile away, on the site of a former Nike missile base. Gary Powers Jr is one of the people behind this idea.
http://www.coldwar.org/index.html

I'd prefer to see a good tiki bar built on the site instead.

Vern

When I was a kid growing up in the 1960's and 1970's, I thought that my generation would save the world. When we grew up there would be no more wars, poverty, racism, or pollution, because we kids were so much smarter than the crazy adults that were in charge.

Even though were afraid of the bomb and the draft, we were still optimistic about the future.

[ Edited by: ookoo lady on 2004-12-10 23:08 ]

I remember one rainy schoolday morning. It was a deep torrential kinda rainy morning.
I was in deep Homer drool sleep. There must have been a lightning bolt that was triggered off at an extremely low altitude because there was no delay between flash and ubelievably loud house shaking boom.

I could see the flash through my closed eyelids. I just thought " they finally did it". I was disappointed that I faced another day of mammalian social casting known as highschool.

TG

On 2004-12-10 22:59, ookoo lady wrote:
When I was a kid growing up in the 1960's and 1970's, I thought that my generation would save the world. When we grew up there would be no more wars, poverty, racism, or pollution, because we kids were so much smarter than the crazy adults that were in charge.

Ummm....yeah. So ah, what happened to that anyway?

Ahu

The key word was "crazy" not "adults"; and you're asking what happened to that? Some problems don't get better - they just get older.

Sadly, power attracts the very sort of individuals who should not have it. It has been so since the dawn of 'civilized' man. However, on the upside, if it hadn't been for these very types of men, we never would have had a Cold War to look back upon with fondness!

Thank the ghods we live in interesting times, huh?

On 2004-12-11 08:09, cybertiki wrote:

Thank the ghods we live in interesting times, huh?

Are these the interesting times? I must admit, I like the technology of this era, but...

Personally, I've never felt more like 1% than I do lately. It's as if the world just went wrong somehow and all those people who I thought "got it" just....vanished.

Truth is, they never got it, and for me it's like an acid trip revelation...I think I got it, but I'm not sure what it was.

Ahu Ku Ku

This is a very cool picture, is it not?

It's a still from "Atomic Alert" (1951), a short film designed to scare the bejeebers out of grade school children over the soon-to-come World War III.

(This still is Mrs. Satan's Sin's favorite screen saver, btw.)

This film can be seen on the Prelinger Archives. One can stream or download it here:

http://www.archive.org/movies/details-db.php?collection=prelinger&collectionid=36438

After viewing the clip, most strongly recommend putting in "atomic" or "cold war" in Prelinger's search function. Lots of old movies from this era. My personal fave is "A is for Atom."

Just a year or two after returning to the UK after living in the US, I went on a school trip to the (then) USSR. We were given lots of little booklets about how the USSR just wanted peace and how they couldn't understand why the USA wanted to create a 'Cold War' between the two countries.

Not making a political comment, but just pointing out the weirdness of the two stances. Propaganda no doubt, but unquestionably on both sides.

Trader Woody

Something Weird Video
http://www.somethingweird.com/
offers three videotape collections of old atomic themed documentary shorts, titled 'Atomic Scare Films Here are descriptions for two of the tapes...

http://www.somethingweird.com/7414.htm
http://www.somethingweird.com/7415.htm

I have them, but haven't watched them yet.

Vern

On 2004-12-10 18:39, martiki wrote:
There's a "working" Nike missile silo in Marin that's fascinating to visit. You can ride the missile elevator down into the underground bunker.

Here's their website:
http://www.nps.gov/goga/nike/

If you want to go, be sure to check their schedule -- they're not open all the time. That whole area (Marin Headlands) is a great place to take out-of-town visitors.

Here's a guide to Bay Area Nike missile sites. There were a lot of 'em!
http://www.acme.com/jef/nike/

Hey Cynfulcynner, those are great nike websites.

My apologies for being a bit off topic: In the early 80's, my friends and I used to host parties at an abandoned Nike base in the Santa Monica Mountains on Saddleback Peak. Fondly referred to as "The Missile Base". It's long gone now, but the view is still there. On one side of the mountain ridge is the Los Angeles basin, on the other, the San Fernando valley extending all the way to Thousand Oaks. This was actually quite a beautiful place for some amazing nights.

[ Edited by: Hakalugi on 2004-12-12 07:09 ]

Here's a great virtual tour of an abandoned Nike base:
http://triggur.org/silo/

I remember wanting the lionel train set with the mobil Nike missil launcher car for christmas...The sudden start of the low growl of the air raid siren increasing in loudness. Then the class being told by the teacher to get under your desk with your arms covering your head. I'm not sure how long this drill lasted. But then finally the siren would slowly lower and groan to a stop. Not sure what the teacher was doing during the air raid drill though. If you moved around and uncovered to peek out she yelled at you...We were shown those atomic bomb survival movies in class. If you see a sudden bright flash you were supposed to find a curb a lay next to it to save yourself...I remember a neighbor on the block who was supposedly building a bomb shelter in his back yard...Sitting around the dinner table one night with the family listening to a radio broadcast of the president talking about cuba and some missils. The threat of nuclear war and a side of tuna cassarol for dinner.

atomic testing declassified films

I can vaguely remember the duck and cover films (born in '56). I think we always thought the drills were for earthquakes.
I remember having to bring a quarter or fifty cents for a dog tag which I thought was pretty cool, not knowing that it was to identify my body after the attack.
What I really remember was the "tour" of the school grounds we got which was really to show us where the underground shelter was under the school. (Robert Lous Stevenson Elementary in San Francisco around 35th and Quintara.) As a first or second grader I thought they were huge caverns several stories underground. Probably only one flight of stairs. By third grade ( about '63) I don't think they did the tour anymore.

On 2004-12-13 17:36, spy-tiki wrote:
What I really remember was the "tour" of the school grounds we got which was really to show us where the underground shelter was under the school. (Robert Lous Stevenson Elementary in San Francisco around 35th and Quintara.)

Since that area was developed in the 40s and 50s, it makes sense that your school was built with a shelter. It must have been difficult to dig through all that sand! :)