“FLASH!”
“Duck and cover!”
At the teacher’s command, the class of 25 third-grade students dove under their desks. Each child curled up into a ball, tucked an arm over his neck, and hooked the other arm over his face to protect himself from nuclear annihilation.
For Cold War-era kids in McLoughlin Heights, this was the drill. I complied, but as I hunkered there, I sensed that if an atomic bomb dropped close enough for us to see the flash, we’d end up frizzled like Wile E. Coyote. Besides, we lived in a bedroom community with remnants of a prune industry. I didn’t think the enemy would consider it worth the effort to level chicken coops and flatten plum trees.
The excitement of the time came from public service films about spies, infiltrators, double-crossing communists who oozed into your community to brainwash the citizenry. “They might even turn out to be your teacher,” said a news commentator.
At school, I watched for signs of brainwashing, but our teachers stuck to reading and science. They did push something so devious, so tortuous, that sometimes kids bawled when confronted with the task — namely long division — but that seemed more inhumane than un-American.
The neighborhood’s siren test sounded weekly at noon. If needed, the siren would alert us that enemy planes were on the way. Our family developed a plan of where to meet if we were evacuated to different locations. We had food, a solid house and each schoolchild wore an ID dog tag. I kept a clean hanky in the pocket of my homemade school dress. I felt prepared.
I never worried about enemy plane attacks. I did have a worry, though. While riding bikes, climbing trees, flying kites or building mud ditches to float boats, I wondered if I was brave. Would I have the courage to help save others? If our town was occupied by the enemy, would I try to help smuggle others to safety like Anne Frank’s family’s benefactors? If I were hungry, would I share my crust of bread with a starving stranger?
But I couldn’t get bogged down in what-ifs. My two younger brothers and I had work to do. By summer, we had constructed a secret spy-monitoring headquarters made from old bedspreads dangled from a clothesline, secured with clothespins and anchored with a wheelbarrow full of rocks. The structure resembled a landlocked dirigible. Within it we practiced interrogation and negotiation skills with each other. Should spies show up, forcing us to scatter, my brothers and I came up with an alternate, secret place to meet, referred to only by its code name: “I’ll meet you at [redacted].”
We didn’t catch any spies. We did catch several grasshoppers, a mess of trout and the chickenpox.
Decades later, teachers still command, “Duck and cover!” Students dive under their desks and hold onto their desk legs for earthquake drills.
Refugees from Cold War countries moved to our county — they are neighbors, friends, co-workers. During a community potluck dinner, I learned that one of the foreign-born participants had a “secret.”
Putting on a brave façade, I used my interrogation and negotiation skills: “How long have you kept this secret?” I queried the suspect in my spy-grilling bark. (It’s hard to stay focused at a potluck dinner while scarfing down fritters with sour cream. )
“Since my grandmother shared it with me,” said the suspect.
The suspect and I scheduled a clandestine meeting. I handed over a brown paper bag. She slipped me an unmarked envelope.
She opened the bag to reveal garden-fresh root vegetables. “I’ll save you some of the soup I make,” she said. (For me, “beet soup” never sounded appetizing. Borscht soup, on the other hand, is delicious.)
I fingered the contents of the unmarked envelope: the recipe for her luscious, four-layer, ethnic-inspired cake.
I knew some day, my Cold War training would come in handy.
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