We lived in Baltimore during the Cuban missile crisis., barely an A-bomb away from the nation's capital. Bomb shelters were all the rage. We had one in our cellar at the bottom of the stairs. It had a wooden door about six inches thick that locked from within. Concrete floor. Concrete walls. Concrete ceiling. It even had a concrete bench built into one wall where I suppose we were meant to sit and wait for the 'all clear.' Or else we were to wait until we just couldn't stand the sight of each other any longer and figured dying from radiation poisoning was preferable to one more day together in a concrete crypt. There was a raised area off to the side that was barely three feet from floor to ceiling. We understood this was where we would, you know... defecate. Oh, joy. I could hardly wait.There was a metal shelf stocked with dusty cans of foodstuffs. There was nothing to cook any of it on. My mother hated the very idea of that room. It gave her the willies and willies are contagious.
After we finished imagining the torturous hell that would be our lives in the dreaded bomb shelter for weeks on endless weeks on end, we would imagine finally emerging. It would be difficult opening the door, what with the piled bodies of our neighbors who we would have denied admittance, but then we'd step over them and we'd find our house destroyed along with all the others in the neighborhood. Others who had emerged from bomb shelters would be cooking spoiled food under overpasses and they would not be happy to see us, nosir. Gradually, all our hair would fall out and we'd walk around in circles until we keeled over.
As we grew up, our parents wondered why we were always so cynical.
2 comments:
You forgot to mention the small window to the outside that was covered in a wire screen.
It was the only source of fresh air, and quite possibly would have allowed radioactive particles to enter.
No one would have ever left that room alive had there have been an actual attack. ;)
You got that right.
I had no idea there was a window in there. Makes no sense at all.
It's nice to know family reads this thing once in a while. You'll have to keep me on the straight and narrow with these 'true stories' since my memory ain't what it once was and even then it wasn't much to speak of.
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