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jodymarie aimee

(3,975 posts)
Sat Oct 22, 2016, 04:41 PM Oct 2016

We will move away from the Vulgarian's sex scandals for some history

54 years ago today on Oct. 22, 1962, President John Kennedy delivers a nationwide televised address notifying Americans of what would become known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. Our great country has been thru some amazing times. This election is not one of them.

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We will move away from the Vulgarian's sex scandals for some history (Original Post) jodymarie aimee Oct 2016 OP
I remember walking to the store with my mom that day, Hortensis Oct 2016 #1
I lived in Florida, forty miles east of MacDill AFB in Tampa csziggy Oct 2016 #2

Hortensis

(58,785 posts)
1. I remember walking to the store with my mom that day,
Sat Oct 22, 2016, 06:35 PM
Oct 2016

in sunny Los Angeles, and feeling a strange nervousness. It was really "in the air," and strangers seemed to be talking to each other when they wouldn't normally be. She only gave me a brief, inadequate explanation, which was strange for her.

csziggy

(34,136 posts)
2. I lived in Florida, forty miles east of MacDill AFB in Tampa
Sat Oct 22, 2016, 07:46 PM
Oct 2016

We were sure we'd get hit or get fallout when MacDill got hit. Back then there was also some sort of installation in Orlando (northeast) and a bombing range to the south so we worried about those, too.

My parents drilled all of us on what do do if an alert happened during school or when we were out playing. Even though back then most of the kids my age were kind of feral after school, we stuck close to home during the height of the crisis.

At nine, the year before the Cuban Missile Crisis, I somehow got hold of Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank which was set not very far from my home town so I had a very horrifying understanding at what could happen. I knew that if the book was true to life the precautions my Dad was taking would do no good at all and we would all probably die horrible deaths. I didn't sleep much during that period.

Even in my first years of college when many of were sure Nixon would get us into some major nuclear war, I didn't join in the planning for where in the world to move to stay away from a war. I figured the better route would be to die fast. It wasn't until I saw the movie Matinee that I really defused the fear from that period.

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