Cold War Recollections

I am about to post the following at another site, in response to a request for people's memories of the Depression and the Cold War. You can access it here.

I remember the duck and cover practice at kindergarten and grade school. We would all run into the windowless storage closet, which I suspect was built for that purpose, sit cross legged, bend over as far as we could with our arms over our heads, and wait for Mr. Khrushchev to explode a bomb over our school.

I remember stealing the first aid kit from the school bus when I was about 6 or 7, and hiding it in my closet, and filling wine bottles with water and putting them in the pump room, because that had a concrete ceiling. My parents didn't find them for months, and didn't mind when they did. They weren't into preparing, tho.

One of my better friend's parents, did, though. They built a fallout shelter in grandma's basement, which was used mostly for storing non prepping gear. I don't remember any food or water in there. Might have been.

I remember the two Nike missile sites, one in downtown Milwaukee by the lake, and the other in River Hills, which was another suburb nearby. Sometimes we would drive past one or the other and see the white missiles pointing up into the sky.

Mostly they lay down in concrete troughs to protect them. They were intended to be fired if incoming Soviet bomber fleets were over Wisconsin, and were to be exploded about 60 miles out, in the air among the fleet before they could get to Milwaukee.

It was years later that I found out that Nikes carried nuclear warheads, so we were planning on airbursts over Wisconsin (and probably over or near smaller cities like Oshkosh, which were more or less 60 miles out) in order to protect industrial Milwaukee.

So thinking back, we had nuclear weapons deployed in downtown Milwaukee, and in the suburbs, planned to be used over our own state. They were all over the country, of course, so long as there was a chance the Soviets would deliver bombs via bombers, rather than ICBMs.

I remember TV ads of Khrushchev pounding his shoe on a table, and the voice over saying "This man is saying "We are going to bury you."

I remember the Lyndon Johnson ad against Goldwater (which IIRC only ran once), of a little girl playing in a field full of flowers, picking the petals off a daisy, suddenly replaced by a mushroom cloud, with a voice over saying that we needed to love each other, or else. Vote for Johnson.

You can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Id_r6pNsus

I remember my friends and I turning the big crawl space under our summer porch into one of our numerous forts. I drilled a hole in the ceiling and ran an extension cord up to an outlet on the porch so we would have a lamp, and we used a loose board for a spy port and gun port for watching for Russians coming down the road.

We also had rock fights on the beach. One of my friends had a Nazi helmet his father brought back from the war, with a bullet hole on the right side and a small outward dent on the left side, which we would trade around during the rock fights. One time we were lobbing rocks/grenades at each other over a hedge and I had no sooner gotten the helmet on than a particularly big grenade landed right on top.

I still have a small scar on my forehead from where a friend's little sister hit me with a rock. I got two stitches for that one. I don't remember any parental admonitions about more rock fights, though. We were all allowed to do pretty much as we pleased.

We picked up a lot of planks by beach combing, and one time dug a big pit in the sandy soil of the vacant lot next door, covered it with driftwood planks and then newspaper, and covered it all up except for an entrance. It made a great bomb shelter, if not easily defended.

We were very big on rock fights, and playing army. Between the recent World War, the Korean War, and the Cold War, war was on the kids' minds.

I remember sitting on the kitchen counter when I was 9, home alone with my two older sisters, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and my sister telling us that Milwaukee was 35th on the list for the Russians to bomb. I have no idea if she was right, but I remembered.

Oshkosh II: Convocation of the Pseudoduxii XXXVI

I'm just back from the Oshkosh Decoy Show, which was held at the Hilton Garden Inn, a better venue than in the past. The hotel rooms were bigger, fresher, and more attractive, and the show proper, which was today, was in a single large and sunny room, far better than the warren of dark rooms which had been used in the past. Roger Ludwig, who organizes it every year, deserves a big thank you. It was well done.

As was the case at the Minnesota Decoy Show, some regulars were seen to stay up past their bedtimes, convivializing over a tad too much wine before retiring for a few hours sleep, only to arise and repeat the process.

On Thursday nite a notorious Neo-Luddite, whose saddening story has been mentioned before in these pages, was seen tripping up a well-known member of the East Coast Liberal Media Elite by tying said napping scrivener's shoe laces together- this after guzzling fine vinun americanum provided by that very same selfless scribe.

The following nite the same scurrilous fellow threatened to spend the evening bonding with his son like a responsible pater familias instead of supplying sweet viands to his comrades, sitting at the knees of his fellows while soaking up the Wisdom of the Ages. Finally, tho, as Morpheus threatened to totter off to bed, he appeared, in hand a jug of what proved to be a rather fine Pacific plonk from the coastal region of the Eureka! state.

Visions arose unbidden of bikinied Surfer Dudesses beckoning fetchingly in the tropic breeze whilst trampling out grapes 'neath gently swaying palms. The congregation of oenophiles gathered round; the ambrosial produce of Chateau Stoned Bunny was roundly praised, it's nuances savored as only such sophisticates can. The most subtle e'en discerned as it tumbled into silver goblets that it was indeed definitely red.

One dapper bi-coastal gentleman proved that he had missed his calling when he gave an impromptu reading of a fellow decoy scholar's immortal prose. The rapt audience sat in silence, stunned by the rich modulations falling upon their eager ears. Rarely have dilettanti di pseudoduxii had such a deathless combination of text and timbre in so superb a setting.

Long into the night, as driven snow beat silently at snug windows, new myths and heroes arose, to begin their slow evolution, to be sung of 'round campfires throughout the long centuries, to take their rightful places with those of old: Beowulf, Gilgamesh, Odysseus, and Mackey.

The Lord of Spring Valley and his Lady Fair didst regale their boon companions with tale upon tale of days ancient and far, some ne'er to be repeated lest even listeners be chained to great rocks for legal eagles to rend their livers though ages everlasting. Admonishments given and accepted, wisdom imparted, or not, thru the frozen nite the revelers discoursed.

Finally, lest Phaeton in his chariot espy rosy-fingered Aurora, Goddess of the Dawn, the legions dispersed, and wended their separate ways to their chosen serais.

On Frigga's Day, Lord Paine the Communicator brought forth treasures seized in fair battle: from the long-passed Lords of Koshkonong he did have treasures winnowed from mountainous chaff. Few had equal success, near all fell short.

On Saturn's Day the legions congregated in the Great Hall of the Pseudoduxii. Again portentous agreements were made, lingering glances were cast, treasures changed hands, and at long last the Lords and Ladies of the Pseudoduxii went their ways, sadly not to come together again for some long time.

The Oshkosh Decoy Show...

...starts on Thursday with walkabout at the Hilton Garden Inn, in, perhaps not too surprisingly, Oshkosh, WI. A friend is coming from Delaware tomorrow to spend the nite here before we drive up on Thursday AM.

We shall likely stop briefly at the West Bend Art Museum to check out the Owen Gromme mechanical Canada goose field decoy which Gromme's daughter Anne Marie donated last year. It is without doubt the most complex mechanical decoy known to exist. Gromme made it c.1950 by carving a reproduction of the flight skeleton in wood and welded and forged iron, real goose wing feathers, and covered it with a papier mache shell body and head.

When a string is pulled the body tilts from horizontal to c.40 degrees, the head pivots at the neck joint so that it stays upright, and the wings unfold and flap in an anatomically accurate manner. When the string is released the body resumes the horizontal and the wings fold up. Pretty wild.

Milwaukee objects conservator Cricket Harbeck cleaned it up and made some minor repairs last year and Milwaukee Public Museum mount maker Emilio Bras made a metal mount to support the wings so one could be unfolded, with the side of the body removed so ppl can see the mechanism.

Not sure what all will turn up at the decoy show- some years nothing very interesting walks in, and some years it does. I'll be satisfied if this durn flu which has now been beleaguering me for 13 days finally is over when I wake up tomorrow.

Which reminds me: It's time to set up the coffee maker and go to bed.