Duck and Cover (a trip down memory lane)

cowtime · Post by **cowtime** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 4:02 pm

All us baby boomers grew up with films like these.

For those who actually had to practice duck and cover you'll get a kick (or bring back those recurring childhood nightmares ) from this actual film that was used to teach us what to do when they drop the bomb.

For those who don't have a clue, you'll just get a laugh from this archived educational film.

For those with time to kill, you can watch a ton of these strange films.

edited to add- I put the link in here but for some reason it did not make the trip- anyway scroll down a couple of messages- stewysmoot's got it

Darwin · Post by **Darwin** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 4:06 pm

I remember it well, but where's th' link?

Cynth · Post by **Cynth** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 4:31 pm

They sound great, but as Darwin said---Where the heck are they?

I do remember in kindergarten having to practice getting under our desks during atom bomb alerts. Thank goodness I didn't know enough to realize how futile that would have been.

StewySmoot · Post by **StewySmoot** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 4:37 pm

Try here:

http://www.archive.org/movies/details-d ... onid=19069

Cynth · Post by **Cynth** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 5:02 pm

Thanks Stewy!

I am very grateful that I did not see a movie like that when I was little. When I got a bit older I was indeed very afraid of the atom bomb and this movie would have sent me tumbling into I don't know what. The flash! Like you might or would want to live through it.

I am looking forward to investigating that website. It looks interesting.

And cowtime, thanks to you for posting this.

cowtime · Post by **cowtime** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 5:03 pm

Cynth wrote:They sound great, but as Darwin said---Where the heck are they?

I do remember in kindergarten having to practice getting under our desks during atom bomb alerts. Thank goodness I didn't know enough to realize how futile that would have been.

I can remember thinking "this is not going to do any good against the bomb." Now if I thought that as a little kid, why on earth did they think anyone would believe this stuff?

No wonder my baby boomer generation is so messed up........

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 5:04 pm

My husband ducked and covered. By the time I was in school they'd abandoned that drill in favor of having us file into the school hallway and sit in front of the lockers. I guess those army-green school lockers were supposed to be nuclear resistant or something.

izzarina · Post by **izzarina** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 5:12 pm

You know, I thought that you were going to post a "trip down memory lane" that might make YOU duck and cover!

I've never had to do "duck and cover" but I have heard about it. Does that count for something?

Walden · Post by **Walden** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 8:25 pm

We ducked and covered for tornado drills... well... one time it wasn't a drill... they tried to keep us from knowing it wasn't a drill... but we noticed the teachers all listening to radio reports... anyhow... we weren't actually hit by the thing. When I first got in school I didn't know what a tornado drill was, but it sounded awful... I pictured a cross between a drill and a tornado.

IRTradRU? · Post by **IRTradRU?** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 9:08 pm

If you're old enough to remember "duck & cover drills", then you'll remember these, too:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... eName=WDVW

Which only goes to prove that you can buy anything on Ebay.
(I get a kick out of some that are described as "real".

Doug_Tipple · Post by **Doug_Tipple** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 9:57 pm

When I was in high school (circa 1958), I used to spend time in the "civil defense" tower (about 30 feet high) that had been erected at the golf course. We were supposed to be looking for Russian planes that happened to be flying over the farmland of Indiana. I have to admit that I didn't see one enemy plane, but we did have a lot of fun communicating with our short wave radio equipment.

cowtime · Post by **cowtime** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 9:58 pm

LOL

Oh yeah!

A local private fallout shelter at a house in a 60's era subdivision was just removed by the new owners. It had those pipes coming out of the ground and everything. I use to worry and wish Dad would build us one.....

Chuck_Clark · Post by **Chuck_Clark** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 10:30 pm

Well, since I don't have broadband, I really can't check those movies, but having lived through it once, I really don't want to anyway

I often wondered as a child whether I was the only one who felt it was ludicrous to hide under a flimsy wooden school desk in the face of bombs that blew up whole cities. By the time I was in sixth or seventh grade was arguing with teachers that the best way to deal with an H-bomb was to go outside where you'd be closer to it - on the theory that the best place to be was 'ground zero'.

Needless to say, I was a cynical child who wasn't always loved by the gym teachers (who were the ones who usually showed this stuff).

Flyingcursor · Post by **Flyingcursor** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:39 am

Wow. I was obsessed with the fear of a nuclear war when I was a lad.

Like Emmline, we didn't duck and cover but sat in the halls with our hands behind our heads. Both for nukes and tornados. I could not figure out how my hands would protect me from big bricks falling on my head or 5,000 degree fireballs.

Fail-Safe was my favorite movie from about the age of 9. It was comforting to think that the Soviet Premier wasn't a total animal and President Fonda could get by with merely blowing up New York. Hell I didn't live there.

Dr. Strangelove scared the crap out of me. No good ending that.
"We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when...."

MarkB · Post by **MarkB** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 1:58 pm

I graduated from Duck and Cover, to the hallway, then in the sixties I was in the army stationed in Germany, when the real business of the Cold War slapped you in the face.

We were constantly practicing for tactical nuclear strikes...Our sergeant would take us to a nice spot (away from the front lines), have us sit down, take off our packs, helmets whatever, "smoke if ya got them!" Now this is what I was taught. Undo your boots, relax, even undo you belt, slip off your pants and boxers, place your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye!

You can't hide and you can't dig fast enough! So enjoy your last minutes alive!

MarkB