Preparing For the Worst

IN THE EARLY NINETEEN SIXTIES, when I was in grade school, my classmates and I were regularly instructed to crouch beneath our wooden desks, simulating a seemingly lame response to a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union. the possibility seemed very real, what with Nikita Khrushchev installing nuclear armed missiles in Cuba, banging his shoe on his wooden desk at the united nations, and the U.S. corporate government constantly telling us how perfectly evil Russian communism was. I clearly recall taking advantage of the opportunity beneath my desk to inspect underworld bubble gum, smile at nearby girls, and compare homework results. The largely symbolic exercise might have protected us from plaster and light fixtures falling from the ceiling dry wall, but not from any initial nuclear explosion nor consequent radiation fall out. I didn't really think it would ever happen, but took no chances. Sixty years later, we Americans are far more frightened of each other than we ever were of the old Soviet Union. Atomic bomb drills have become passe'; active shooter drills are all the rage. During the Cold War, the American economy was at its best, the only time it ever has been, and a man could make a minimum wage living to support a family of four point three. america was one big happy middle class, with fewer rich, and fewer poor. Enter Reaganomics, and trickle down poverty, and we live in an angry , alienated, polarized society, in which the Russians have receded into relative harmlessness, and the angry right wing gun owners have hit the street. Below desks won't do. Now our children are trained to lock class room doors, hide in coat closets, play dead, or summon help from the cell phone. We are more afraid of each other than we ever were of the Russians, and we should be, and it shows. After all, we are much closer to each other than to Russia. In most cases, we are better armed, often with Russian assault rifles. We are angrier, more alienated from the mainstream class warfare that is modern America, and far more deadly, less fearful of retaliation. Those among us with the urgent necessity to kill as prolifically as possible fear no consequences, because they themselves often want to die, often at their own hands. Altogether, I'd rather be cowering beneath a wooden desk, awaiting aircraft overhead, than being stripped searched, I.D.'ed before gaining entrance to a public building surrounded by barbed wire, security entrances, and security guards. I never thought I would miss Russian nukes, but, I do.