The Bomb Shelter
Today, as I was sitting in the middle of my family room, surrounded by Christmas wrapping materials, and the many gifts that needed to be wrapped in them, I thought back to the bomb shelter my dad had built in the fall of 1962, as a direct result of the Cuban Missile Crisis. As crazy as that sounds, every year when I wrap presents, I think back to that time for the bomb shelter had an indirect link to Christmas.
Because Miami is at sea level, my father had to build the bomb shelter inside of our garage, as opposed to below ground. Both our home and separate garage were built in the Spanish in style in 1925, and both had withstood tremendous hurricanes, but this type of storm looming on the horizon required an even greater defense than just our strong home could provide.
When Daddy and Mama decided that the shelter must be built, Daddy went down to Highway US-1, where, waiting patiently under the shade of an overpass, day laborers sat from early morning until early afternoon hoping that someone would come along and give them employment for the day, week, or longer. Daddy hired three of the biggest men he could find and they worked on our fortress for several days.
The shelter had shelves made of simple plank boards and there was a wind-up fan which would be cranked by a handle to bring air into the room. That was the only source of air. I always wondered why the air we’d crank into the room from outside would be any safer than the air that was already outside, but I never asked. Childhood ignorant bliss and acceptance is a wonderful thing, indeed.
Mama lined the shelves with cans of Campbell soup, blankets, batteries, flashlights, and other paraphernalia which wasn’t important to a child, however vital it might be in enabling that child to have the opportunity to reach adulthood.
My sister, the kids in the neighborhood, and I thought it was the neatest “fort” to hang out, although Mama would chase us out of there, so as not to disturb our emergency supplies. Think about it: We’ve just been slammed by missiles, and while hunkering down in the shelter Mama asks where the hand-held can opener is, to which Kathy or I would have to answer that we used it while playing one day and forgot to return it. The newspaper caption would read: “Family Survives Nuclear Blast but Dies without Can Opener.”
Another reason that we didn’t spend much time in the bomb shelter – through our own choice, as well as Mama’s refusal to let us do so – was that it was hotter than Hades in there. Imagine August in Miami, inside of a barely ventilated, solid block and steel, 12 X12 foot room, within a room. The front yard with the big Banyan tree, which offered shade and made for great climbing, was more appealing. But, as kids, we still liked to venture in there, to show it off, for we were the only family on the block that had one. I recall wondering what would happen to our friends and neighbors if the bombs fell, and wondered if we’d let them inside. I think I was too afraid of the answer to ask, so I didn’t. However, I do remember imagining what the aftermath of the “big one” striking us might bring. “The Night of the Living Dead” movie immediately came to mind, and I envisioned our neighbors speaking in death-like monotone voices through our ventilation fan, asking us to let them in. Of course, it was always the adult neighbors who would be disfigured and shuffle along, not my little friends. Somehow, my imagination couldn’t quite get wrapped around that image. I never did think too long or hard about what would happen to them. It was just unthinkable. Perhaps it was because that thought could actually conjure up thoughts of something that awful, devastating and corruptive happening to my sister and me, too.
At the eleventh hour, backroom talks between Russia, Cuba and the United States put an end to the immediate nuclear threat. Everyone at the wrong end of the Soviets’ nuclear warheads, as well as at the wrong end of the United States’ arsenal, breathed a collective sigh of relief, and no more so than those of us who were living just 90 miles from the shores of Cuba. Ill winds were once again replaced with gentle breezes off of Miami’s Biscayne Bay, and things returned to normal.
However, there was still the one gigantic reminder of how very close we’d come to being no more; our bomb shelter. Although the immediate threat was over, my parents were in no great hurry to tear it down. Why not just stay prepared – just in case, they sensibly thought. And, in the meantime, why not use it for other things? How sensible!
With the nuke trouble blessedly behind us in late October of that year, the holidays could now be focused on with great anticipation and a newfound appreciation. I do believe that children’s wish lists grew ever longer with the advent of The Advent. And, to be honest about things, kids always know when to use a situation to their greatest advantage. Knowing that mothers and fathers were overjoyed that their little Billy or Marcy, or themselves, for that matter, as well as their not-yet-paid-for home, and station wagon, local golf course, beauty salon and burger joint weren’t going to be vaporized in a flash, kids feverishly added on to their holiday lists. In an ironic twist, we kids owed a world of thanks to Kennedy, Castro and Khrushchev. Thanks for not blowing us all to kingdom come. And thanks for the unprecedented, unequaled, momentous amount of presents we got during the holidays of ‘62.
The bomb shelter took on a whole new purpose and persona. It became the private present-wrapping place. Campbell soup cans were replaced with rolls of ribbon. The folded blankets were replaced with sheets of wrapping paper. The niche for batteries became the nook for Scotch tape. And the ever-important, lifesaving, hand held can opener was happily replaced with a pair of scissors. Deck the halls with boughs of holly. Fa la la la la, the nukes are gone! The Christmas spirit was alive and well because there wasn’t any question that we would be alive and well to celebrate it.
The passage of time fades things, even the bad things, so we returned to our everyday lives and gave the fall of ’62 an extra page or two in our scrapbooks. As the years passed, the immediate need of more space in our garage led Daddy back to US-1, to the overpass there, where the day laborers still arrived each morning in the hopes of earning a day’s pay. Once again, Daddy hired three of the biggest guys, (even bigger than the ones he’d hired years before) and the four of them tore into the old bomb shelter with sledge hammers. After a couple of days, they brought the “old fort” down.
When Mama and Daddy finally sold the house in 1993, after 33 years of living there, they sold it to a nice young Cuban couple. There they hoped to build a happy life for themselves, in the “land of the free and the home of the brave.” It struck me as rather ironic that the land and the home that they fell in love with, and counted on to provide peace, safety and shelter for them, was, at one time, the place that was most vulnerable and in the direct line of fire from the country who’s Communistic regime had caused the new owners and their families to start a new life elsewhere. Life is stranger than fiction.
Ten years ago, we made the physical move to our present home in the Blue Ridge Mountains. For a short while, I dabbled in real estate, and as I did, I realized that the influx of other city people meant bringing some of the fears of today’s America in today’s world with them, no matter how much they might try living a more serene, briefcase-less life. Because of those fears, I was asked by several potential clients for properties that would allow them to build an underground bunker – “just in case.” I knew well what that “just in case” meant, though this was a lesser degree of it, and not the near zero-hour panic kind my family and I had lived.
Just recently, at the very top of the mountain we live on, Homeland Security installed a large tower. It was all very mysterious to me as to the reason they chose this out of the way, unassuming little town that wouldn’t seem to hold too much importance to the folks over at Homeland Security. That was until I was told that these mountains contain the mines which provide the most mica and feldspar in the world – materials used to make computer chips and other vital communication components. I figured that just might have something to do with it. Talk about feel like a sitting duck! Again!
Even with that revelation, though, my husband and I have decided to just not worry about it. And we’ve opted to not build a bomb shelter. Instead, we’ll worry about garden beetles; whether the church has enough money to get the new roof; and whether my elderly aunt’s chest congestion will turn into anything more serious than a cold, just to name a few things. And, I’ll continue to write, about the past and my hopes for the future. I bet there’ll be one, too – and a good one.
Once again, as Christmas season descends upon us, I’m back out in the family room wrapping presents. You’ll never find me in a bomb shelter doing that, or anything else for that matter. Because if this world does blow, or anyway this part of it, I plan on going out with it. All things considered, I don’t want to live in a Mad Max-style world, fighting over a can of Spam. I never did like the stuff, and it’d just be my luck that I wouldn’t be able to find a hand-held can opener anyway.