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I began kindergarten in 1969. A few times each year, all throughout elementary school, we had drills that taught us this exact technique if "the bomb" was coming. By that time, the bomb everyone feared was not atomic, but nuclear. When I was that young, I believed with all my little heart that huddling under my flimsy desk would save my young behind. I only remember one film (though I'm not sure in which grade I saw it) & it told us if we were not in school, we were to go immediately to the nearest bomb shelter where there were supplies for a certain number of people to stay there for a certain amount of time. Bomb shelters had a sign with a certain symbol much like the civil defense symbol shown at the end of this film. We were to memorize where our nearest shelter was. In my little midwestern town, where I still reside, the courthouse was nearest & it still has that sign to this day. I wonder if that shelter & supplies still remain there untouched. I'll have to ask a neighbor who would know. Anyway, I was in my first year of nursing school in 1983 when the film "The Day After" was shown on TV about what would truly happen if the US was hit by a nuclear bomb. It was filmed (& set) around the Kansas City, MO area which was the biggest city closest to my hometown & where, it just so happened, my nursing college was located. That movie is still so vivid in my memory. I think back to the film we saw in school & now this naive little film, & of the sheer chaos & terror "The Day After" would have caused if it were shown in those much simpler times.

- January 20, 2014A Bit of Deja Vu