Posted on 10/23/2002 3:45:03 AM PDT by Jeremiah Jr
Almost Blowing Up The World
A Child's Memoir Of The Cuban Missile Crisis — Or, How I Escaped The Apocalypse
By Jerry Cimisi
Forty years ago in late October, I came in from a lovely autumn day and sat down to dinner, surprised to see President Kennedy on the gray-blue cast of our black and white television, pre-empting reruns of the Three Stooges to announce that the Soviet Union was placing nuclear missiles in Cuba. Thus began a vivid fearful week in the life of an eleven year-old boy who lived in Rosedale, Queens.
The fear was not irrational. The memories are visceral. I was old enough — and learned enough, via the apocalypse of the many science fiction stories I read — to understand the real possibility and results of a nuclear exchange. We lived in southeast Queens, right on the border of Idlewild Airport — eventually to be renamed JFK. If war came with the Soviets, they would certainly hit that airport. If the atomic blast didn't destroy Rosedale outright, there would surely be a long death through radiation sickness.
So throughout the week there was a literal knot in my stomach as I watched the developments of the crisis on the old Zenith or read the bold, end of the world headlines in the newspapers. I heard the hushed talk of my parents — who assured me everything was going to be all right. But they did not appear convinced themselves. My bedroom window faced the direction of the airport. Because I knew light traveled so much faster than sound (186,000 miles per second versus one fifth of a mile per second), I would see the mushroom cloud before I could hear it. I was constantly looking out that window, expecting the herald of my destruction.
Simply, at eleven years old, I realized I could be killed by outside forces I could do nothing to stay.
To what depth or degree my peers felt, comprehended this, I can't say. We talked about it, of course, though most of it was the excited in-the-midst-of-danger talk that young boys take on in imitation of the escapades they had seen on cowboy shows and movies. I believe my best friend, Peter, whose block we played on that awful week, seemed to share more than a surface concern. I caught his eyes too looking southward, to the airport.
On Peter's block it was a very natural direction in which to look. The section of Rosedale where we lived had been natural swampland; it had been one of the last areas in Queens to be filled in, in the post-war housing boom. The street was wide and went down to the edge of the phragmites growing thickly across the swampy border between Idlewild and Rosedale. At the other end of the distance of this flat expanse, one could see planes taxiing in or out of the airport. Indeed, for a good portion of the year, the planes came in directly over us; by the time they reached south Rosedale, these thundering craft were low enough for one to read the logo on their curving metal sides.
We played stickball on Peter's block that week, in autumn weather that seemed perfect. It was warm enough to run around in your undershirt, yet cool enough so that sweating sometimes made me start with a sudden shiver.
Why stickball instead of football that third week in October I can't say. Perhaps we were still captivated by the latest ending ever (due to rainouts) of the World Series in San Francisco, when the Yankees' second baseman Bobby Richardson caught Willie McCovey's fierce line drive with two on and two out in the bottom of the ninth in the seventh game. The Yankees won by one run. A foot or so either way, and the Giants, who had abandoned New York five years ago, would have taken it.
So we played our own World Series, a contest that began (perhaps clairvoyantly) on that awful Monday before Kennedy made his announcement to the following Sunday, when, as they say, Khrushchev blinked and the Soviets promised to remove their missiles from Cuba.
At any rate, the tense progress of that week was intertwined with the intensity — and release — of our personal series: our End of the World World Series, you might say. As the U.S. blockaded Cuba, as UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson assailed his Soviet counterpart with the declaration that he would wait for a Soviet admission to perfidy "until Hell freezes over," as I continued to look out my bedroom window for the 20th century Angel of Death, our series continued — in perfect dramatic fashion, each side winning one day, losing the next….
Until the last day, when the seventh and deciding game was happily disrupted by the news (suddenly filtering out from various houses along the block) that the Soviets were pulling out of Castro's kingdom. The eleven year-old boy in Queens had escaped nuclear Armageddon.
We felt no need to finish our contest; we darted from the black pavement of the playing field to homes and TVs, to affirm this wonderment. Our End of the World World Series ended without being resolved, but it had served well the psyches of the children who had played it.
Every October I cannot fail to resurrect memories of baseball and the verge of atomic war. Because I survived that, it is almost a pleasant nostalgia. I guess, in a way, my friends and I had lived through an adventure, even if it had been one we had not chosen and could never direct in the least.
It seems as though a lot of people in our generation (like the author of this article) want to whine about a lot of stuff.
I was referring to the tendency to look back on these events as having caused some kind of damage to the psyche. Doesn't it seem like the writer wants to feel sorry for himself or to play the victim for having lived through those times? My point is that earlier Americans had to cope with a lot worse. They just did what had to be done and went on from there.
Starting in the '50's or '60's, we just seemed to become more self-absorbed as individuals, and I wonder if this has lead to the condition x1stcav pointed out. When Adlai Stevenson confronted the Soviet UN ambassador with his "til Hell freezes over" remark, the implication was that we would blow them to kingdom come if they did not take their missles out of Cuba. They took out the missles (although we secretly gave them quid pro quo).
Today, a lot of our politicians would call the president a warmonger and demand that we get permission from France and Potsylvania and the "world community" before the U.S.A defended itself. Rumsfield pointed out yesterday that Iraq was now faced with a set of decisions similar to what the Soviets faced in October, 1962. In '62 ALL Americans were on the same team. Today, a lot of them seem to empathize with the enemy.
As the crises progressed I recall both I and the little girl who sat in front of me would write "diaries", just little pages of notes we would jot down that might be discovered by future historians. For some reason, one of the entries she made still sticks with me today, something like "Today we will sink a Russian ship near Cuba. This could be the end of all of us!" Kids like us were just really scared, and, of course, like all kids that age, our thinking was centered on "Who will take care of me?", if our parents died in the war and we somhow lived.
Laugh or flame if you must, but it was a kind of helpless feeling for those of us who were old enough to understand what was going on, but not so old to where we thought we could tough it out on our own.
I was 9 yrs. old at the time and recall the "duck & cover" hallway drills.......sitting on the floor in the hall facing the wall with your arms covering your head which was tucked down on your knees. It was deadly serious business and every time the air raid sirens were tested, I thought, "This is it, I'll never see my Mom, Dad, sister, brothers, gram, grandpa, horses cats and dogs, again!"
Horrifying stuff, but we dealt with it and trusted our parents and teachers for guidance. I certainly empathize with the children in the DC area now!
God bless America!
Ever wondered why the trustees of the JFK Library will let no one near the unedited tapes?
These days some socialist ACLU sort would sue the goobermint for scaring the bejesus out of children with such IMO. As posts above suggest.......Americans didn't have to wonder who was and wasn't the enemy in their own country then. We were all on the same side.
Stay Safe !!
Thank you all for your input, good and otherwise. Psalm 91 over you and yours. The rest of you, weigh in. SJ! I attended Sam Houston High School...How can one sum up the battle?
The wrath of Texas is upon you...
Lets pray, Bush is ready to...deploy, in SJ mode...
That "crisis" was what turned me to the Republicans. I remember reading that JFK had known about the missiles in the spring, but waited until just before the elections because he wanted a new congress. I switched my registration from Dim to Republican then.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.