Duck and cover. That may sound like a country music duo, but it’s not. At least I don’t think so. Those three words were a technique used in air raid drills that many of you who attended public schools in the 1950s and 1960s may recall. It was part of a preparation for U.S. citizens to survive being bombed by the Soviet Union.
Duck and cover. Students were instructed to get under their school desks or get on their knees and cover their heads. Mandatory drills were in place to have kids practice the technique, handouts were sent home with students, and President Kennedy was telling Americans to build nuclear fallout shelters in their backyards. Congress allocated $169 million to identify suitable public buildings, erect fallout shelter signs on them, and stock them with supplies. It was a time of immense fear about something we were told was deadly and imminent, and even the silliest of precautionary efforts that were promoted by the government were taken seriously.
Duck and cover. The nuclear fallout shelters were to be stocked with water (at least one gallon of water per person, per day), canned food and a supply of potassium iodide tablets to help protect from cancer caused by radioactive fallout. We now know that these shelters would have been mostly useless in cities that were attacked and of limited benefit in outlying areas. What were the survivors to do when they eventually had to leave the shelter after five days or 30 days or whatever the nightly news said and be exposed to the nuclear fallout? OK, so maybe all the details weren’t pieced together to survive a nuclear attack. They still aren’t, at least not for us commoners. But in the 1960s, President Kennedy was attempting to persuade the Soviet Union that we were prepared and indestructible. Do you think Khrushchev was convinced?
Duck and cover. I was too young for this drill. The practice, along with the stocking and use of the nuclear fallout shelters, had mostly disappeared by the 1970s when I was in elementary school. But those nuclear fallout shelter signs with the three yellow triangles in a black circle were still posted, and my friends and I wondered what they were for. A few of these signs can still be seen in banks, hotels, libraries, post offices, schools and hospitals. The fear of nuclear war subsided in the 1970s but reared its ugly head again in the 1980s. Unfortunately, it all feels a bit too real again today.
Duck and cover.
Have a wonderful Wednesday, and thanks for reading.
Shane Goodman
President and Publisher
Big Green Umbrella Media
shane@dmcityview.com
515-953-4822, ext. 305 | 
