voodoo47 on 24/8/2017 at 06:33
you don't want your kid yelling "why do we have to be here, this is stupid and boring" when the Reds are doing one of their parades. I mean it was not something that would win you a free ticket to an uranium mine, but could result in a friendly visit from a couple of guys with badges in case someone would report. fun times.
but yeah, ice cream was cheap.
Jenga on 24/8/2017 at 07:18
I'm not old.
N'Al on 24/8/2017 at 07:21
You lot are SO old. It's disgusting, really.
Thirith on 24/8/2017 at 07:39
I'm vintage.
Sulphur on 24/8/2017 at 08:13
I'm old enough to remember when I wore a younger person's shoes. Life's about living from the get-go, that's the takeaway, no? Well, I got it, and I went.
Mr.Duck on 24/8/2017 at 09:49
I am the Alpha and the Omega.
Judith on 24/8/2017 at 10:08
"There is no advantage getting older. You don't get smarter, you don't get wiser, you don't get more mellow, you don't get more kindly, nothing good happens. Your back hurts more, you get more indigestion, your eyesight isn't as good, you need a hearing aid. It's a bad business getting old and I would advise you not to do it if you can avoid it."
(
http://the-talks.com/interview/woody-allen/)
Kolya on 24/8/2017 at 10:44
Quote Posted by N'Al
You lot are SO old. It's disgusting, really.
WHAT DID HE SAY??
demagogue on 24/8/2017 at 10:49
Quote Posted by montag
Imma probably regret this, but are you serious? Details plz.
May be hard to believe, but it was only 28 years ago that the Cold War ended, Eastern European countries were opened to the West, and things like secret police and political prisoners ended edit: ... in Europe, edit2: ... for the most part. (Their gov'ts are still on the dodgy end of the spectrum, but at least better than then! Edit3: But I may be wrong. I'm just thinking of some news stories I read but I haven't really researched it.)
Speaking of which, and to keep this on topic, I remember when the B52s took off from across the lake from my house in Texas. We were directly under the flightpath. They were still low enough when they passed over that the windows would shake. They'd take off and others would return every couple of hours day and night, on their way to hang around the Arctic Circle until they got the message to come back. If they didn't get that message, they'd hop right over the North Pole and annihilate whatever city was on their list. It was like a daily reminder of the high stakes of that era, and that my house would almost certainly be one of the first places vaporized when WWIII started. I'm so happy that time is over & the world is such a more open place now, but it left something in me too.
heywood on 24/8/2017 at 13:53
Ah, the cold war. Seems so long ago.
When I was in elementary school, we were taught once a year about safety in the event of a nuclear war: emergency distress system on the TV & radio, recognizing sirens, where the designated fallout shelters were in town, and we did drills where we all went down to the school basement where the cafeteria was, to take cover.
There was an Army depot about 45 min away that stored and shipped nuclear weapons and it was constantly in the news during the 1980s and 1990s because of protests there and people trying to break in. In the early 80s a women-only "peace camp" sprung up next to it, and every summer there were hundreds and sometimes thousands of women staying there to protest.
I remember reading Soviet Military Power in the library and being gobsmacked at the size of the forces. I also remember the intense public debate over the development of the MX missile and SDI. And the huge protests all over Germany against plans to deploy Pershing missiles, which really pissed Reagan off because the proposed Pershing deployment was just a bargaining chip to get to his "zero-zero" option (which later became the INF treaty).
In my teens my Dad had me watching movies like Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe, and the last time I remember feeling like I was in the Cold War was when watching The Hunt for Red October in the theater. By then the Berlin Wall was already in the process of coming down.
Nuclear weapons and nuclear war was taken with all the deadly seriousness it deserved back then. These days, most people seem to be rather blase about it, even though one could argue that the chances of a nuclear war are greater than they've ever been.
