This is a slightly slimmed-down version of a poem I posted 5 or 6 years ago. It came to mind as my neighbor's 13 year-old daughter interviewed me last week for a paper she was writing on life in the 1950s. Unfortunately, the topic also has been occupying news headlines recently because of activitiesin North Korea and Iran.
Those Old Wooden Desks
We’d never even leave the room
When those four shrill bells
Would sound, telling us another
Air raid drill was underway.
The basement was already
Crowded with kids in phys-ed class since
Our school didn't have a gym. The
Auditorium was off limits to us, too:
At least until the leaking roof was fixed.
No, we crawled, instead,
Under those old wooden desks:
Relics from a different age,
Covered in graffiti carved with
Boy Scout knives and darkened
with the ink from leaking fountain pens.
Frankie G. sat at my desk in 1943 and
An arrow through a crooked heart
Assured anyone who came along that J.D. and B.F.
Would stay together through eternity.
Air raid drills were all the rage back in 1956.
"The Commies have nukes!" they’d warn us
Over and over again, although, I couldn’t
Imagine why they’d want to drop them on
A bunch of stupid little fourth-graders.
Come to think of it, I couldn’t figure out
How those old wooden desks were going to
Save us all from getting fried in the
Mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb, either.
Maybe Frankie G. or J.D. and B.F. knew.
If they did, they should have carved the
Answer into the top of those old wooden desks.
Yes, indeed
the thought of the clouds
was in every kids head
born in 1944 or thereabouts.
Those wooden desks
made it creepier:
this is our defense?
Nice piece, Joe
I remember the drill like all of our era. Funny during an earthquake how that stuff comes back to you. "Get under the desks and stay away from anything that my fall on your heads, children."
Les
I liked this one, I enjoyed the humor, as if a desk would help in a nuclear attack. One more thing to scare kids to death. I do however remember owning a Mickey Mouse gas mask and ration books, though that was at the end of WW2. Kids today have their own fears.
JP
Peter, Les, and JP:
Thanks for reading and commenting. Those really were scary times for us "old folks" who lived through them. I may have taken it to heart more than others, but I was absolutely terrified by the thought of nuclear bombs dropping all over New Jersey. And I actually do remember that feeling of futility...even at 10 and 11 years old...as we went through those drills. Thankfully, we all made it through, and I hope the current saber-rattling proves to be just that and nothing more...especially since we no longer have those old wooden desks to save us.
Joe