I did view "Threads", years ago. It was disturbing, yes. When I was in school, the teachers all put out an advisory about "The Day After (1983)". It was a big

I did view "Threads", years ago. It was disturbing, yes. When I was in school, the teachers all put out an advisory about "The Day After (1983)". It was a big deal; many families were planning to watch it, and it wasn't on cable, it was on broadcast OTA TV, so it was highly accessible, even to children. The school administration decided they needed to get in front of the controversy and put out a Christian message about hope and trust in God, when it seemed like the world was panicking over the Cold War and mainstream media was egging us on. Ever since then, I have appreciated their candor and willingness to tell us the truth about this world and the next. We had fire drills at school; we knew about "duck and cover" but we didn't practice any air-raid drills that I can recall. However, when my mother took me shopping at the JC Penney across town, there was prominent signage for their old-fashioned Fallout Shelter in the basement. I was really intrigued by the bold yellow lettering and symbology, and I sometimes wonder what it was like down there, because we've never seen the inside of any bomb shelter whatsoever. My dad worked around hazardous materials on a regular basis, as a safety professional, and he was on the science end of things, and spent time in the office as much as the lab. He often brought home tools like a Geiger counter, film badges, a radio pager, and I think there were other chemical sensors ("sniffers"?) Learning at his feet, I picked up a lot of geology, so I could recognize isotopes and chemical symbols and count in rems, etc. Earthquakes were the primary hazard for us, and I suppose that any nuclear explosion would've had earthquake-like effects, among other things, to put it blandly.