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My grandmother had one of these, as well. She lived in a small town in far west Texas, surrounded by pump jacks and oil fields. The shelter (or cellar, as it wa
by revscat 12y ago
My grandmother had one of these, as well. She lived in a small town in far west Texas, surrounded by pump jacks and oil fields. The shelter (or cellar, as it was later called) was always stocked with jams and canned goods, and as kids we would occasionally go down there to play, if we could manage to brave the spiders.
The thing I realized as I got older, though, was the psychological impact that the threat of nuclear war had on that generation. My grandmother was not wealthy -- she worked most of her life at the cafeteria of the local high school -- and her husband died when he was in his 30's, leaving her to raise 5 children. At some point they decided to spend not-insignificant amounts of money on building a bomb shelter. As I grew up, I realized that this had a subtle but profound impact upon the attitudes of my grandmother and her children: they were all just a little paranoid, careful to the point of it almost seeming neurotic at times. My cousins and I did not share the same fear about the world at large that we witnessed in our parents, and came to believe that this was due to the fact that we grew up in a world where nuclear threats were not so pervasive.
It all tied back to the bomb shelter. The mere existence of this cinder block-lined hole in the ground was a daily reminder of what could happen, and what they believed would very likely happen. Many of my aunts and uncles were also prone to believe in the apocalyptic scenario de jure, from upcoming depressions[1] to stockpiling food and water in preparation for Y2K, to more extreme beliefs about race wars and the second coming of Christ.
Anyway, this shelter had an impact on me at a young age, but in the opposite direction. It taught me that living in fear like that is no way to live.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Depression_of_1990 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Depression_of_1990
- wglb 12y agoInteresting. My grandparents homesteaded in Northern Montana in 1911 about six miles from a small town. Of necessity, they had a basement (cinder blocks as in your story) and it was always filled with probably six months worth of food. There were periods in my childhood where travel would be infeasible for a week or more, and that was in the age of automobiles. My uncle told of a dinner invite he and my aunt got from a neighbor after a snowstorm that closed their particular road. Having been cooped up for the better part of a week, they decided to go. To travel, they hopped in the diesel tractor (think of a very small caterpillar) and, to the surprise of their hosts, showed up on time. I imagine they left early, as top speed of the tractor was maybe 5mph.
- VLM 12y agoAnd don't forget tornados... 155 per year in Texas and they really do strike, not just theoretical. http://www.ustornadoes.com/2013/03/19/monthly-tornado-averages-by-state-and-region/ http://www.ustornadoes.com/2013/03/19/monthly-tornado-averag... I now live in a state with only 20 or so tornados per year and I sometimes feel weird not having a safe room in my basement like my grandparents. To some extent a crude fallout shelter is just a tornado shelter with canned goods and camp gear. A "real" fallout shelter is somewhat more complicated. "grew up in a world where nuclear threats were not so pervasive." The people making a lot of money off the "war on terror" would not be happy to hear stuff like that.