All of us of a certain age remember the “duck and cover” drill, as if ducking under our desks would shield us from nuclear fall-out. We labeled it the “kiss your ass goodbye” move. After World War II, as more countries, particularly our mortal enemy, the Soviet Union, obtained nuclear capability, some built their own bomb shelters. Fall-out shelter signs went up on many civic buildings including our schools and free-floating paranoia was the coin of the realm.

We watched with a mixture of rage and disbelief as the fearsome Soviet leader Khrushchev took off his shoe at the UN and pounded it on his desk, threatening the US. This was a formidable opponent. He had a summit with JFK in Geneva, early in the new president’s administration, and though charmed by Jackie, the report was that he ate JFK’s lunch. The young president was no match for this wily older statesman.

Though the cold war went on for many years, I seemed most aware and focused on it during the Kennedy administration, perhaps because I was so enchanted by that particular President and First Lady, or because after them, our country focused on other issues, like Vietnam, Watergate, domestic issues.

But during the early ’60s we learned that Cuba, with the strong backing of the Soviet Union, was a hostile actor just off our shore. So the “Bay of Pigs” came into the lexicon, a CIA operation that was a fiasco for the administration.

The space race commenced. The Soviets first launched a dog into orbit, then Yuri Gargarin, but JFK was determined the US (aided by ex-Naxi) know-how would win the space race and we watched Alan Shepard be the first American in space, followed by John Glenn who orbited the earth three times in 1962, and returned to space decades later, on the Space Shuttle. Months before he died, JFK challenged Americans to get to the moon in that decade, “not because it is easy, but because it is hard”. That feat was accomplished in July, 1969; 50 years ago this summer. Newly married Onassis commissioned gold and ruby “moon” earrings for his bride to commemorate this great feat, dreamed of by her late husband.

Weeks before his death, JFK signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Jackie considered this the singular greatest accomplishment of her husband’s administration, as he worked toward peace, having lived through the end of World War II and seen the devastation of nuclear holocaust. Jackie pleaded with her mother-in-law to purchase the ornate, antique desk on which the treaty was signed and kept it in her 5th Ave apartment for the remainder of her life. It was among the items auctioned after her death.

But it was 13 days in October of 1962 (October 16-28) that may well be remembered as among the most significant of the cold war era. Movies have been made, books written, tales told of those 13 days, hidden from the public when we were as close as we have ever been to the brink of nuclear war. Aerial photography taken by U-2 spy planes picked up missile sites being built in Cuba, just 90 miles off the shore of Florida. It was clear that the Soviets were preparing launch sites for nuclear weapons that could strike anywhere in the continental US.

Kennedy called in his closest advisers. They huddled for days. The generals wanted to bomb the sites, but cooler heads wanted to try diplomacy with the Kremlin. Back channel methods were used to communicate. Khrushchev wanted our sites removed from Turkey (and Italy). Negotiations went on. Eventually there was evidence of the Cuban sites being dismantled. Much later, we also took apart the Turkish sites, but didn’t admit that. That has only come to light through historical records.

My older child went to the Commonwealth School in Boston’s Back Bay. It is a marvelous school that has an assembly every Thursday afternoon. For many years, even after David graduated in 2003, I remained closely involved as a member of the Visiting Committee. I noticed on their calendar one Thursday, shortly after David graduated, that Ted Sorensen, Special Counsel and Advisor to President Kennedy, would be the Assembly Speaker. I had to go hear him speak.

I arrived just as he entered the building with Bill Wharton, headmaster of Commonwealth School, who I knew well. Mr. Sorensen was now an old man. Though fully recovered from an earlier stroke, it had left him blind. As he sat in his chair in the lobby, I approached and introduced myself. I told him my maiden name was “Sarason”, but during the Kennedy years, it was often mispronounced as “Sorensen”, which was fine with me. We both laughed about that. He asked me a few personal questions, then it was time for the assembly to begin.

He was led into the multi-purpose room by Bill, seated comfortably and given an appropriate introduction. His full head of hair was now gray, but he was instantly recognizable as Ted Sorensen. He spun his tale of being in the room during those tense, long-ago 13 October days. He gave us all inside information of what transpired, who wanted to bomb, who kept a cool head (and thank goodness cooler heads prevailed). Kennedy felt he had been burned by listening to the generals during the Bay of Pigs. He wasn’t having it this time. Though Khrushchev missed deadlines, he gave him more time, trying to delay a potentially horrible outcome. He wanted a “win-win” with everyone able to save face, and that is what he got as he pulled the world back from the brink of nuclear war. It was fascinating to hear it told from the perspective of someone who was an eyewitness and full participant. It was he and Robert Kennedy who ultimately drafted the letter that was sent to Khrushchev with the terms that were accepted and saved the day.

After the talk, and Mr. Sorensen was led out, I listened to the chatter of the kids, most of whom I still knew. I think they were too young to understand the value of what they had just heard, so I said to them: “I hope you appreciate, you just got an eye-witness account to one of the most important moments of the 20th century. Let that sink in for a bit. You are very lucky.”

In fact, we were all very lucky that we had a leader who thought before he impulsively acted, stayed calm, sought advice, but ultimately trusted himself and the wisdom around him during those 13 days in October, 1962; and everything turned out as it did for the whole world.

 

 

Genuine, hopeful retreat is possible.
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We took Driver’s Ed during a free period in high school. Since I was in choir, took PE for two years, then a semester of typing, I didn’t have any free periods until second semester of my junior year in high school. I was already 16, so I was 16 1/2 by the time I got my license. “Book work” as it was called, was taught by Bob Smilay, who had been my 6th grade teacher too. He was a super-nice guy and the course was easy. I still remember a cartoon in the book. It showed a couple seated in a car with an elephant blocking the way. The husband, in the driver’s seat, looked meekly at his wife, who looked overbearing. The caption read, “Can’t we just pretend he has the right of way?” We learned the rules of the road very well.

Then we took our knowledge out for “road work”. That was taught by Mr. Hanoian, at Kimball, our cross-town rival high school. It was the newer high school and had an enclosed track with a stop light, turns, stop sign; a place to get actual driving experience without being on a city road. There were four of us at a time in cars on the track, driving under Mr. Hanoian’s watchful eye. Finally, during the last few of the six week sessions, we all got in the special dual-brake car with Mr. H. in the front seat beside one of us. If we got out of control, he could brake for us.

I remember it was now warm weather and I wore something with short sleeves. The other three in the class were in the back seat and it was my turn to take the wheel. I pulled the shoulder strap across to buckle in. The one boy in the car was mature enough to grow a little mustache, but commented on my hairy arms! That comment has stuck with me these 50 years. I was terrified as I guided the car out onto the street. And eventually we all had to take it out onto I-75 and drive at 65 miles per hour! I remember truly having white knuckles, but survived. I passed both Book Work and Road Work and was ready to get my license.

My ever-supportive mother had me convinced there was no way I’d ever pass the road test for my license, so the day we went for the test, I didn’t bother to think about looking nice for the photo. I remember that I had a migraine and put my hair up in cork screw pigtails with pink yarn ribbons. I passed the written exam with flying colors. Then it was time for the road test. I thought I’d be sick. But the officer was very nice and we were driving around tiny Huntington Woods anyway. Of course, I passed. And there was that photo with the stupid hair style and pained look. I don’t have the photo because my wallet was stolen my senior year in college, while visiting a friend in New York City. My purse was picked on the subway…a true pain reclaiming all that ID. So the Featured photo was taken my freshman year at Brandeis at a Theatre department picnic, but that’s the hairstyle, same ribbons and all.

Mr. Smilay had a soft spot for me, having known me since 6th grade and lived through those struggles with me. My senior year, he gave me another opportunity to spread my wings, knowing that I loved theater and wanted to be a theater major in college. General Motors approached him my senior year in high school. They were making a movie about the dangers of getting high, then driving, to be shown during Driver’s Ed classes. They needed teenagers for their cast and asked Bob Smilay for help. He recruited some of his students to be in the film and asked me to be one them. We would be the kids at the pot party, passing joints around. Then one would go out and get in a car crash later. Though we were not paid for our efforts, we got to skip school, and were taken out to lunch (at the Beef Eater on Woodward, for those who remember that spot).

I was the straightest kid on earth in high school, so choosing me to be in this movie was a pretty funny choice. I thought about wardrobe choices carefully. I had a fake suede fringed skirt, worn with a white crepe blouse. To that I added “hippie” beads. I already had long, straight hair, parted in the middle. I thought, perhaps, that was how someone who smoked dope might look. The kids all showed up at the house used as the set that morning. The director had hired an ex-addict to teach us how to handle a joint, pass it around, put it to our lips and inhale; in short, look like we knew what we were doing. Most of us were pretty straight. We practiced and practiced until finally the director got a take he liked. The car crash scene was shot in reverse, with the cars put together, then driven backwards. When the movie was played, the scene would be played in reverse, as if the cars were driving towards one another. Talking heads discussed the dangers of driving while high.

The movie was shown at our high school to great acclaim and I presume was used in Driver’s Ed classes for some time after that. But I must say, it was no “Reefer Madness”. I saw that classic, stoned out of my mind, at Brandeis one night, a few years later. Now that movie is a real hoot!

Earth Day was thought up by Wisconsin Sen. Gaylord Nelson when he, along with many Americans, became outraged by a 1969 oil spill off the California coast killing untold marine life and migratory birds. Santa Barbara, where the spill occurred, though on the opposite side of the country, is in profound respects not unlike Rappahannock County, Virginia, where I published the local

newspaper: a place so endowed with natural beauty that people are inevitably attracted and drawn there.

So it is only fitting that my most memorable Earth Day occurred a couple of years ago right here in Rappahannock County. Or was it Madison or Culpeper County? Manmade boundaries can become fuzzy on a glorious, cloudless April afternoon in the Blue Ridge foothills.

I was canoeing with a few friends and family on the Hughes River where the counties come together. This time of year, when the water is high, is about the only season you can attempt to float down a rocky stream like the Hughes, no wider than the length of a canoe before it flattens out and joins the Hazel at Slate Mills.

Right below the river’s Old Rag headwaters, near Peola Mills, at the Route 231 bridge, is where we put our three canoes in the water. Our destination was less than 10 miles downstream, at the U.S. 522 bridge over the Hazel. But we hadn’t gone more than a mile when it happened:

We spotted some other people, no doubt like us, outdoors celebrating Earth Day. They were hidden except for their heads poking up above the underbrush on the far side of a sharp bend in the river. They must be fishermen. We waved and hollered a friendly hello.

They froze, said nothing, looked at us as if they’d seen a ghost, then disappeared behind the brush. As we paddled closer, we saw them jump into a pickup truck, slam the doors and drive quickly away down the dirt road, more like a path, that led south away from the river. Only then did we see what they had left behind:

Three old refrigerators dumped in the shallow water at the bottom of the riverbank. On Earth Day, no less! No wonder they ran away.

But there is hope in that.

Did they know it was Earth Day, and so appreciate the sad irony in what they were doing? Probably not. Or know that the Hughes would this year be designated a “State Scenic River?” Of course not. But still they ran away.

They knew they were doing wrong, if not actually breaking a specific law. They had been caught, red-handed. At the very least, they were embarrassed, even shamed. Otherwise, why run away?

It could have been worse. (It can always be worse.) They could have held their ground, stared us down and — when confronted with any scolding words emanating from the vulnerable children and parents precariously perched in tipsy canoes – told us to mind our own “GD” business. I could easily imagine their reaching toward a rifle rack in the cab of the pickup.

Instead, they ran away. Forty years ago there would have been much less of a chance of that. May the embarrassment continue until all of us get things right.

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