Ground Zero Sacramento; Anne safe under desk
I was a student at St. Ignatius school in Sacramento, California during the Cold War in the early 1960′s. There were three major Air Force bases in the Sacramento vicinity, thus we were considered to be a primary target if nuclear war broke out between the US and the Soviet Union.
We practiced air raid drills regularly; the nuns stressed that we had to duck quickly beneath our desks in order to survive. Looking back, I wonder how on earth a small wooden school desk could protect a child from a direct nuclear hit. Who was kidding whom?
One day we were sent home with a note asking our parents for instructions in the case of a nuclear attack. There were two options: we could wait to be picked up by our parents in the school parking lot, or we could be evacuated on a bus with the nuns to the mountains near Lake Tahoe. Parking lot or nuns?
For some reason I have never fully understood, my mother chose for me to go on the bus with the nuns to the mountains. (She later said that she thought it would be better if I was quickly moved to safety in the event that she couldn’t get to the school herself.)
This completely unglued me.
I developed chronic stomach aches soon afterwards. Every time my mother dropped me off at school, I looked at her in the car for possibly the last time (why else was that note sent home?) and my stomach began churning.
In case of nuclear blast, take one and duck under desk
My mother took me to the pediatrician, who prescribed lemon drops, which I was to place in my mouth every time I began to feel sick. I took a doctor’s note to Sister Catherine stating that whenever Anne Corbett got a stomach ache she was to take a lemon drop out of her desk (the same desk that ostensibly was going to save my life during the big blast) and eat it during class.
It worked. I am embarrassed to say that I was stupid enough to fall for a placebo, the old lemon drop trick. By the way, for those of you who are emotional eaters, here’s a perfect example of how powerful and intoxicating food can be as a remedy for life’s difficulties.
My stomach problems didn’t go away altogether until I convinced my mother to change my status from going with the nuns to being left behind at school. I told her that I would rather die in the parking lot of St. Ignatius than go on a bus with Sister Catherine and her cronies to Lake Tahoe.
And kids today think they have it tough.
AMEN…..donna