Column: A first-grader’s guide to survival in the Atomic Age

Dear readers,

I know the calendar says August, but August is the new September and school is already starting.

When I started school in 1961, the loss of freedom was a shock to my system.

Back-to-school sales seem to be triggers. Every year when school starts, I always become unstuck in time just like Billy Pilgrim.

Chet Huntley and David Brinkley are bringing me the news. The signal is coming through the ether. I don’t even need a TV with a picture tube and aluminum foil on the rabbit ears to pick up the waves. I can see it all in my mind’s eye.

Griffeys Sporting Goods has Converse basketball shoes on sale for $5.95 a pair.

1961 was a bad year for freedom. I know because I was a victim. I did not attend kindergarten. I did not attend pre-school. My days of endless playtime were replaced with first grade.

I was thrown into a world of Industrialized time. I had to be in my seat with my smiling face when the bell rang. I had to get in line when the bell rang. It was a program of behavior control.

When the bell rang for lunch, I started salivating just like one of Pavlov’s dogs. It was such a frightening experience that I developed a psychosomatic rash. 

Lunch did bring a half pint of happiness in the form of Compton’s chocolate milk served in a little glass bottle.

I was not alone in my loss of freedom in 1961. Oppression was in the atmosphere. The Communists in East Germany were building the Berlin Wall at that very same time I was beginning my Pavlovian training. 

It was the time of the Cold War. J.O. Parrish Lumber Co. was advertising for Shelbyville citizens to “Build your Family an Atomic Fallout Shelter.”

Step-by-step plans were included with the purchase of materials. The Fallout Shelter was made of wood and designed to fit into the basement of existing homes.

Red Scare had its grip on America. The Russians were winning the space race. Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had become the first man to orbit earth.

Lucky for me, unlike the East Germans, my imprisonment ended at 3 p.m. every afternoon. The East Germans had to wait until Nov. 9, 1989.

Other than school, and worrying about the Russians, everything else was good. The Flintstones were on TV and so were Rawhide, Route 66, and the Twilight Zone.

I remember one of the episodes of the Twilight Zone featuring a family who had installed one of those J. O. Parrish Lumber Co. Fallout Shelters. The family had to deal with the horror of letting their neighbors and friends die from radiation while they were all snug in their shelter.

In the following week’s episode, everyone in the town looked like pigs. Maybe it was from atomic radiation or maybe the two episodes weren’t related. Then again, maybe that was just a bad dream I had after seeing the largest pig in the world at the Indiana State Fair.

Anyway, life as a first grader in 1961wasn’t all bad. I did like my teacher, Mrs. Fisher. She was nicer to all of us than we deserved.

Also, the crayons were as fat as a cigar won at a carnival and one side was flat so they wouldn’t roll off your desk.

I must end here. I’m starting to itch. I think my rash might be returning.

See you all next week, same Schwinn time, same Schwinn channel.