I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, but the part about underground shelters, I KNOW about those.
I remember being shown many shelters as a child, my father was an attorney looking to rent office space and I remember touring with him, my mother and older brother as we went into a bank building, then we were shown the "Civil Defense Bunker" in the basement. I remember the real estate agent saying the shelter could hold up to eight hundred people in an emergency, but it's standard capacity was 650 people. This was under a bank. That had been built in the 1950's, in downtown St. Louis City, just 3 blocks away from Busch Stadium and I think 6 blocks from the Gateway Arch and the riverfront. And there were shelters similar to that one under another 15-20 buildings in the area. I remember going to a restaurant with my parents that had the Civil Defense Shelter placard on it and I vaguely remember a small sign saying shelter capacity 60 Adults.
This is something Millennials and Gen Z and Gen Alpha don't seem to understand. 90% of Gen X has PTSD from the near constant idea of a threat of a possible nuclear annihilation at every turn.
Take in the fact that our parents basically let the schools, and our neighborhoods raise us, leaving us on our own for hour upon hours. We had to feed ourselves, get ourselves to and from school, help around the house and entertain ourselves. At the same time, the news and our entertainment media was full of the Vietnam war, the Soviets Afghanistan invasion, the Iran Hostage Crises, the OPEC oil embargo, ABSCAM, Watergate and more.
Is it any wonder why we are so jaded?
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