Oh, those ubiquitous laundry soap commercials. How could I forget the judgemental tone of the mother more worried about her newly emancipated son’s collars than the general state of his health. For that matter, nor could she be moved to say anything positive about the son’s newly procured rental abode.
That lady reminds me of my mother.
Agreed. After reading through it, I was surprised that they marked it as false rather than undetermined.
Me too! I remember asking my mother what ring-around-the-collar was, and she told me “that’s just bullshit to sell soap.”
She was equally no-non-sense about nuclear war: she told me that we lived near an Air Force base, so if it did happen, we’d be dead before we knew what happened. Freaking out wouldn’t do any good. I imagine she followed that up with asking me if I wanted to help with dinner, which I always did.
I remember reading about the Berlin Wall coming down when I was 7, and being optimistic that the world was sorting its shit out at last. I was reading a lot of old National Geographics at the time (mainly the photo captions), and I found the one on East Germany particularly interesting:
Then the Gulf war started, and I lost my youthful optimism that the adults knew what they were doing.
That’s a very blunt take on the nukes. We worried about it, but Minneapolis is a defense industry hub, so we always assumed we’d not suffer long if the nuclear shit hit the fan.
I was always thought the commercials were a good pre-opening-credits setup for a police procedural show. It was only a matter of whose body they’d be investigating post-credits.
Edit: Imagine one of those commercials written by Quentin Tarantino. It does not end well for ring-around-the-collar OR at least two characters.
I lived near the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Depot growing up. We drove by the big weird humps of dirt that bombs/missiles/whatever were stored in with armed jeep patrols, a moat, and menacing fences all the time. In 4th or 5th grade a teacher explained helpfully that since we were living so close to so many nuclear weapons we didn’t need to worry since the school was in range to be vaporized when the depot was hit as a first strike target and we wouldn’t feel a thing. This wasn’t really all that comforting.
At this point Gulf War I seems a fairly mature responsible time compared to Gulf War II - Freedom Fries Edition with the never-ending blowback/chaos. But yeah there was that brief period when it seemed like grown-ups were going to be in charge. That faded all too quickly.
I sometimes wonder where in the US wasn’t a first strike target. For those growing up in the south Bay Area, it was the Blue Cube off the corner of Moffett Field that guaranteed we’d be vaporized.
I was young enough to not really understand what it all meant, but old enough to be scared. I think it must have been around the time of The Day After movie, because I was worried about suffering more than dying. Knowing that we’d be dead fast actually did help me feel better.
My mom is blunt, but never mean, and she’s been talking me off the emotional ledge since I can remember.
My husband’s family moved to Rossmoor just before Prop. 13. He said that people began to protest the possibility of nukes and that the SB Naval Weapons Depot claimed no nuclear weapons were stored there. Do you remember this? Or had you moved on by then?
Obviously, they wouldn’t give out classified information but that place isn’t what you’d called very locked down.
I had a friend lobbying for Winnipeg to be a nuclear-free zone. I explained to him that even a visiting US aircraft with nukes wouldn’t make Winnipeg a target - it wouldn’t be there long enough for the Russians to re-task a missile to it.
I explained that the REAL strategic targets were the two major rail yards in the city - Winnipeg being both a rail hub and a choke point for all east-west rail traffic. With major nearby fuel and grain and rail maintenance depots. That plus an international airport with major aircraft maintenance and overhaul facilities.
This was back in the late 70s, and I was a kid so I had no reliable source of info. Looks like there was a leaked report that said that Seal Beach was a nuclear site in '82.
Given the strategic importance of the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Depot/Shipyards, the Boeing/Lockheed/Northrop and other aerospace facilities all around it, the desirability of destroying Long Beach Harbor, and the various bases/facilities all over Orange County I assume the Soviets would have been aiming missiles to carpet OC and Long Beach whether Seal Beach had nukes or not. The Soviets probably would have assumed that the ships/subs coming in to pick up weapons would be picking up nukes with the rest of the cargo.
Yeah, it really didn’t matter if they had nuclear weapons at this place or didn’t have them; it was the perception of the Soviets that mattered. So, yes, you would’ve been a goner.
But whatever weapons they had and still have, it still seems rather under-guarded. Or at least I keep picturing Bill Murray and Harold Ramos in an Urban Assult Vehicle taking this place. 
Still searching for subjects that aren’t sensitive on an almost dogmatic level.
Extreme right and extreme left are equally both extreme assholes.
The same here, although my parents weren’t politically aware enough to teach it themselves. Not that I blame them: 70s and early 80s UK was a miserable time to be poor and they were thoroughly preoccupied with just putting food on the table.
It was highly disconcerting to read and self teach about the Cold War and nuclear weapon effects, then to realise that we lived in an area bracketed by targets. And no-one to talk to about it … 
No argument there.
Disagreement is one thing; taking someone else’s opinion as some sort of “personal affront” is another.
My friend here had an unpopular opinion on another post, and people were losing their shit just as badly as I’ve seen right leaning zealots lose theirs when someone has the nerve to think differently than they do.
Not that I can speak for Glis, but as long as I’ve known him he’s never been one to “court sycophancy.”
If you click on the little user-icon for someone you’ll see a little ‘Message’ thingie you can click so you and @PFKA_GLSPX can chat about the rest of us without it being a public dialog. This is probably a good idea. I like you, and don’t have a huge problem with the unpronounceable guy, but there’s no need or benefit from publicly airing grievances at us. That’s pretty much a dick move and is sure to alienate people.
I’m busy with work and am not following every thread, but in my limited view it seems that the blowback against unpronounceable seems to be more from demeanor, tone, and communication styles than differences of opinion specifically (there’s plenty of types here, and we don’t agree on everything, some people here are utterly wrong as far as I’m concerned, but I still like them). YMMV. If you hang out a bit to absorb and get a feel for the style of discourse you’ll fit in regardless of your opinions, though if you say things people vehemently disagree with, nobody’s going to wear kid gloves.
