At the same time I am reading Physics for Future Presidents. Another good book and recommended reading if you want to know the science behind some of the things that scare us…like 'dirty' bombs and radiation. You can even lose your fears!
Now I'm from the generation that grew up with 'the Bomb' and I have a well defined fear of it. You would too if you had spent a portion of your childhood crouched under your desk in school, studying the dust bunnies and dirt while awaiting the bright flash that would signify that your world was going to end. Even today, I can remember my 7th grade classroom and the south wall of that room was all glass; glass that I knew was going to shatter and come flying across the room, cutting and killing us. In my mind I can see Mrs. Burt, my teacher, silhouetted against that south wall with a light brighter than the sun behind her.
Yeah, I remember that... I went to a high school in downtown Toronto where we used to line up along the walls of the basement hallway during bomb drills. I'd stand there thinking, What's the point? Anybody dropping The Bomb on Toronto is going to aim for This School because it's pretty much dead centre!
ReplyDeleteMy Mom wanted to build a bomb shelter; my Dad, ever the fatalistic old atheist, refused to listen to her. So she got all these pamphlets on how to build a bomb shelter and discussed them with me, her eldest daughter. As if I was going to make it home after The Bomb fell on My School, to hide in our personal basement bomb shelter! How to totally terrify your kids...
I have heard about that book, guess I should go look for it...