Armageddon revisited …The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962

“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” – Hindu Scripture

My parents began hoarding industrial quantities of tinned food  and cumbersome sacks of powdered milk in October 1962. They spoke in hushed tones about our imminent demise. Nuclear war was all but inevitable. At 10 years old, I was about to be incinerated, turned into radioactive dust.

 

John F. Kennedy, a revered figure in our home as in so many others, had given the Soviet Union, led by the widely disparaged Nikita Khrushchev, an ultimatum: remove the nuclear missiles it had installed in nearby Cuba, or face nuclear annihilation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis

 

In those pre 24/7 cable news, pre-Internet times, Canadians who lived close to the American border had irrevocable, unadulterated confidence in the legendary CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite, who brought us the terrifying tidings of impending Armageddon in those portentous fall days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Cronkite

 

For my parents as for so many others, Walter spoke the gospel truth, and during those two weeks in October, he intoned that conflagration was inevitable and that the world as we knew it was soon to be no more.

 

Now as far back as I can remember, our family life was infused with near terminal anxiety… and one’s body keeps the score.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Body_Keeps_the_Score

 

In my case, the multifold tensions of our home and hearth, and my conviction that as a profligate sinner I was destined for eternal damnation, fostered chronic insomnia that has lasted to this day.

 

During the Cuban missile crisis, fear and helplessness reached their apogee. My father huffed and puffed and ingested Phenobarbitals, “phenobarbs” as he called those barbiturates that barely quelled his perpetual state of manic high alert, while my mom typically lapsed into near catatonia, robotically stacking cans of Jolly Green Giant peas as absurd ballast against the impending apocalypse.

 

https://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-8689/phenobarbital-oral/details

 

For a full thirteen terrifying days, we stared at the flickering screen of our rabbit-eared tv set, transfixed, as Walter narrated the approach of Soviet armed vessels toward Cuba, aided by a rudimentary map upon which animated ships chugged, guided by cartoon arrows, toward the American blockade line…the point at which our doom was irrevocably sealed.

By October 28, 1962, the lurching, spasmodic arrows had done an about-face and for the moment we were spared obliteration.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lP_ICJo_Jg

 

But the damage was already done, the utter terror that gripped my childhood world had already been internalized and ingested….and by recurring crises, near terminal anxiety is being stoked and fed to this day.

 

Author’s Note

I’ve written a book of creative non-fiction titled My Time with You Has Been Short but Very Funny, recently published and now on the market in French as well as in English. The book is based on stories that I told over the years as a writer/ broadcaster and host on CBC radio based in Quebec City, Canada.

 

The book is available via my website. The purchase links are at the bottom of the home page.

If you are so inclined, please check out the blog postings on my website.

https://robertmcbrydeauthor.com/

“Armageddon revisited …The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962” is an excerpt from a new book of vignettes  I’m cooking up, titled It’s All in the Condiments. It is being posted to commemorate a chillingly seminal moment in the lives of those of us who are fast approaching our own demise.