While I was in the middle of reading Countdown, I started to think about my parents. I've heard my parents mention some memories they have of John F. Kennedy from when they were kids in the sixties. Franny got me thinking a lot about what it must have been like to try to understand these huge international political issues from an eleven-year-old's perspective, and then it hit me: my dad was also eleven years old in 1962!
I called my dad and told him about the book, and he sounded really interested (maybe he'll even read it one day!). I told him about Franny and her age and about the historical events she was right in the middle of. He said he remembered hearing a lot about what was going on in Cuba from watching television and hearing other people talk about it frequently. It sounded like my dad was a lot like Franny in that it was something he heard about all the time but was probably unable to grasp the intricacies and implications of the situation.
He did share a pretty cool memory with me, though: my dad said that he and his friends were constantly hearing about fallout shelters, just like Franny was, and they decided to make their own! He said that he and his friends dug a huge hole out in a field near where they lived and covered the opening with sticks, cardboard, and whatever they could find.
I thought it was so interesting to hear my dad's memories from his pre-teen perspective of the same events I was reading about. And how cool is it that they tried to make a shelter?!
Susan Elliott
Wow, Susan, I love that story about your dad. I was thinking as I walked to work this morning from MetroLink that my parents graduated from college in 1962. I'd like to ask them how they remember the Cuban Missile Crisis. Like many Americans, they can tell the story of where they were when Kennedy was shot, but they have not said how they were affected by the fear of nuclear war and the Russians.
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