It's been a long time since the Cold War years, but a recent conversation with my husband's granddaughter had me thinking about those years. Cali was asking her grandfather and me 10 questions about our experience of living through the years of the Cold War. It was an assignment for a class she is in at Parkland High School, where she is a junior.

The decades of political and military tension with U.S. and NATO countries opposing the governments of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc nations began at the conclusion of World War II, a few years before I was born, and is generally thought to have concluded in 1991, with the dissolution of the USSR and the signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

Particularly in its early years, the two superpowers seemed to be only moments away from a possible all-out nuclear attack, a World War III that might have completely destroyed two nations. Both sides heavily supported regional wars in Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan, fighting for dominance indirectly, seemingly as a way to avoid a direct war between the U.S. and the USSR and the dropping of atomic bombs.

Cali's questions focused on our personal memories of that time.

I was born in 1950. A vivid memory I have of my elementary school years is having air raid drills. In one school building we had to crawl under our desks, and in another, we went into an interior hallway, crouched against the wall and covered our heads with our arms. Although our teachers must have attempted to remain reassuring during these drills, most of us doubted such a drill would help much if an atomic bomb big enough to create a mushroom cloud like we'd seen on TV was dropped anywhere near our school. Mostly, the drills just made us anxious.

In school, in the news and in the movies we learned about propaganda, discussed psychological warfare, brainwashing and espionage, and were riveted by stories of Germans escaping from behind the Iron Curtain, all part of the Cold War world in which we grew up.

In my neighborhood, after the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, a family built a bomb shelter in the basement, designed to seal out radioactive fallout from an atomic blast. All the children wanted to see it – and to be best friends with their son, just in case.

Even though I was still in elementary school at the time, I recall how concerned the grownups were when the Soviets launched Sputnik, putting a missile into space before the U.S. The space race that followed was a side effect of the Cold War that excited me in a positive way during my teenage years, as I cheered on NASA's efforts to put a man on the moon. I still have newspaper clippings about the space program milestones.

I am not a historian or sociologist, but it seems to me so much of what I grew up with during my youth and young adult years – the war protests, the hippie movement, the radical change in music – came indirectly from that U.S.-Soviet conflict, as my generation grew up in that environment.

Talking with Cali about those stressful times, when we were aware our world might blow up at any minute, I realized children in most generations probably have fears and anxieties about the world they live in. Growing up during World War II, or in poverty, or with a tragic death in the family can leave us with memories we may wish we didn't have. But the fearful Cold War events are not the memories that come to mind first, as I look back.

I remember how my mom brushed my long hair each morning during my preschool years; how we went crabbing on the Chesapeake Bay or at an inlet near Rehoboth Beach with a few chicken necks and came home with a feast of crabs for steaming; how we took turns playing with my toddler brother who was confined to an oxygen tent when he had bronchial pneumonia. I remember my dad at the barbecue grill, flipping burgers, my beautiful mother in her Easter bonnet, the violin my parents scrimped and saved to give me as a surprise birthday gift.

I remember feeling safe, and my parents and the close family life they created for me and my brothers and sister are the reason why.

With the advent of the 24-hour news cycle, today's children see far more of the dangers of the world on television than I did in my youth. What do today's young people feel stressed about? A terrorist on an aircraft flight? A tornado or hurricane coming up the coast to destroy their home? Identity theft? A serious computer virus? Global warming? Their employability?

I'd like to suggest it's the parents in today's world, their dedication to family values, that goes a long way towards making our children feel safe in an unsafe world. It worked for me.

Thanks, Mom and Dad, and to all of the parents and grandparents out there who help today's children feel safe, too. Love is the answer, and you don't have to be a member of the Hippie Generation to know that.

Linda Wojciechowski

associate editor

Catasauqua Press