59 years ago today on Oct. 22, 1962, President John Kennedy

[elleng]

Last edited Fri Oct 22, 2021, 04:54 AM - Edit history (1)

delivered a nationwide televised address notifying Americans of what would become known as the Cuban Missile Crisis.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. I remember that well.

I was a sophomore in high school, and i recall the fear and terror of the Cuban missile crisis.

[murielm99]

5. I was a freshman.

My parents were trying hard to keep my two brothers and me from being terrified. In my case, it did not work.

I kept looking at the crawlspace off our basement. I was trying to figure out if we could survive a nuclear war down there.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

6. You are all of a year younger than me.

It was a terrifying time.

[Walleye]

2. Remember it well. I was in junior high. The grownups were scared and that scared me

I was always interested in current events, news and politics.We lived about 5 miles from a major East Coast airbase. 90 miles from Washington DC. I was sure we would be a target. It has a occurred to me that the most influential thing on the baby boom generation happened to before we were born, that being Hiroshima and Nagasaki

[dflprincess]

3. I remember when this was going on

I was 9, old enough to be scared but not quite old enough to understand it all.

Our TV broke that day, the repairman was taking it "to the shop" when we were getting home from school. Not too much later he came back with a loaner. That had never happened before and when I heard him tell Mom he thought they should be able to watch, not just listen to the president I figured out that something bad was going on.

We were near Buffalo, NY and there was a fear the steel plants would be targets.

[Irish_Dem]

12. Same here, about the same age as you. Old enough to be scared, but not understanding all of it.

I remember JFK talking to Americans on the TV.
My mother was quiet and somber.
But she tried to downplay it when I asked her what was happening.

[Backseat Driver]

4. What 4 years did I miss?

Bring in the Ninja auditors...

[electric_blue68]

7. Oh, geeeebz. I was 9 years old living on NYC. Target ?#2...

Oh, yeah. "Good times!"

I didn't watch the address as I wasn't watching TV evening news yet.

But I knew what was happening by the next day. We got the NY Times in our advanced class. Then after that day I saw some of the stuff on the evening news.

Plus we had air raid drills every month where the whole city was practically engulfed in the sirens. Also having been watching the nuclear testing "atomic monster" movies... I knew we could go "poof".
And we didn't know about Nuclear Winter, yet, either!

The movie "Thirteen Days" is good.

That was a damn rough time!

[Karma13612]

8. Don't you mean

59 years??

I was 8 and didn’t pay much attention to current events at that point.

But I won’t forget 1963.

🥲

[elleng]

9. YES, thanks!

on Oct. 22, 1962,

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

my college freshman year.

[MoonchildCA]

10. Well, as I was born that year...

…I happen to know it was not 55 years ago.


Edit: Seems you corrected it as I was typing.

[LeftInTX]

11. I was in first grade. I lived in Japan and we did not have TV

Well, we did, but it was in Japanese and it was only turned on for cartoons. My parents must have listened to the Armed Forces Radio for news.