My mother and the Cuban Missile Crisis

Easton Manor was my grandfather's home, from the late 1930's until 1962. The Manor had underground tunnels that were created to hide booze during prohibition. 

     During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, my Mother had a primal fear that Ottawa and Smiths Falls would be decimated by nuclear explosions: "Washington D.C. will be hit first, and then Ottawa, because it's the capital of Canada" she reasoned.
     My little brothers, nine and ten years old respectively, dug "fallout shelters" in the tiny back yard. My Dad sold fallout shelters on his Ottawa television program "The House Detective". The Diefenbunker nuclear shelters were built for the Prime Minister of Canada and government officials. One Diefenbunker is located in Carp, Ontario, it is a tourist attraction.

     In a department store, Mom dropped to her knees and started praying, during a power failure. A stranger tapped her on a shoulder and said "The lights will be back on in a few minutes."
The massive power failure that later affected Ontario, New York State and New England on November 9, 1965 was also an ominous event, in her mind. Maybe she was right:

DIARY - November 9, 1965 - There was an immense power failure as I was walking to Custer's, but I didn't know it at the time. Walter Cronkite couldn't be reached for the news, so Roger Mudd substituted in a special report. This event reminds me of the movie "The Day the Earth Stood Still"

For years afterward, I had nightmares about cataclysmic events that would destroy the planet. Our safe haven, The Farm in Easton's Corner's, had been "signed away" by my confused grandmother, in 1962. My grandmother,mother and her half a dozen children were left homeless overnight when the new owner of the Manor told us to "Get off my property." I learned that Mrs. Hall created a nursing home called "The Stepping Stone" and placed bathrooms in every one of the bedrooms. All the rooms had been given names, and were decorated accordingly ---the Blue Room, the Yellow Room, the Library.


During the 1960's my mother was constantly on edge, almost paralyzed by fear - even commercials about "The Emergency Broadcast System" would stop her in her tracks, until the announcer said "This is only a test."
DIARY - January 9, 1966 - Dreamt that a nuclear bomb on a ship exploded accidentally, and the world ended. It was terrifying and I woke up early, shaking. A massive snowstorm paralyzed the East Coast.

March 25, 1966 - It snowed heavily again. For lunch I had chocolate cake and potato chips. Saw the movie "On the Beach" with Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner. At the end of the movie (and the world) Waltzing Matilda was playing as Ava stood bravely on the shore. I burst into tears.

June 29, 1966 - Dreamt I was in a nuclear war. I went seeking shelter with my possessions - my diary, blanket and a pen. Audie Murphy was also in the shelter.

July 12, 1966 - Just as I suspected, the big storm we had for five minutes was a tornado. It's a dreadful thought, but I think all the missiles and bombs have something to do with this weather.

August 10, 1966 - Dreamt there was an attack on Alaska and South America. An American newscaster said "Canadians may not be used to this" and we all crowded into the landlady's apartment and breathed into World War 1 gas masks.

At the Carnegie Public Library I could escape from my Mother's paranoia; from the transients that my brothers picked up at the train station ---one boy spiked by Coca-Cola drink with an hallucinogenic drug, either mescaline or LSD. My mother was on the verge of taking me to the hospital for injections of Valium or another sedative to "bring me down".  The library was a haven, from the marijuana and cigarette smoke...
I could escape from rock music, especially Iron Butterfly, Steppenwolf and the Rolling Stones. Rock music is used as a form of psychological torture by the American Central Intelligence Agency. Music by Van Halen and my cousin Bruce Cockburn (If I Had a Rocket Launcher) was employed to drive Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega out of a sanctuary.
My Mother convinced the boys that they had musical talent, that "it runs in the family". "One day, you'll play at the Mariposa Folk Festival, the Riverboat Inn and the Whiskey a Go Go" she told them.
I'm surprised that she did not include Madison Square Garden, where the Leningrad Cowboys wanted to perform.

 Bruce Cockburn visited us in 1969, when my family and I lived in a shack in Brockville, Ontario. My brother Leslie tried to open his guitar case to look at his guitar, but Bruce Cockburn told Leslie to "get your hands off my guitar".
Mom compared my brothers to Ethel Kennedy's sons Joseph and Robert Kennedy Jr., who were getting a lot of publicity for marijuana possession and careless driving. The Kennedy's were America's aristocrats, comparable to the royal family in England.
"The boys" wanted to convert our apartment in Smiths Falls into a drop-in centre, or a coffee house. They would charge admission, and sell instant coffee and Betty Crocker Devil's Food Cake or Angel Food Cake. Mom and I traveled on a Canadian National Railways train to rescue one brother from Rochdale College in Toronto. We also visited them at the Bowmanville Training School for Boys (a German P.O.W. camp during World War 11). The Ontario Realty Corporation, a provincial Crown corporation that privatizes government buildings, owned Bowmanville.

Our next-door neighbour's home in Brockville.