Duck and cover

At dinner the other night, when the kids were telling me about their day, they mentioned the "emergency" drill they had at school. Not a fire drill, mind you; but a lockdown drill. The kids had to huddle in corners of their classrooms so they couldn't be seen from the window next to the door to their rooms. The blinds have to remain open so instructions can be recieved from emergency personell outside if need be. In the younger kid's class, the teacher kept them quiet by reading a story; in the older's room, they were able to be silent by themselves. Their classrooms had both gotten a good review because they couldn't be seen from the hallway.

I sat there in horror as they matter-of-factly relayed this.

I guess the world we live in does bring about this sort of thing, but all I could think of was the sepia-toned reels of duck and cover drills from the 1950s. All these kids going through the motions, unaware that it wouldn't do a damn bit of good in the event of a nuclear attack. Parents and school officials probably felt that they had to do something to try to save themselves from an unpreventable and uncontrolable threat, so this is what kids did.

And this is what kids do now. They duck and cover, hide in a corner, until the nuclear war or the gun-totin' lunatic passes them by.