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Duck and Cover Drill

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Duck And Cover Drill
David J Walker
 
I still 
Remember the drills 
Holding our heads under 
The third-grade desks
 
“Perfect,” our teacher said
Repeat after me
“Duck and Cover”
“Duck and cover”
 
And us boys on the 
Playground 
With wide-eyed pride
That our town 
Was important enough
For the Russians to bomb
With nuclear weapons
 
Pueblo
Had a weapons depot 
That no one we know
Had ever seen
 
But we had seen the
Graining film of  the
Mushroom cloud above the
Blast that would last only 
Seconds before 
Everyone and
Everything  was gone
 
Everyone but our 
Third-grade class 
Safe under our desks 
Heads beneath our arms
Where we would stay still 
Until the alarms were sounded
All clear from the
Duck and Cover Drill

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J. Summers

Date: 12/2/2020 1:57:00 PM

I remember the old duck and cover drills. I also remember being peeved when I found out that (at least in my part of the country) duck and cover wasn't a very good option. Actually, it wasn't an option at all. Nice bit of nostalgia.

David Walker
Date: 12/3/2020 3:21:00 AM

Thanks, J, Thanks for reading my poem. We joked about it in the Army. ... wanting to take a school desk to war rather than our helmets LOL ...