Life in a Bomb Shelter
When I was six years old, my confidence in the wisdom of the world as I knew it was challenged during a family outing to the Northland Mall near Detroit, Michigan.
In the glory days of the 1950s, the United States was on a trajectory toward economic prosperity and military might. Yet on this warm July evening, I came face-to-face with a crack in the veneer of my country’s infallibility. It was, in fact, my first glimpse into the possibility of planetary annihilation. It wasn’t until 1960 when the movie Time Machine reached our small-town movie theater that I followed the main character, Rod Taylor, deep underground to join the survivors of a nuclear holocaust.
On this particular July evening, my parents piled their four kids into the backseat of the black and white Chevy station wagon with the promise of a visit to Northland, the country’s first mall. This shiny new prototype for how we would shop in the future captured the imaginations of those who had fled the city to live in the suburbs. On our way to shop, we traipsed through rose gardens and a sculpture park before landing at a squat rectangular construction that my dad called a bomb shelter. I was surprised to discover it was for sale. A rotund man with a megaphone voice encouraged us to line up at a large rectangular window to peek at the family living inside. He enthusiastically described how comfortable life could be living in this cozy den buried underground while bombs flew overhead.
I studied the mother wearing the checkered apron and pearl necklace as she mixed packages of dried food with water. It seemed strange in my child’s eyes that she never stopped smiling even to talk to her husband or children. Next, my eyes flew to a curtained window that framed a photograph of the Swiss Alps. Below this halcyon scene, the father sat reading the daily news. A boy and girl played on the floor with their stuffed animals and toy blocks neatly piled on a shag rug. I began to imagine what it might be like to live in a shelter tucked under the basement steps in our small family bungalow.
What a lonely feeling to be out of step with mainstream values. As a child of six, I didn’t have a voice; yet, even at this age, I knew that living in a bomb shelter was not an attractive option. I calculated food would run out and my father’s newspaper would never be delivered. The worst part of this scenario came with the realization I could no longer trust in the wisdom of adults to keep me safe. They certainly didn’t appear to grasp the struggles that living underground entailed.
I already mourned the loss of the green earth, the trees, and the animals abandoned to such a horrific fate.
Of course, we didn’t know back in the 1950s that a nuclear war meant more than the potential for assured mutual destruction. It meant the advent of a nuclear winter that would decimate the entire planet. It was a time when we prayed for the conversion of Russia, when a Congressman named Joe McCarthy spouted vitriol against Charlie Chaplin and other Hollywood stars branded as communists when they challenged fascist propaganda.
Over my lifetime, a new war crops up every few years, effectively distracting the American public from problems at home. At a time when the greatest species extinction looms on the horizon and we, as the human race, face possible extinction, shouldn’t we be listening more closely to the voices of our youth?
I want a better future for our children, now called the anxious generation. I want to join the students asking us to protect our planet or those protesting the genocide in Gaza. Their chants reverberate through the halls of power. For this, they will be handcuffed, arrested, and possibly expelled from their universities. How grateful I am to them for taking this risk, for standing up for life in a world bent on spiraling toward destruction.
I want to leave behind dystopian images of a collective future that inspires us to live underground or in bomb shelters. Instead, I welcome those with the imagination to restore the earth as our inheritance for the children of future generations.
Marijo Grogan is a psychotherapist near Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA who writes about justice and spirituality. She is also a poet, essayist, and playwright. Her writing has appeared in Tiferet Journal, Braided Way, Sojourner, HerStry, Drought Times, and Crazy Wisdom. t. An award-winning play was performed at the Heartland Festival and a commentary was featured on National Public Radio. Marijo is a contributing writer to “Embody Kind,” published by BraveHealer Productions in 2022.
