Time Held Hostage: Cold War Casualties and Other Atomic Age Stories

By J.W. Ferrari

Shelter drills, discussions at school, media exposure, all served to embed the idea of threat to our very existence deep in conscious and subconscious thought. In this book the worldwide events that took place during the Cold War are explored through the lens of everyday life. The stories presented in Time Held Hostage, Cold War Casualties and Other Atomic Age Stories are reflections on the effect of a threat and anxiety experienced by a generation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Jan 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483420455

Book preview

TIME HELD HOSTAGE

Cold War Casualties and Other Atomic Age Stories

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J.W. FERRARI

Copyright © 2015 J.W. Ferrari.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-2046-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-2045-5 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 1/13/2015

CONTENTS

Shelter Game

Camping On The Edge

Shelter Drill

What Killed Hubie Tyne

Crisis At The Club

Footrace To Euphoria

End Of Iconoclast

Death Of The Buddha

The Calling

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T he comfortable cushion of time had been abruptly pulled from under the Age. Admonitions of patience and dependence on future possibilities lost any serious meaning for many of the era. Shelter drills, discussions at school, media exposure, all served to embed the idea of threat to our very existence deep in conscious and subconscious thought. Society today suffers in large measure from the Cold War in America and around the world.

Lack of answers to the escalating arms race and the anxiety it produced provided the impetus which pushed societal aberration to proportions we continue to deal with today. Defectors from all segments of society emerged as Beat Drop out Now and Me sub cultures producing Hippies Yippees and Yuppies. These were not isolated social movements but the conscious and subconscious response to the mushroom push which generated a quantum leap in anxiety.

There was nothing new in the pursuits for relief which burgeoned into societal problems during the atomic age. Drugs, hedonistic and sexual gratification, selfishness bordering on greed, all had been factors which prior to the age existed in the shadowy undercurrent of human aberration.

Ideas sprang up to confront the status quo and shake the foundations of society at every turn. Children put flowers in the barrels of the rifles pointing toward them in the name of order. They wrote Peace and Love on everything from their foreheads to grimy subway walls. They protested not only the unpopular war of their era but all war. They admonished the Movers and Shakers for their insensitive attacks on the environment under the guise of corporate sovereignty and capitalistic advancement. They struggled with the threat in many ways from vocal protest to silent escapism.

The era passed seemingly without effect and the powerful protests became an exercise in pessimism in the face of harsh reality. A reality offset by the unfortunate insinuation of drugs as a means of escape and relief. Were drugs the downfall of the ill-fated revolution or the final desperate response of a generation to a society obviously gone too far for simple solutions.

Historical significance of the era lay not in the momentous change initiated but in the fact that the uncomfortable truth was exposed. This generation held a mirror before the face of a self destructive world before it disappeared down the rabbit hole of self indulgence induced by fatalistic belief.

The natural world in possession of new power and ability endangered its very existence and this danger also pressed mankind into the search for relief upon a higher plane of Spiritual understanding. Seekers of the era examined their belief systems and found Organized Religion so entwined with Organized Society as to be almost indistinguishable. In response they abandoned the static inflexibility of atrophied systems in favor of experimentation with, if not new, at least different approaches to spiritual understanding. The result of these experiments did little except redirect searching Humanity back to a fundamental approach. These forgotten ways of a simpler time were embraced only to discover that they had already outgrown them.

The inexorable forward thrust of Humanity allied with technology was irreversible. If solutions were to be forthcoming they had to be associated with modern techniques and knowledge. Man’s inability to modify and restructure positions in the natural world were mirrored by the inability of organized Religion to assimilate modern knowledge and restructure accordingly. The first generation of the Atomic Age inherited a situation which left them on their own in a way unprecedented in Human History. Though weapons enough to destroy all life remain in place the threat has been dulled by time and changing world considerations.

Survivors of the cold war have no credentials proving them veterans of the conflict which raged in their consciousness for over forty years. They continue to deal with the problems of a wounded society, victim of time held hostage for most of their lives. The stories presented are reflections on the effect of threat and anxiety experienced by a generation.