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Cold War Connecticut & JFK: 'Elusive Hero'

http://cptv.vo.llnwd.net/o2/ypmwebcontent/Commodore%20Skahill/Colin%20McEnroe%20Show%2011-22-2011.mp3

When I was a kid, my parents fell into the practice of dropping me off at churches they themselves had no intention of attending.

So for a while, in the 1960's, I joined the Universalist Church on Fern Street in West Hartford. I went to services and Sunday school and, somewhere around sixth grade, I joined a Youth Fellowship there.

What I remember keenly is a fellowship session in which the leader, a young fair-haired guy probably in college or a year or two out, described to us what a nuclear explosion is really like. I had been brought up during the Cold War when the emphasis was on surviving an atomic bomb by hiding under your desk. This guy, I think his name was Dave, talked to us about the force of the explosion and the heat that followed. He made it clear that we would not survive in our classrooms or our homes, and that the people who had built fallout shelters would be no better off. It rocked my world.

That was the Sixties, a long dance with Death.

Leave your comments below, e-mail colin@wnpr.org or Tweet us @wnprcolin.

Colin McEnroe is a radio host, newspaper columnist, magazine writer, author, playwright, lecturer, moderator, college instructor and occasional singer. Colin can be reached at colin@ctpublic.org.

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