Hey, J.F.K., you got lucky; Nikita blinked first. (oct. 16-oct.24, 1962--that's when prayer REALLY counted.)

I can remember during the Cuban missile crisis the nuns packed us up and sent us home to "be with our families should things take a turn for the worse." Of course, this was after things had taken a turn for the worse. I hated school and was glad to go home. But something didn't feel right. It wasn't a "snow day" kind of feeling. As we left school, Sister Beatrice yelled after us, "tell your parents it's either beads or bombs!!"

The ten minute "Duck and Cover" clip began to play during cartoon time. Captain Kangaroo talked about what to do when the bright flash of light came; it was more of a tearful goodbye. Mister GreenJeans walked off stage in the middle of Kangaroo's advice; his eyes filled with tears. The world was coming quickly to an end. Everybody was calm though, brave souls waiting for the fireing squad, waiting for Nikita to say "do svidaniya" to diplomacy. We watched Kennedy on T.V. as our troops gathered in Florida, as our B-52's, loaded to the teeth with bombs, winged away to Moscow, Kiev, Minsk, Vladivostok, to Armageddon.

I lived a few blocks from the church. The church doors stayed unlocked in those days, even at night. At all times during those twelve days in October, the church was filled with people praying the rosary, over and over -- twelve days and nights. And when it was over, they knew it was not the wisdom and restraint of world leaders that saved us, but only prayer. Prayers for mercy rose like thick, sweet incense to the gates of heaven. The Catholics in our church negotiated with and prayed to God's mother, Mary -- not to God himself. God would have let the bombs fly. God wanted to smell the blood of matyrs, not the mellifluous stench of the whispered prayers of penitent cowards. But God's mother urged him not to, not just yet, not today.

Back then, people seldom locked their doors. At night, my parents never locked the front door.

"We don't have anything. Why would anyone rob us? Unless they wanted the kids, and they can have them for all I care," he would say, then laugh.

Nobody was laughing at the prospect of global thermonuclear war.

I went outside and watched for a "big boy" looking bomb to come puttering across the sky with our Air National Guard jets following behind it, shooting at it. I worried they would hit the explosive part and the thing would blow -- this concept would later be known as "air burst."

I wondered what it would be like to burn to death. My little brother wandered outside in only his diaper. He watched me examine the empty sky, the whole time holding his bottle in his mouth. He didn't know, but I did. I was seven years old. He was just a kid.