Threats of nuclear war again put life in perspective

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, March 29, 2022

I appreciate the recent letter to the editor regarding the U.S.’s nuclear arsenal. I hadn’t known about Vasili Arkhipov; how lucky for the world he was where he was. I do have one specific memory from that week in October 1962, the Cuban missile crisis.

I was a student in Santa Barbara, living in off-campus housing. Following the news by radio, my roommates and I were stocking a few provisions in our under-staircase closet. Wasn’t much of a “plan” but it felt like we were doing something. My vivid memory, though, was hearing the ever-scarier news suddenly interrupted one morning by a downtown jewelry-store ad, of all things. A gung-ho salesman was hyping a big sale going on: Come see us for all your holiday jewelry-shopping needs! Or words to that effect.

This struck me as so inane, so absurd! Here we were — Russian ships and subs chugging toward Cuba, where missiles (aimed at us) had just been discovered — and someone thought promoting diamonds and pearls was important at that very moment? Such surreal feelings have recently returned.

It was a terrible moment when human beings figured out how to build nuclear weapons, not that they hadn’t been perfecting ever more immoral and ghastly weaponry during all their eons spent on the planet. I believe the letter’s final words are exactly right. All fingers crossed.

Candace Plog

Edmonds