My first run-in with war was when I was 5. I was playing in the living room and my handsome young father was in the overstuffed chair, reading the newspaper. I knew he had been a soldier and asked the obvious question: “Did you ever fight dinosaurs in World War II, dad?”

“Just the Nazis, son.” Pops was both honest and a minimalist.

This was 70 years ago and I don’t have a single day-planner left from 1955. But, same dad, same living room, same day, the evening news was on TV. Looking back, I’m guessing we were wealthy, owning a 10-inch-wide fuzzy black-and-white screen. The newscaster solemnly announced that guerillas sporting machine guns opened fire on patrons in a crowded Mexico City restaurant, killing 36.

Then and now? Most things in the adult world strike me as unfair. And insane. I asked my father:

“Gorillas have machine guns?”

Dad delineated between “gorilla” and “guerilla.” Almost a mature man today, I still have trouble wrapping my mind around the difference.

Later, around second grade, began the abject humiliation of participating in those Cold War “Duck & Cover” drills. Russia and China hated us. Well. At least their political brass did. Us little kids were shown grainy 16mm films at school of an atomic bomb being dropped and pretty much vaporizing everything from skyscrapers to Rotarians.

The films ended with the narrator’s soothing voice solemnly warning about goose-stepping Russians eager to nuke us and, while we’re at it, don’t order Chinese take-out as it could contain salt........

© Santa Clarita Valley Signal