ESSAY: A Fallout Shelter for the 21st Century

Hard Times, End Times: A Fallout Shelter for the 21st Century

We baby-boomers probably share a common childhood memory: disaster drills in case a nuclear bomb fell on the United States.  I remember crouching under my desk at old St. Mary’s Parochial School, the Dominican nuns swooping above us, urging us to protect our faces against falling glass.  It was red brick, with school desks sold later to “Little House on the Prairie”.  We had tornandos, too,  crouching in the corner of our cold, wet basement listening to the wind howl.   Seeing “The Wizard of Oz” magnified my trauma greatly.  I considered suing the producers at one time.

It was common for farms to have dug-out shelters.  I was really upset that Mom and Dad didn’t take my advice and have one installed in our small-town back yard.  Other kids wanted an above-ground swimming pool, but not me.

 After reading “On the Beach”, at age 12,  I was a zombie for a week.  I couldn’t see why I should care about anything if this was the way it going to end, and soon.  I recovered after realizing I was  really hungry, my grades were slipping, and people were yelling at me.

As a flight attendant, with faux heroics, I practiced water-landing evacuation drills, bobbing merrily in Marina del Rey harbor, smiling a big red lipstick smile demonstrating how to blow up your life vest and attach your oxygen mask. No crash landings or hijackings on my watch, so this whistling-in-the-dark career was a moot sublimation effort.

Luckily, as years went by, I was able to turn my early trauma into a love of post-apocalypse genre stories.  “Day After Tomorrow” is a great favorite. Wasn’t Viggo Mortensen good in “The Road”?  I was so mad when they cancelled “Jericho”!  Justin Cronin’s “The Passage” adds werewolves. Do you have one?  If not, quickly read through this Wikipedia link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalyptic_and_post-apocalyptic_fiction) for assistance with your own sublimation attempt.

I have already thought about the terrible irony-of-fate-combo deal dealt Japan - how dreadful for this country to suffer another “canary in the mine disaster”, as if they were somehow a model for nuclear catastrophe simulations.  But now this reaction seems rather common and unimaginative - see this:

 I was fascinated to see this small ad in last Sunday’s New York Times for a 21st century disaster shelter. (www.cfpartnersllc.com).  For 21st century real.  

Oh, that I had been born a screenwriter. I feel like calling up the three I do know and tell them to get on this right away.  Here’s the high concept:  55 families purchase an underground “condo/commons”  living space with the guarantee that all their needs will be met for one year. And I dreamed of a Vermont farmhouse or a cabin on Golden Pond. 

Not only that, the dedicated security team “ ...will come and get you, one way or the other”, says the website, and convoy you and your loved ones to the New Hampshire location. That would be added-value exciting.  

I immediately wonder if they have a surcharge, like the pizza delivery does, for out-of-the-area delivery.  After all, they’re going to have to come to California to get us.  Oh, too far?  When will you open a West Coast location? Duhh- we’re the ones with the earthquakes and tsunamis!  We first!

So, this is it:  after a tragedy of the commons occurrence, one simply builds a new one.  This is the commons area of Sismos I ( Greek for earthquake):

Notice the happy family scenario on the cover of the book - Dad is lounging in a coat and tie with a pipe, Mom has her apron on, and all will sit down to a Cleaver family dinner soon. 

Remember Tom Hanks trapped in the airport (“The Terminal’)?  This commons looks like the senior home my mother lived in - smooth, cool, fake-cheeful - when we left we could say, “it’s a clean well-lighted place” to ourselves.(And so it was.) Can you imagine being stuck with 55 families for a year?  In this waiting room from Hell?  Is there a selection/screening committee for the applicants?  

Oh, what if I get trapped with Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly?  Howard Stern?  Will there be security guards to control me when I go rabidly mad listening to them say “I told you so”?

Is there a commando patrol to fight off raiders, cannibals, those outsiders wanting to get in and share our “...luxurious accommodations”?

But, it looks better than these designs from the late 1950’s.  At the time, I’d have been happy if Mom and Dad had just gotten some sandbags and gas masks.  American consumerism is of great assistance in upgrading expectations.

Oh, I get it it’s a “cozy catastrophe” narrative! (British sub-genre of post-apocalypse fiction in which a few hardy survivors live happily ever after).  

Just a few questions before I get set to endure: Is that an elliptical trainer I see in the upper right corner of this room?  Very thoughtfully appointed, it seems. Is there a spa and free Wi-Fi?  A towel warmer?  Where is an ATM?  I wonder if I can get Hilton Honors Points? No.  Maybe Best Western points?  Will there be Jewish doctors?

What if we want to extend our stay?  Stay one year, get a free month?

 If I pay extra, can we get relocation assistance after the year is up?  

Where is ‘home’ going to be then?  O brave new 21st century survivor/entrepreneurs - here’s a “piggy-back” marketing concept - the post-apocalypse service industry. My proposal will be ready soon.  We’re going to retrofit a giant aircraft carrier...Just check back online, OK?

TRAVEL: The Anza Borrego Desert

The mountain range that shelters the desert keeps it sunny and dry; a mixed blessing of course, but some years the rains are just right and the wildflowers are in intoxicating plenty. This year, not so much, but still to be found. In this photo of the range a magnificent rainshadow overhangs the peaks.

This is an abandoned Di Giorgio vineyard. The company quit raising grapes when Cesar Chavez began to organize the farmworkers in California, and the conservative directors shut down the fields rather than employ union labor.  They’ve lain vacant for years.  This year they were being cleared - perhaps for solar or a wind farm.

We saw few flowers this year, but my miracle was hiking Palm Canyon, as I usually do, and this was my time to see the bighorn sheep - always we’ve been told to watch for them, but I’d never seen them.  Perhaps this spring is so dry they have to come down to the river in the canyon to drink.  I saw 11 of the, with 3 babies, about 25 feet away, moving leisurely up the streambed, munching plants and sipping.  I was so overwhelmed and gratified to have such a spectacular sighting of wildlife afforded me.  Even Denali hadn’t provided me with this experience this close up.  I thought I was in a documentary.

These were the wildflowers I found:  some wonderful cacti, and Palm Canyon was lovely.  They do try, even in dry years, to bloom forth - they are smaller and hiding, but still to be discovered.

A nostalgic example of mid-century architecture is to found in the Anza - the Palms at Indian Head.  We dined there almost every night, lingering on the patio watching the earth turn from the sun, and enjoying the mountains glowing orange and violet.  The leisure dream of desert living in the waning day and the evening breeze, chatting about our lovely day and its pleasures.