You know the drill.

Boomer Musings

By Leslie Riseden

We sat in our tiny wooden desks, staring absent-mindedly at the initials and mild expletives carved by our predecessors. We listened intently to the teacher as she explained the steps we were to take for The Drill. “Put down your pencils, close your books and place them inside your desk. Push your chair back. (Quietly, please. No talking.) Now, crawl under your desk, pull your knees up to your chest and place your arms over your head, like this.” Seriously? This was our defensive action in the event of a nuclear attack? Hiding under our desks?

Well, to be fair, that wasn’t the only drill at our elementary school. We had another one, and here’s how it worked: At the sound of the siren, all of the stayat- home mothers (which most of them were) were to drop what they were doing, drive to the school, and proceed in an orderly fashion around the circular driveway. Students were lined up, single file, for the teacher in charge to put us in the next available car. The line of cars stretched back to the next block -- busy mothers waiting patiently to take on the next load of giggling children. As each car pulled up and stopped in front of the teacher, she would calmly open the doors and load as many children as the car could hold. Each parent then drove to the pre-arranged destination, where yet another calm teacher would match up children with their respective parent. Very simple. Very orderly. By all accounts, a successful exercise.

That evening, my mom and I talked about The Drill we had practiced earlier in the day. Mother said she had taken about a dozen kids in our 1959 Buick station wagon. (There were no seat belt laws in those days, of course.) I didn’t know what kind of car I was in, or whose mother had actually picked me up. Mother stopped chopping the parsley, and said, plainly, that The Drill was fine, but it would never work. “Why not?” I asked. She explained. “As I drove away today, I saw you in my rear-view mirror, still waiting to be put in a car. In a real emergency,” she smiled, “I simply would not leave without you.”

Neither, I suspect, would any other mother. Fortunately, we never had to put The Drill to the test.