It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

 I noticed the gum straightaway. Blue and pink and white and all of it the worse for wear. Gum doesn’t weather well when stuck to the underside of a desk. 

The next thing I noticed was that there were some bad words cryptically handwritten in #2 pencil: “Miss Davis is reelly meen”. You’ll have to excuse the spelling. Sixth graders are notoriously ahead of adults when it comes to slaughtering the English language. OOOH! I thought, someone’s going to be in reel truble if Miss Davis sees this. Of course that wasn’t about to happen. The undersides of these desks were only visited by tykes like me whenever the sirens went off announcing another drill. “Quickly Quickly! Under you desks children! Remember Hands over your heads!” 

This was the 1960’s which to today’s generation is the Age of the Dinosaurs. But back then even though I dearly loved Dinosaurs I wasn’t one yet. I was just a kid, one of thirty in my classroom, along with ten other classrooms in my school all staring intently out the window hoping not to see a bright flash. At least when I wasn’t mesmerized by the gum and secret messages above me.

The modern world has come such a long way. We’ve come from scaring the bejesus out of elementary school kids with the threat of nuclear annihilation to scaring the bejesus out of them as they hide huddled in dark corners with the lights out and doors blockaded during lockdown/lockout drills. The dinosaurs are still with us. 

Did you read the Denver Post today? Of course not, you say - who reads Newspapers anymore?!? Like really?!? Well, this old dinosaur for one. I love the look and feel of a real newspaper. Turning the pages on a Sunday morning is an indulgence in pure tactile pleasure. Of course, today being a Monday I read it online (I only get the Sunday paper thrown onto my porch anymore). Shame though, as today’s front page would have been a keeper for the ages. I know some folks who save old editions of newspapers, especially those featuring momentous occasions. Kudos to them - these relics of the past are true dinosaurs - not Tyrannosaurus but rather the cute cuddly ones we like to fondly remember. 

Online or in print the headline was equally startling: “NUCLEAR FORCES ON HIGH ALERT”. Didn’t take the editors long to come up with that one. Of course we’ve lived all these years since the age of the dinosaurs back in the 50’s and 60’s with the deeply repressed awareness that there were missiles with nuclear bombs aimed at us but who gave them much thought? The gum and secret messages of our lives took all of our attention and neither I or any of my classmates ever did see the flash through the window. 

Perhaps you’ve heard of the doomsday clock. The clock was created in 1947 by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to convey how close humanity is to destroying itself. For the past two years its been set at 100 seconds to midnight (midnight being the point at which all the lights go out for us as Humankind). The 100 second mark is the closest to midnight that the clock has ever registered and reflects a world at risk not just from nuclear destruction but from conventional war, famine, climate change, and yes - COVID. Tell you what, wearing a mask compares not at all to hiding scared under a desk. They haven’t made the adjustment to the clock given today’s headline but if they do I picture a clock with the second hand twitching at a second ‘til like one of those modern wall clocks that needs a new battery. Twitch, twitch, twitch. 

So what happened to get us to this MAD place? If you’re young enough or just not hip with history you perhaps can be excused for not understanding the premise of Mutually Assured Destruction - that if both sides can destroy the other then neither side would dare use nuclear weapons. It assumes of course that both sides will act rationally realizing that nothing can be gained by unleashing their nuclear arsenals. That little black briefcase that is never more than a few feet away from a U.S. President has for all these years been an afterthought like a wallflower at the prom, always there but fading into the background. 

The conundrum occurs when one side no longer acts rationally. I saw a brief clip of Condoleezza Rice acknowledging that Vladimir Putin’s behavior is increasingly erratic and delusional which in my book qualifies as definitely NOT rational. The WHY of Mr. Putin’s irrational behavior will be left to historians to figure out. It could be anything from a tyrannical megalomaniac reaching the point of being convinced of his own omnipotence to something far simpler, but equally dire, in the form of a malady associated with  advancing age.

In our own country we have had Presidents struck with medical issues that were largely kept from the public - Woodrow Wilson is suspected of having a minor stroke that ultimately left him partially paralyzed and Ronald Reagan was dogged by rumors of dementia as early as his campaign and was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s after leaving office. In our democracy we have safeguards to protect us should the malady become debilitating - there’s a reason we have Vice Presidents and rules of succession should a Chief Executive and Commander In Chief become too erratic and delusional. The Russian people (I wonder if Russian kids in the 60’s spent much time underneath their desks admiring bubblegum?) should feel much safer because of this. The converse does not seem to be true - who is there (anybody? ANYBODY?) to rein in a Russian leader run amok? 

What will tomorrow’s headline be? Hopefully it will signal a step back from the abyss of nuclear armageddon. In the meantime this dinosaur is going to check on the internet to find a great old movie to take my mind off the madness that surrounds us all. Perhaps I’ll watch the old classic comedy from 1963 “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” where at least I can laugh at a world that no longer exists. Tomorrow I might not have the chance.