Submitted by megan on Tue, 05/12/2009 - 22:13
I was supposed to get myself in bed early tonight, and yet, and yet. O glowing screen, how can I resist you?
Back not too long ago from Eric and Grant's exhibit at the Diefenbunker. Shelley and Steve and I drove out to Carp, gave our congratulations and hugs, toured the exhibit, listened to speeches, drank German beer and ate sausages before going on a mini-tour of the place.
The exhibit is unsurprisingly great, and the Diefenbunker is crazy interesting. Between the two of us, Steve and I took a bazillion pictures. Many of mine are of Machines From the 70s, which is a category of machines that I love.
I almost took a picture of the clumsy looking brutally right-angled brown and cream and orange calculator, and then thought, What am I going to do with a picture of that calculator? and walked on by, looking at this map and those notes scribbled on the white board, around the desk, where I looked up and saw Steve taking a picture of the calculator.
But that is not the point of this post. The point of this post is that I really don't know a lot of history, and I particularly don't know a lot about Cold War history, and I particularly don't know about Canada's role in, or preparations during, said period of time.
And that I now know more.
The other point of this post is to tell you that if you've never been to the Diefenbunker you should go, and you should give yourself lots of time to watch the video interactives that are a key part of Cold War Berlin: Life at the Breaking Point, if only because Grant worked really really hard on them.
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1 comment postedI have posted several things on blogs related to the Diefenbunker.
I been looking for the names of some of the guys I was in the
bunker with and so far nothing. I am 67 now, some of the early
guys will be dropping off so to speak.
I came down from Petawawa on January 2 1962 to the bunker.
I left the bunker in April 63. I think there was about 120 of us
in the beginning and most lived out of the bunker, I lived in it,
ate in it, and slept in it, it was my home for 15 months.
I worked in the torn tape relay centre. The big sign outside
turning into the parking lot said "1 army signal squadron".
There was quite a few funny stories in those days while I was
there but I will tell you just one of them. We had about a month
before the equipment to run the relay centre arrived and we'd
play cards in the big room just off the kitchen, there was also
some mean table tennis games. Anyway during cards some guys
would whisper "there is a secret escape route out of here" and
I would say "comon deal the cards who cares". The funny thing
is in 1997 I went through it on a tour and for the very first time
I was shown the secret escape route out of the building. Just
imagine living there and not knowing where it was, but that is
how it was back in 62-63.
Hope your site takes off. Feel free to email me if you want some
more funny stories from the building I am at
mkelly1741@hotmail.com
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