Emergency broadcast system tests scare me. That’s saying a lot, because I’m really not afraid of much of anything. A bear entered our campsite a few years back, no problem. Someone broke into my house, I had it under control. Date rape? Broke his rib. I’m not a girl that’s spooked easily.

However…

I was born during Watergate, which plants my childhood firmly in the middle of the Cold War. I am a true Gen X kid, and consequentially my earliest memories are punctuated with visions of “Dr. Strangelove”, “When the Wind Blows”, “Miracle Mile”, and, of course, “the Day After”. I remember standing outside in the schoolyard at recess with a gaggle of my friends – I had to have been all of 8 years old – watching the sky with them and talking about what we’d really see when the bomb hit.

We all truly believed nuclear war was imminent. It sounds silly now, but it wasn’t the least bit amusing then. I don’t think anyone born after 1980 can understand how frightening and hopeless that time period was in many ways. Your childhood should be full of Barbies and t-ball, not daydreams about fallout and radiation.

For me, that sense of apprehension and gloom is encapsulated by one single thing: the sound of an emergency broadcast system test. I was sure that it would be the last thing I’d ever hear.

To this day, the sound sends a shock up my spine.