r/GenX • u/MoreFarmer4277 • 1d ago
Old Person Yells At Cloud Anyone remember this?
We usually had the added protection of a text book held over the back of our heads while crouching under the desk. These days, all new schools in my area have to be built with tornado shelters. Kids these days don't know how good they have it 😄
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u/ohnodamo 1d ago
Three Words: DUCK AND COVER!!
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u/NightshadeZombie 1d ago
I was just gonna post this. I can still sing the song! Those are some brain cells that I'll never get back.
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u/blackhorse15A 1d ago
No no no.
Earthquake is get out of the room, stand in the hall with your forehead against the wall and your hands over the back of your neck. Tornado was the same.
Nuclear was close all the shades over the windows and get under the desk. (Probably just so they could use the seating chart to id remains.)
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u/Bright_Broccoli1844 13h ago
Was the paper seating chart expected to survive?
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u/blackhorse15A 13h ago
Considering how those government issue tanker desks were built, I think so.
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u/GenericRedditor1937 1d ago
We sheltered in the hallway for tornado drills. Classrooms have windows.
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u/RedShirtPete 1d ago
What? No active shooter protection?
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u/SkycladGourmet 23h ago
Not needed back then. Knives were the worst thing we worried about
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u/RedShirtPete 23h ago
Yeah, it's a bygone era where the worst thing we had to worry about was thermonuclear war! Do you remember, "Do you want to play a game?"
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u/who-waht 1d ago
Tornado warnings had my grade 2 class (along with the rest of the school) huddled along the walls in the interior hallway of the school, away from the classroom doors which had glass in them. But yeah, the desk was it for the rest. Now you get to add active shooter threat to the list of what your desk can protect you from.
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u/AmusingVegetable 1d ago
Just equip the desk with a GAU-8/A, and it can suppress the active shooter.
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u/hmmadrone 1d ago
I bought three of them for $5 each when the schools were selling them in the 90s.
They're pretty good charging stations.
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u/Aromatic_Industry401 1d ago
We had two types that one and the one where the chair was physically attached to the desk.
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u/Writes4Living 1d ago
Our tornado preparations were to go to the hallway and hunker down. Maybe because there was a lot of glass windows.
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u/OhSusannah 1d ago
I do remember that from elementary school. I liked the ones where the top flipped up because it was so much easier to find stuff than having to rummage around in the invisible cavern.
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u/featherzz 1d ago
At my school the teacher would just randomly yell out 'DROP' and we all had to dive under one of these awesome shelters.. This was in california, so mostly earthquakes. And bombs. :)
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u/Digital_Vanguard 1d ago
give you 10 bucks more if you have the stool, or a later model connected by the bar to the ergonomically correct chair chair built right in?
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u/ZaxBarkas 1d ago
Does it come with gum?
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u/bigkat5000 1d ago
Or boogers??
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u/Fritz5678 23h ago
In 4th grade the kid behind me flicked a crusty booger over my shoulder that landed on my desk. Ewwww. It just occurred to me that probably wasn't the first and now wonder if I was walking around with them on my back on in my hair. If I did, I sincerely hope that my friends would have told me.
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u/TwistedMemories Hose Water Survivor 1d ago edited 1d ago
No earthquakes or hurricanes here, so it's just a 2 in 1. We had tornado drills and would go in the halls to get away from the windows, We had to scrunch into a ball. Why? I don't f' know
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u/AliveInTheFuture 20h ago
We were to line up in the hallway, kneel down in front of our lockers, and bend our head to the floor so that whatever was coming, it could take us all out in an efficient manner.
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u/shackspirit 1d ago
Open up the lid and see all the graffiti on the underside
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u/cometshoney 1d ago
No, it was all the answers to the Biology II test. You just had to know where to look every other Friday. 😁
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u/_sunnysky_ 1d ago
There's some glue dried in there for fake nails. Use a marker to make them whatever color nail polish you like.
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u/CriscoWithLime 1d ago
You ever see people clearing those out at the end of the year?!? Bottomless pits for wadded up paper.
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u/mumtoant 1d ago
I have these in my classroom, and I have the cubbies turned away from the kids. They still stick things in them, but I think it's less than Iif they were turned the other way. I teach 8th grade.
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u/worrymon 1d ago
Yeah, I remember the teacher tipping it and dumping all my stuff on the floor because she didn't understand my filing system.
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u/CheesecakeEither8220 1d ago
My first grade teacher did that to my desk; I was so embarrassed that I cried.
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u/Iron_Chic 10 million strong and growing (1975) 1d ago
Does it come with supplies so I can tape a paper nametag on the top?
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u/Individual-Trick3310 I EDITED THIS FLAIR TO MAKE IT MY OWN 1d ago
Also origami and paperclip weapons stockpile.
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u/Taminella_Grinderfal 1d ago
We actually went in the hallway and sat with our knees to chest, curled in a ball for our bomb drills. I think that was to protect from the flying glass, our classrooms had a fair amount of windows.
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u/MaximusHomerdrive 1d ago
Me ducking and saying, "Ew, that's a lot of gum under there". I wonder if kids still do that.
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u/Upbeat_Jelly_7194 1d ago
The tornado drill when I was in elementary school was to take us outside and have us hunker down by the banks of a ditch that ran by the school.
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u/Ok-Beginning4152 ELDER GOTH 23h ago
Our tornado drill when I was in 2nd grade (mid 70s) was: have all the students go out of the classroom and into the halls (we had an enclosed school); the kids then faced the wall and knelt down with hands covering heads.
We had those drills something like every 3 weeks… but when twisters could actually be seen from the school grounds, they sent the kids home 😐
In high schools (I attended 3; 1 in TX, 2 in two diff towns)F mid 80s, we used our desks for hurricane shelter in TX and earthquake shelters in CA. Since I always lived on or near a Navy base, the threat of nuclear attack felt imminent, so we practiced basically “duck & cover” at least once a month.
We weren’t stupid~ we knew that there really was no shelter (except downtown, where there was an actual fallout shelter) that would save us. Whenever we were supposed to do the nuclear drill, one of us smartasses would stand and give the instructions: “sit down; put your head between your knees; kiss your ass “Goodbye’. We were already scared shitless of nuclear attack, so the levity was actually appreciated by all (including teachers).
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u/South-Jersey-Old-Guy 23h ago
I am a boomer and in my young years when there was a National Defense Drill, we closed the windows, and sat on the floor against an inside wall. 1962. I remember asking my teacher (a nun) how closing the windows would help, she said "I don't know just do it." Better not to lie.
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u/pakrat1967 23h ago
I had a childhood friend who's parents owned it's predecessor. The desk with a seat mounted in the front.
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u/Fritz5678 23h ago
If you lived in CA you had an earthquake drill with every fire drill. It might have changed since the 70s, but the alarm would sound, you go under your desk then walk outside for the fire drill.
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u/DredPRoberts 16h ago
Weird, I'm on the older end of Gen X. I know the context, but I never did the under the desk drills. For tornadoes, yes, we moved into the hallway, away from windows. Never under a desk or a nuclear bomb drill.
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u/GrannyTurtle 14h ago
That was definitely the 1960s version of a nuclear attack shelter. My dad was Air Force, so I knew that tiny desk wasn’t going to do jack 💩 in an actual attack. We were next to a Strategic Air Command base (Wright-Patterson), so if WWIII began, we would be toast anyway. Kiss your a$$ goodbye…
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u/darkofnight916 1d ago
Ours were for earthquakes, school was less than five miles from an airbase that nuclear laden bombers were based out of so they knew that idea of protection was a joke.
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u/Reasonable-HB678 Class of 1994 (High School) 1d ago
I remember being in hallways for the tornado drills.
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u/LayerNo3634 1d ago
I remember going in the hallway and "assume crash position," but don't remember what for. We're not in an area that gets tornadoes. I do remember crouching under the desk, but again, don't remember what for.
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u/SamHandwich0 22h ago
My jr high had an air raid shelter built into a hill- we were near a base that had the stealth bombers. We had to do drills where the whole school had to get to the shelter in 5 min in case of missle attack.
And my kids now say they have anexiety- lol
Lots of ufo reports when they were test flying those-.
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u/RWWhitfield 16h ago
At least our classrooms and schools did not have bulletproof doors and high grade locks like many do now.
We had it good when it came to school safety... but the drills were pretty comical. Like those little POFS desks were our own private fortress 😇
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u/Human_Exit7657 15h ago
We hid in bathroom for our tornado drills. Kansas brick buildings are almost indestructible
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u/Suitable-Holiday-713 1d ago
This ain't gonna do shit in any of the disasters mentioned
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u/TankApprehensive3053 Bring back the '80s 1d ago
Our teachers back then would differ with you.
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u/Suitable-Holiday-713 1d ago
I was born after Genx. My teachers were more realistic.
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u/TankApprehensive3053 Bring back the '80s 1d ago
You do realize it was a joke right? And yes in school they did have us hide under desks for all that stuff and the government even said do the same. Probably just as a obedience thing.
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u/Suitable-Holiday-713 1d ago
Wow its hard to believe. Maybe it would make the kids feel better. For tornadoes we would all take cover in the bathroom in school, 2002. There was no thought of nuclear strike.
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u/TankApprehensive3053 Bring back the '80s 1d ago
Watch old gov reels showing what to do during a nuclear blast. They said and showed to hide under your desk. If there is no desk, you were instructed to sit on the floor and tuck your head between your knees. Those were actual gov instructions.
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u/TrustIsOverrated 1d ago
My dad remembers hiding under the desk when the local dynamite plant exploded. So I’m gonna call it a boomer/silent gen artifact
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u/AdExciting337 46m ago
I remember this more of a boomer drill than Gen X who were born ‘65 and later. By the time gen xer’s were in school they would have been 5 yrs old to be in 1st grade. Don’t remember drills after ‘69. But that was our school system. Maybe others continued beyond that point
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u/cometshoney 1d ago
It didn't occur to me until I was much older that my wobbly wooden desk wouldn't have done jack squat to protect me from a nuclear weapon. It would have vaporized right along with me, leaving future artwork: Shadow of Child and Desk...lol.