Readers Remember

It was Friday, Oct. 26, 1962. American and Soviet warships were in an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation off the coast of Cuba. The world held its breath.

A friend and I decided to get out of Los Angeles for a camping trip in the mountains that weekend.

Early Saturday morning we were suddenly awakened by a crack of loud noise from the clear blue sky. We jumped out of our cots and nervously scanned the mountain peaks for a mushroom cloud, then turned on the radio to see if any cities had been attacked.

Apparently it had only been a sonic boom from a jet scrambling out of Edwards Air Force Base. [Soviet leader Nikita] Khrushchev had turned his ships back.

MILT TIMMONS

Van Nuys

In the late 1950s, after Sputnik, my parents became obsessed with building a bomb shelter. We lived only six miles from downtown Los Angeles, which the papers all said would be one of the prime targets of any Soviet nuclear attack. My brother, my dad, and myself dug a great big hole in the backyard to be reinforced with concrete and steel as soon as my parents had the money for a contractor.

Then, in 1959, my dad’s company merged and we suddenly had to relocate to Anaheim, a full 30 miles from Los Angeles. The Cuban missile crisis was a breeze for me, because I figured I was far from harm’s way. Little did we know then what a 20-megaton hydrogen bomb could do.

RICHARD TAYLOR

Rancho Santa Margarita

In 200 words or less, send us your memories, comments or eyewitness accounts of the 20th century. Write to Century, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053, or e-mail century@latimes.com.