When I was a young lad growing up in the ‘burbs of San Diego in the 1950s and 1960s, we never once practiced a tornado drill like kids did in the Midwest. Not even one time.

We did, however, practice earthquake drills. It was California, after all, and we felt one every once in a while. Our drill involved leaving the classroom for the outdoors if there was time, or getting under our desks with our arms over our heads if there wasn’t time.

Like all school kids everywhere, we practiced fire drills, which were similar to earthquake drills only slower and more orderly. Fires can last a while; earthquakes are over in seconds, so speed is of the essence.

Unlike kids today, we did not ever practice an armed intruder drill. Back then there was no need. Unfortunately, in the world we now live in, it is needed, at every school in America.

That is a sad commentary on what is going on in our country.

But, I digress.

Another drill we practiced was what I remember as the nuclear bomb drill. Maybe it was just an air raid drill, but I remember it as preparation for a nuclear war, and it caused a lot of worry among young kids like me.

I was born just five years after the U.S. dropped those two atomic bombs on Japan in August of 1945, bringing an end to World War II.

Now, I readily admit I am no historian, but for some reason a so-called “Cold War” had developed between the Soviet Union (Russia) and the United States. This was despite the fact that the Soviet Union was an ally with the U.S. and Great Britain in the war against Nazi Germany and the Axis Powers in World War II.

The Cold War involved both the U.S. and Soviet Union in a race to build powerful weapons of mass destruction. Yeah, nuclear bombs and the missiles to deliver them.

For my entire life, the Soviet Union, now back to being Russia, has been an ongoing threat to America, it seems.

I remember Russian Communist Party leader Nikita Khruschev banging his shoe on the podium at the U.N. in New York in October of 1960, and trying to threaten the world, particularly America.

And the Cuban missile crisis, when the Russians were building a nuclear missile site just 90 miles away from Florida and President John Kennedy gave the Soviet Union an ultimatum and Khruschev backed down.

That was in 1962, and we were practicing our atomic/nuclear bomb drills a lot in school during that confrontation. And some of my neighbors were building fallout shelters in their back yards. It was as close as any time in history that the Cold War was on the edge of going to nuclear war.

Again, pretty scary for everyone, especially a 12 year-old kid.

Then there was President Ronald Reagan’s famous speech in 1987 at the Berlin Wall, saying, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Gorbachev was General Secretary of the Soviet Union’s Mikhail Gorbachev, another scary Russian leader.

The Berlin Wall had been built in 1961 and divided the German city of Berlin into two sections, east and west, just as the whole country of Germany had been divided up after World War II. The Soviet Union controlled the eastern part of Germany and the U.S. and Great Britain the western parts. Now, of course, Germany is one country again.

Today, Russia is back at it once more, invading Ukraine and making all kinds of veiled threats. I don’t have to tell you about this one, because you are seeing it unfold right before your eyes on TV every day and evening.

I have often thought that there was some chance of harmony possible between the Russian people and Americans. Heck, my mother even went on a long trip to Russia and found the people there to be welcoming and friendly.

But somehow, their leaders have been something other than friendly over the past 70 years (or more, going back to the time of the Russian czars, and Stalin and Lenin).

I also remember a 1966 movie called “The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming.” It is about a Soviet submarine that is grounded off the coast of New England, and how local people help get it freed and sent on its way. It showed that people are people no matter where they are from.

I have to admit I liked that movie back in 1966.

It didn’t do much to stop the Cold War, or to improve relations between the U.S. and Russia. On the other hand, maybe it did a little. But only a little.

The Soviet Union/Russia has been a big concern for the people of my Baby Boomer generation our whole lives. And that concern just doesn’t seem to ever go totally away.

Maybe someday…