Brother Blue

Twenty years ago today ABC showed the made for TV movie The Morning After. It was the story of the day after a nuclear(sp?) attack on the city of Lawrence, KS (or maybe it was Manhattan, KS). Over 100 million people watched the movie (which is a staggering number in this day and age of 500 channels in the home). To this day when I hear the term “morning after” I don’t think of the pill, but the movie. And to be honest there is very little I remember about the movie, but I do remember the fear I felt.
Even today in our post 9/11 world with heighten security there was greater fear in me then. Sure, 9/11 showed us how vulnerable any one location is to attack. My fear as a child was that we could all be destroyed with a single push of a button. I can remember as child being scared of two things: bees and nuclear war. I was only 9 years old but I was very away that we were in the middle of the Cold War (though I am not sure I knew to call it the cold war). When I think back to that time a line from Sting’s song “Russians” (off the Dream of the Blue Turtles album) runs through my mind. “I hope the Russians love their children too.”