The Dagley Dagley Daily

By Janet Dagley Dagley
Covering the world from the waterfront in Hoboken, New Jersey, USA

ISSN 1544-9114

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Crying Wolf, Calling Les

By Janet Dagley Dagley
janetdd@optonline.net

Les Nessman, we need you. Now more than ever.

Somebody find that Silver-Sow-winning veteran newsman and issue him a Blackberry forthwith. We must keep him on call at all times, and meanwhile we’d better prepare some all-purpose copy for him to rip and read, suitable for every imaginable contingency.

I was reminded of one of the fictional WKRP radio newsman’s career highlights this past week — no, not the Thanksgiving turkey drop, which is what you get the most references to on a Google search of the name, but the time tornadoes swept through Cincinnati, and he had to wing it as he read from a Cold War emergency manual, substituting words as appropriate.

“The godless...tornadoes...are invading our city...”

As Nessman read into the microphone, a group of Japanese tourists who happened to be visiting the station were instructed, in Spanish, to take cover by a translator who had been assigned to them by mistake, doing exactly what his job description specified, whether or not it was what the client needed or what the situation called for.

If Nessman were on the air today he would be plugging the words “duct tape” in there somewhere. And the listeners out there in radioland would know what to do with that duct tape about as well as those tourists understood their translator’s impeccable Spanish.

When I was in elementary school in Oak Ridge, Tennessee — “The Atomic City” created in secret during World War II for the development of the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima — we had fire drills and the occasional bomb scare like anyone else, and every now and then we’d practice ducking under our desks in case what happened to Hiroshima ever happened to us. A few years later I read in John Hersey’s book, Hiroshima, about the people who were vaporized by the bomb, leaving nothing but shadows on the sidewalks where they had stood, and wondered why our teachers and government had put all those children through that pointless exercise in fear. I guess somebody must have thought it might be helpful, as an assortment of 21st Century experts explained when snippets of those old “Duck and Cover” educational films showed up again on television this week. “Even a small thing like that [ducking and covering] can make the difference in whether you survive,” one of them told CNN’s Talking Heads, and of course they didn’t have time to go into the subject of whether the schoolchildren crawling out from under their devastated desks would be any better off than those who didn’t make it.

Perhaps more helpful was the poster I saw on the wall at a high school party, a long list of instructions labeled, “In Case of Nuclear Attack.” The final step on that list: “Then kiss your ass goodbye.”

I was in 5th grade when the Cuban Missile Crisis happened; I wrote a will that night with instructions on who was to get my Barbie and my microscope.

And in almost half a century on this planet, I’ve lived through — and reported on — other threats as well: a swarm of F-5 tornadoes that tore through, among other places, the Cincinnati area (where, in the backstory, newsman Nessman surely must have been on the air) in 1974, the Blizzards of 1978 and 1995. I wrote Sunday feature packages about how to prepare for earthquakes in Southern California, and I watched from barely a mile away as the World Trade Center towers fell. I’ve traveled through and lived in exotic foreign lands, and though I have never experienced war firsthand myself, I have heard about its sleepless nights and daily struggle and random cruelty from dear friends who lived through the worst of war in Bosnia and Chechnya. I’ve raised two children and moved around a lot. I was even in the circus for awhile. Not only that, but I sat next to the Handy Hints lady in the newsroom for a couple of years, and I overheard a lot of her calls. Based on that vast experience, I can tell you that duct tape can be very handy to have around, period.

If I were a politician or a TV Talking Head, I would of course state that a bit differently: “Clearly, at the end of the day, make no mistake, since 9/11, duct tape can be very handy to have around, period. Wolf?”

Bottled water can be handy also. I bought my first 15-gallon stash in California, even before I interviewed those experts for the earthquake preparedness feature, because the tap water there tasted so bad. A supply of food can be useful as well, so if you’re one of those whose preparedness plan is to keep your house free of food at all times, you might want to reconsider. It might also be helpful to have some means of cooking it if the power goes out. To that end, in addition to my wind-up radio/flashlight, I have just ordered a candle-powered fondue pot, so that if we must subsist on naught but stale bread, we will at least be able to dip it in warm chocolate. Similarly, if you are among those who believe first-aid supplies should not be kept in the house or car, you might want to think again. One expert admitted to keeping "a little Scotch" in his survival kit, and I assume he wasn't talking about tape right then. Whatever you think you might need: we're keeping a copy of the U.S. Constitution in ours, just in case.

And here’s a hint I got during the anti-Vietnam War protest movement that is every bit as useful today: Carry a damp handkerchief sealed in a plastic bag in your pocket, so that you can breathe through it if you get tear-gassed.

Medicine would be good, too, especially prescription medicines. If anybody reading this is successful in getting their insurance company’s approval to follow the government’s advice about having extra medication around for emergencies, please let me know right away because I’d like to be the one to break that story.

This morning I read that the authorities are now considering lowering the terror alert level from orange to yellow, a move that I know building security guards everywhere will appreciate because they’ll be allowed to go back inside again now and then. And on the same news page, I see that a blizzard, godless or otherwise, may be headed our way. Les?

posted by Janet Dagley Dagley @10:32 AM

16.2.03