Why can't newspapers be interesting like they used to be

On this day

Let's dig a hole and live in it

While wracking my addled brains for something to post about today, for some mysterious reason I began to think about fallout shelters. Back in the 50's and 60's lots of people built these things in their backyards hoping to survive the inevitable nuclear halocaust. The Civil Defense actually sent out books showing how to build the things. When we were litle, my sister and I found one that my parents got in the mail in the early 60's. I wish I had a copy of it, but my sister is in possession of it now. (Although she'll probably deny it.) I have no idea if that particular volume is online, but at Project Gutenberg there's In Time of Emergency: A Citizen's Handbook on Nuclear Attack, Natural Disasters from 1968 that looks similar, but the illustrations aren't as good. Here's a commercially available fallout shelter handbook from 1962.



Goofy nostalgia, you say? Well, there's still people building fallout shelters. Here's some instructions. How about a Nuclear Blast and Fallout Shelters FAQ? And there's an online book called Nuclear War Survival Skills.

What if people tried to sell bomb shelters? There wouldn't be enough of a market for even one company to survive selling this kind of stuff, right? Wrong.

There's American Bomb Shelter, F-5 Storm Shelters (they also make bomb shelters), Radius Engineering Intl. Bomb Shelters (these are really cool), Alpine Survival Group (I'd like to live in one of these), and Utah Shelter Systems. Who knew there was so much money to made on paranoia?

Buying a bomb shelter too nutty? The American Civil Defense Association has a page loaded with stuff. Some of it's probably even useful, but I didn't check because I'm like that.

And last, but not least, The Civil Defense Museum is loaded with documents, photos, audio, video, and who knows what else.

Fun with Hans and Fritz

In yesterday's post I threatened yet another Golden Book Encyclopedia post today if nothing interesting happened at work. Well, I'm sad to say fuck all happened at work. So I'm stuck with the Golden Book Encyclopedia since it's late and I can't think of anything else.

I randomly selected a volume. It was the same volume from two days ago. Dammit! I put it back. I randomly selected another volume. When I opened it, the first thing I saw were these Nazi girls below.



The drawing style of the Nazi girls reminded me of the great Dick and Jane books, especially the ones published in the 50's. I have some of those, so I pulled one down and opened it. Almost immediately I find the kids voluntarily marching.



"Do you want to march with me?"

"Yes, I do," said Dick.

That's how it starts. First they're just playing, next they're in the Hitler Youth.

The Golden Book of Gay Porn

I enjoyed looking at the Golden Book Encyclopedia so much last night that I'm going to base a second post on it. (And if nothing interesting happens at work tomorrow I'll base a third post on it. So there.)



Yes, that's an illustration of naked men wrestling. It may very well be the most homoerotic illustration to ever appear in a children's book. Two of those guys are practically having full on butt-sex.

I have a confession to make. For some reason as a little kid I always liked this drawing. No idea what appealed to me then. Maybe I liked it because I hadn't ever seen anything else like it. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I was also sneaking out my dad's girlie magazines around the same time, so I was an equal opportunity preschool pervert.

On a historical note, the naked man standing on the right appears to be using a strigil. When I was little I couldn't figure out what he had in his hand. I thought maybe it was a razor. Looking at it a few minutes ago I realized it was a strigil. So these aren't just naked men wrestling, no, these are oiled up naked men wrestling.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go cleanse my palate by looking at some pictures of naked girls.