Today’s library blast from the past is How to Build Your Own Garage, published by Popular Mechanics in 1953. While it is very detailed, informative, and well-written, I didn’t think that it was terribly exciting until I reached chapter seven, WHAT ABOUT AN A-BOMB SHELTER?
So without further ado, please enjoy these helpful hints for constructing your very own bomb shelter and surviving an atomic blast.
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- Always wear your fedora while operating power tools.
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- That could be my poor car, out in the snow.
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- Save the male children! They will rebuild our society!
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- The man stocking the shelves is smoking a pipe. Awesome.
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- Step E – If you’re about to be nuked, be sure to close the blinds.
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- And finally, a helpful diagram.
Since I did most of my growing up during the latter years of the Cold War, I have vivid memories of elementary school civil defense drills – which mainly involved crouching under our desks in confusion until the teachers gave us the all clear. So when I was in third or fourth grade, and thus able to fully understand the impending nuclear doom, I decided that if those sirens ever went off I was going to go outside and watch. No bomb shelters for me, please.
Ah, those were the days.
– Amy
Eleventh Stack 
I remember those drills too, Amy! Great post! Love those scans!