Cold War Anecdote

I am a regular visitor to a website about the old estates on Long Island and occasionally even make a comment. It's a very erudite crowd of historic preservationists, architects, designers, etc. And then there's me. It's been quite interesting to see the details an architect notices in a building so I've learned a lot and probably look at buildings in different ways.

In any event, this past week one of the daily postings was an ad for electricity that showed one of the grand houses at night with every light on -- and the conversation turned to our fathers -- and this must be universal -- complaining about kids leaving lights on. I know my father did. 'EVERY LIGHT IN THIS HOUSE IS ON!!" he'd wail. Yeah, it usually was. Of course, in the years since, paying my own electric bill, I am quite aware of leaving lights on and promptly turning them off.

So one of the commenters posted this little story which I think really captures the age where we all thought we might be blown away by the Russians. He wrote:

My sister and I were much better at turning on lights than turning them off. The property comprised house, garage, barn, tool house and a small studio, each with requisite lighting indoors and out. Of an evening, my sister and I could manage, in our youthful travels about the grounds, to get the entire property brightly illuminated. One evening, my parents returned home from a party The phone rang---my father answered, and nodding his head and looking very serious for a few minutes, said 'Thank-you general, we'll take care of it right away'. This was at the height of Cold War missile scares. My father turned and said 'that was the Pentagon. They asked us to turn out lights as this property is so bright it can be seen from space and is considered a security threat'. We sort of knew it had to be a scam(my mother, from the kitchen, had dialed the self-ringing code), but the message was received, by both children and sitter.