Today I thought my plan to take pictures would be a bust on account of a bloody great big
fog that settled in about two days ago. I'm basically living in
Silent Hill right now, though with less knife wielding babies.
Then I realized that maybe I could take pictures of the fog? Good idea, good idea...especially when mixed with
the Diefenbunker.
Here we have
the tobogganing hill in Carp, where a younger Oliver often enjoyed himself and sometimes wondered if the fence really was electrified - as the now missing signs used to inform us back when the Cold War was still busy petering out.
I am old is basically what I am getting at here.
And then we look over the Carp Valley.
Und zen ve are havink some of ze bunkair.
Near the Diefenbunker is a military communications....node (?) that has been there as long as I can remember. When I was little my dad liked to tell me that it was a giant's golf ball which might be claimed by it's owner any day now.
The back entrance, as it were. There used to be an antique car from the 1930's that was inexplicably sitting in front of it. I used to wonder if it was supposed to be the Prime Minister's get-away car in which to run over/from the mutants.
A side view of the main entrance.
MORE
You can read a lot of facts about the Diefenbunker at it's website, which I've already linked to. But I can tell you that the few things I remember most from the tour are thus:
1) There is a vault [for gold] inside with just one hallway leading to and around it. In each corner of the surrounding hallway there is a tall mirror placed so that you can always see (and be seen by) whoever else is outside the vault. This is pretty much
James Bond in a towel, which is suitable since I think one of my first thoughts at the time was "God this would be so good for a level in
Goldeneye".
2) Like anything from the Cold War, particularly a structure that was built in the early years, there was a reasonable amount of very black humor to be taken in. Things like how they thought that radiation would have dropped down to safe levels after only two years. Like how part of the plan involved storing a gold deposit to re-establish the currency and copies of every single document needed to facilitate the running of the Canadian government...but
no women. Not even the Prime Minister's wife!
One thing I'm not entirely sure about, now that the years have fuzzed my memory a bit, is that one unfortunate guard got to stand outside while the bombs dropped to, you know,
keep an eye on things. Since nobody in the village of Carp (or anyone else who wasn't on The List) was allowed in the bunker, it would have fallen on this poor SOB to make sure none of the locals fleeing the bombs got anywhere near the bunker doors and since he would be outnumbered by a fat margin then this would almost certainly lead to his having to use his gun for this purpose.
Good times!
3)A bunch of students from West Carleton High School put together diagrams which illustrate the blast radius of different atomic bombs as they would spread over the downtown Ottawa area (generally with Parliament as ground zero). These were your standard "Red dot - Orange Ring - Yellow ring - White ring" icons.
My apartment where I lived for two and a half years before leaving for England fell within the yellow ring.
Yellow = "Those who envy the dead"
Huh.
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Addendum:
The most recent "We The Robots" made me laugh my ass off by really hitting on one of them
fundamental truths. Maybe your ass will fall off too?
Also
this.
And okay maybe
this too.
DOUBLE Addendum(nity?): I just saw someone pluralize "Vagina" as "Vaginae".
WHAT?
I did have time to finish another collage/placemat. The meat and potatos of this one consists of work by Jamie Hernandez. Now I've got an even four, which is nice, but I've got three more in states of semi-completion. I might have to accept some whitespace on the lead contender for "next finished".
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