Good stuff
San Ramon to host a holiday concert
Past times
Dec. 2, 1959 Top stories of the Pleasanton Times
Headline: “100 Volunteers Start ‘First’ Atomic Shelter Test at Parks”
One hundred volunteers will enter an underground shelter at Camp Parks in a history-making test that could set a pattern for civil defense measures across the nation. Prisoners and officers from Santa Rita Rehab Center will comprise the bulk of the volunteers who will spend two weeks in a 1200-square-foot shelter that has been designed to withstand atomic attack and radiation aftereffects.
The $22,000 shelter is heralded as the possible model for all community shelters that will be built throughout the nation. It marks the first time a group of this size will have remained two weeks underground under conditions closely resembling a wartime attack.
Three top experts from the Twelfth Navel District Navel Radiological Defense Laboratory will be present to observe reactions of 92 inmates from Santa Rita. Closed circuit televisions will permit constant outside surveillance of the men inside. They will live on a Spartan diet similar to old “K” rations.
They will have no contact with the outside world … no radio, no daylight; even the fresh air they breath will be “manufactured” from a plant underground. Each man will have 12 square feet of space in the Quonset hut that has been sunk underground, with a single, narrow ladder leading up to a sealed door at the ground level. The shelter has been loaded with scientific equipment to test every reaction, every word of the men as they live out their strange 14 days.
When they emerge, science will know a lot more about how Americans will react to possible atomic attack. On a quiet, abandoned base where once tens of thousands of young men trained for two wars of another type, scientists now labor in a strange experiment to fight a new kind of war with atoms and psychology.
Real Estate: Dublin Realty Co., Livermore. Santa’s sure to come to this house because it’s just made for a large family. All big rooms, on over two acres, with a four-car garage plus a big shop or it could be a stable. Over 2,000 square feet of solid construction in the house alone. Priced at $34,500.
At the movies: The Vine, Livermore. Robert Mitchum and Julie London in “The Wonderful Country” and “Ten Seconds to Hell” with Jeff Chandler, Jack Palance and Martine Carol.
Groceries: PS Market, Livermore. T-Bone steak, 99 cents a pound; canned hams, nine pounds for $5.98; Wesson oil, 37 cents; oranges, two five pound bags for 88 cents.
This week’s trivia question: On Dec. 6, 1969, 300,000 people attended the Altamont rock concert. Which rock super-band was featured?
Answer to last week’s question: On Dec. 17, 1959, “On the Beach” opened simultaneously in major cities.
Contact Louise Hartman at [email protected] newsgroup.com or follow on Twitter at Newsie1195.
