Russia is at it again, threatening to invade another country. This time its Ukraine.

This happens whenever Russian “President-for-eternity” Vladimir V. Putin, feels that the world doesn’t fear him enough. He threatens to invade and take over some smalltime third world country that you and I couldn’t find on a map.

Vladi (that’s what all his friends call him, both of them) likes to shoot selfies of him going bare-chested and riding around on a horse or engaging in other manly activities like hunting, fishing and poisoning political opponents.

To prove that he’s serious, about Ukraine, Vladi recently shot selfies of himself riding atop a tank, while not wearing a shirt or PANTS!

Whenever Russia threatens the world, it brings back frightening memories of my childhood at Ridgebury Elementary School, in Ridgebury, Pa., in the early 1960s. I was taught that the Russians were our enemy and a threat to world peace.

Back then, the Russians amassed armies all over the place, including outer space. Vladi was a child at the time, but that didn’t stop him from riding around on a toy Russian tractor, while not wearing diapers.

We were in a “cold war” with Russia, which I thought meant fighting in Alaska and Siberia.

They Russians replaced the Nazis as bad guys in our culture, from movies and books to TV shows. Even our cartoons featured evil black dressed Ruskie’s, like Boris Badenov and Natasha of Bullwinkle fame. (Loved that cartoon. Still do).

Our fears of these warmongering devils reached a fevered pitch when they moved into Cuba with nuclear missiles. This sent America into full-blast, red alert “there goes the neighborhood” mode. This occurred in 1962 or ‘63, I’m not sure, because, like I said, I was in second or third grade and had trouble remembering my lunch money.

The cold war suddenly got hot which resulted in a paradigm shift in American education. We went from multiplication drills to “duck and cover” drills, in case one of those missiles was aimed at Ridgebury Elementary School.

We jumped under our desks, covered our heads with our arms and got our pants dirty, resulting in a nuclear scolding by Mom when I got home.

The desks were supposed to protect us from flying glass. Hell with flying glass. I worried about the 5,000-degree shock wave and bone-melting radiation?

Those drills, and the howling sound of the air raid sirens, scared the hell out of me. I had seen too many of the grainy black-and-white film clips showing nuclear explosions reducing houses to molecules and making pine trees sway back and forth before bursting into flames.

The Civil Defense Corps. produced a PSA cartoon to teach the duck and cover. It starred, Bert The Turtle, a seemingly slow-witted bowtie- and pith helmet-wearing character that ducked into his shell at the first sign of a mushroom cloud. It didn’t make sense. I didn’t have a shell to crawl into, and if I did, I probably get yelled at for ripping out the knees of my pants while doing the crawl.

As I cowered under my desk, I remember thinking, “How in hell (kids swore a lot back then) is this flimsy gum-wadded desk going to save me from a nuclear blast?”

Hiding in a fetal position under my desk raised several questions:

“Why would Russia want to blow up Ridgebury Elementary school? Are there missile silos hidden under the playground?”

“Why isn’t my teacher under her desk? Probably because if this was a real nuclear attack, she and the rest of the s—thead teachers (see what I mean about swearing?) would run to a secret faculty bomb shelter and leave us kids to fend for ourselves. Bastards!”

“Maybe if I tell Mom I got my pants dirty when I fell on the playground I won’t get yelled at.”

But back to the Cuban missiles. From what I can remember President Kennedy and Cuban Leader Fidel “patchy beard” Castro decided to settle the issue like real men, by standing face-to-face until one of them blinked, making the other man the winner. They were originally going to play “rock, paper, scissors,” but Castro said he wasn’t good at it, because rocks, paper and scissors were among the many supplies that Cuba never had enough of.

Castro blinked first and lost. He later claimed it was because his cigar smoke got in his eyes. (Lyin’ commie!).

Today school kids have it just as bad. The A-bomb drills have been replaced with “lockdown drills,” were frightened kids huddle in a darkened corner behind locked doors because an armed intruder is in the school shooting people.

Such fears should never be a part of a kid’s life. We live in troubled times. Covid hasn’t made it any easier. We need a hero to make life safe and fun again.  

I have the perfect candidate.

Rocky the Flying Squirrel.

Jim Pfiffer’s humor column is posted every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page and TwinTiersLiving.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets and is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.