Quote Originally Posted by Gistok View Post
Not sure when they changed the air raid sirens to just tornado sirens... but when I grew up in the 60s we had them 1PM first Saturday of every month... still do. Used to drive the dogs in the neighborhoods nuts... as they were howling along with the sirens.

We never climbed under our desks... but we did have air raid drills in the basement of our grade school [[Marquette School, next to Balduck Park in Detroit). I remember how clean the floor of the basement was... they must have kept them clean and polished for our regular air raid drills.

Also, one carryover tradition was the WWII War Bond drives that they had at schools and even movie theatres... by the 60s the teachers promoted US Savings Bonds... and you used to buy stamps [[similar to S&H or Gold Bell supermarket stamps) to fill your book so that you could trade them in for US Savings Bonds when the books were full. I vaguely remember the $25 Savings Bond.
I will second those memories, Gistok. In addition, when I lived in the Warren Woods area of Warren, my mother told me the air raid sirens were because we lived near the GM Tech Center and the Dodge Truck plant. She said if the Russians bombed us that they would be one of the first places to go. Yikes! I'm more unnerved now than I was then.