The lasting lens of a 10 year-old

My mother was pleased to point out to her two sons in the back seat the gray buildings and wharfs along the river. "That's Electric Boat, where they build submarines."

We were on our way to visit my mother's cousin Iris in New London, Connecticut, and the trivia about these innocuous looking buildings made the trip more interesting. Certainly more interesting than Mystic, in which neither my brother John or I had any interest.

"Nuclear submarines," my older brother corrected. John was 14, I was 10. He knew everything, and I believed him. My sister was at college, so there could be no counterweight. Then John turned to me and confided, "This is a big nuclear target."

I looked out the window in horror. Each time we visited, I dreaded saying good bye to Iris and her family -- as if could be the last time I'd see them.

This was not the only nuclear threat on my extended family. We had cousins in Norfolk News in Virginia, which John said was another prime shipbuilding port.

John was fascinated by armies, navies, and air forces. He taught me the difference between the F-14 and F-15 fighter jet, and I read his back issues of Foreign Policy and marveled at his report comparing the Soviet and American navies

Decades later, despite the thawed cold war, I'm still nervous passing through eastern Connecticut. Not to mention, by the way, upstate farms with their supposedly innocuous silos. You might romance storage of animal feed. But I hear my brother's voice telling me the truth: "Mat, that's where they hide the ICBMs."