By Warren Sparrow
Five-O, Spaghetti-O
We are in the midst of the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
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| Kennedy |
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| Khrushchev |
Where were you?
I was in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, a month into my first year as a Wake Forest Law School student. My wife Becky and I had moved from our Beacon Hill Apartment in Boston and had landed in the Wake Forest Student Apartments.
Our daughter Cathy was born October 9, 1962. She weighed over 9 pounds.
Cathy had not been home from the hospital but a few days when the earth started to move. Lord, were we frightened when President Kennedy gave the speech about missiles in Cuba. I was working at the paper in the evenings and going to law-school classes in the mornings.
To prepare for the battle which I knew was coming, I bought four cans of Spaghetti-O’s.
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| Castro |
As luck would have it, we survived. One of my professors said at the height of the crisis that there would be no war, that we should stick to our studies. He was right, saying he knew there would be no war because the Soviets knew they could not win. He was a visiting professor, 83, and internationally acclaimed. I believed him. He was most reassuring, a wise man.
Despite his assurances, we remained a little cautious.
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| Warren and his Spaghetti-O's |
We did not eat those Spaghetti-O’s right away. However, we did eat them. When? I know not.
Last week to commemorate the Cuban Missile Crisis I bought four cans of Spaghetti-O’s. We have eaten two of them already. Obviously, our unit survived.
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| Cathy and Chrarlotte Peele |
As proof of this, I have attached a photo of our daughter Cathy Peele and her daughter Charlotte Peele who is a sophomore at Kansas State. The photo was taken recently in the parking lot of the Kansas State football stadium in Manhattan, KS.
Charlotte is a member of the Classy Cats, the KSU Band’s dance line.
Her two older sisters, Melanie and Lydia Peele, are KSU graduates. They are the future. I am not sure they eat Spaghetti-O’s. We are saving two cans to celebrate the end of the crisis.
-Warren
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| JFK's scribbled notes during Missile Crisis |
