Last Ones on the Beach

I won't believe that whatever will be will be.

When she was a youngster growing up in Skokie, Barb had two favorite movies. The first was “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” and the second was “On the Beach.”

“The Man Who Knew Too Much” was a 1956 film by Alfred Hitchcock starring Doris Day and Jimmy Stewart. It involved spies, kidnapping, and Ms. Day singing the Academy Award-winning song "Whatever Will Be, Will Be" (Que Sera, Sera). We watched it once together. It was dark, but the ending was happy.

“On the Beach” was a 1959 movie set in Melbourne, Australia. A nuclear conflagration extinguishes the world’s civilization. The Melbournians, far from the rest of the globe, wait for the nuclear fallout to reach them and end their existence. I’ve never seen it — maybe that’s why its sad, haunting premise stays with me.

Barb’s childhood favorite may seem like an old relic of Cold War anxiety, but today, it feels disturbingly current. “On the Beach” was on my mind this morning as I woke up and checked my phone for the latest news on the Israel-Iran conflict. I read projections and background reports, then turned on the TV to watch the talking heads pontificate and prognosticate. And I am scared.

I know (hope?) that the risk of a widespread nuclear war is low. But as the US military increases forces in the Middle East, is it time for schools or summer camps to bring back “duck and cover” drills, cold war relics we once laughed at? Does the Doomsday Clock, currently set at 89 minutes to midnight, need to be reset a few clicks closer to the apocalypse? Do we need to finally create a family emergency plan?

For the sake of my children and grandchildren, for the sake of all of us, I trust sane heads will prevail. We are too intelligent a species to make the tragic mistakes that would end us all. I refuse to believe that “whatever will be, will be.”

And I don’t want our generations to be the last ones standing on the beach.

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