The war of words between President Donald Trump and North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un has put nuclear threats back in the headlines. And it has some people thinking about another time when nuclear weapons were on the minds of many — during the Cold War in the 1950s and 1960s.

Back then, there were bomb drills in school, and fall out shelters.  

Bette Triago, a senior citizen who spent part of Friday afternoon in Greenwich House, a senior center in Lower Manhattan, remembers doing those drills at school in Laurelton, Queens. 

"We were told to put our hands behind our head and go under our desks," she recalled with a laugh. "It was duck and cover."

Triago said she doesn't remember being scared then, and she isn't too concerned now, either. 

"I don't believe it's going to come to a head, except that I think Donald Trump is saying stupid things," she said. 

On Friday, the president tweeted that the U.S. was "locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely."

That rhetoric has some people worried about rising tensions. 

Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, notes this for scale: During the Cuban missile crisis, we were dealing with megaton bombs. North Korea, by contrast, has most likely only produced a nuclear weapon between 10 or 12 kilotons. That's still serious, but much smaller.

"It is, in my opinion, extremely limited," he said, "especially in the perspective of what we were facing in the Cold War."

An elderly man sitting on a bench in Washington Square Park, who gave his name only as Roger, is still wary. 

"Maybe because I'm older now it seems to be more of a concern," he said. "And having children, I don't want us to have a war, quite frankly."

North Korea is reportedly finalizing plans to launch missiles toward Guam. 

With The Associated Press