re: Long Beach...
I never got to share the "Duck and Cover" experience, which is why I though it might be just another urban legend, but I suppose enough here have reported having it to verfiy its ubiquity. My only memory of Long Beach is a little different.
I had just flown in from San Francisco, and I took the ferry to Catalina to meet my boat, Marrakesh. She had been raced there from Santa Cruz and the race crew was flying home, I was one of the deck apes tasked with bringing her back.
During the crossing to the island it was overcast, and with the help of my sunglasses, I could look through it at the sun, directly. A big bite had been taken out of it, there was a partial solar eclipse that day, and I was the only one on board who seemed to know it.