 ?>/images/abomb.jpg” /> Despite spending my formative years during a time when every true American was searching for pinkos in the shadows and 1 in 3 were digging up their backyards to install a fallout shelter, I never developed the prerequisite fear of “The Bomb” required of that age.</p>
<p>In grade school, they would periodically conduct these Nuclear Preparedness drills. Similar to fire drills except you ducked under your desk and tucked your head between your knees instead of going outside, and nowhere near as much fun. The point of these drills was to protect yourself from imminent nuclear destruction. Right. I had seen the nuclear testing newsreel footage and knew in my young heart that this was about as useful as holding out your hand to stop a bullet. I always thought of this duck-and-cover move as bend-over-and-kiss-your-ass-good-bye drills.</p>
<p>“The Bomb” was a force so beyond my comprehension that I never saw the point of fearing it. And, as a skinny, shy kid growing up on the streets of west side Detroit, there were so many more immediate threats to consider. Those deities enamored of making a young boy’s life miserable had outdone themselves when populating my neighborhood with bullies.</p>
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In preparation for this, I read a book called Los Alamos by Joseph Kanon. It’s a murder mystery set during the time of the Manhattan project and Mr. Kanon captures the dark and desperate mood of the time – the bleak landscape, the near total isolation, the fervor of the scientists, the stifling blanket of secrecy. It’s all there, beautifully rendered, page after page.
As it turned out, some amorphous security glitch truncated the tour, eliminating a visit to those parts of the original project hidden behind LANL’s razor wire fences. Sad, as they would have been interesting to see, but I found out something that changed my opinion of Los Alamos. I still wouldn’t live there but I see it now in a different way. It turns out that much of downtown Los Alamos is part of the original site. There’s Ashley Pond pond (Not a typo. The pond is named after a man named Ashley Pond.), Bathtub Row, Hilltop House, the bungalows where Oppenheimer, Teller, Fermi and the like stayed while working on the bomb, all the places Mr. Kanon painted so well with his words, right there in the middle of town.
Funny how a well written book can do that to ya, change your perspective and all. I highly recommend his book.
I’m unsure why, but my generation (dare I say…X) had an interesting fear of all-out nuclear war, even though we never had shelters or drills. I have a lingering brain-visual…a nuclear warhead superimposed over Ronald Reagan. Hmmm. I guess the cold war – even in its old age – could get to us sensitive types!!