Flash!!!

There were drills and videos at school telling us what to do if we got atom bombed.  Teachers and the man on the film said to get under the desks and put our hand on our heads if we saw a flash.  Personally it made no sense to me.  My teacher, Ms. Munts, would not let me sit on the desk because it could break.  If the desk can’t hold me, how can it hold the roof?  Jeff said it didn’t matter, he said that if we actually saw the flash we were “good as dead.”  I guess we would end up like the crispy critters Grandpa talks about after Operation Crossbow. Ms. Munts yelled flash, we got under the tables and prayed that if even if the commies had figure out how to fly around the world, they had not found a way to get passed wooden tables.

Crispy Critter

I Declare War

“On the sidewalk during the long summer months, we played a new game called I Declare War using a cheap rubber ball and a piece of chalk.”  The purpose of the game was to call a country’s name and bounce the ball at the person standing in that country’s square.  If he caught the ball, he would call “Stop! Everybody now allied against him would have to freeze in place, and the victim country would begin the counterattack, trying to eliminate one aggressor country at a time by throwing at those closest to him and advancing his position with each murderous thwack.”  It was not being called on first that was the harsh part of the game.  It was the counter attack that really hurt.  You were confined to your square with no place to run.  It did not matter where in your square you were, there was no avoiding the ball.

Dust in the Wind

I remember a dust storm about four years ago that came through my town.  The sky got dark, the wind was fast, and the dirt in the air stung your face and coated the breast of your coat.  The dust was horrible while it lasted, but when it passed before too long and life resumed as normal.

For my research I study the effects of all out nuclear war.  Without a doubt the most interesting aspect of my findings in the notion of a “nuclear winter”.  The sky would go dark and cold, and the particles in the air would burn flesh and poison the lungs.  It is not yet certain how long these effects would last or how severe they would be.  In time, though, it would pass.  But to what?  What manner of life would be left?  Crops would be decimated, lives lost, and buildings destroyed by the initial blast.

On the ride home after the movies

With the SPECTERs and Dr. No defeated, what is next for James Bond?  Bond was able to take both Russian villains out without even messing up his perfectly styled hair.  Certainly we have spies like that in Russia.  Now obviously life isn’t a movie and the maniacal Russian masterminds would be harder to spot.  You know they wouldn’t all be dressed in dark leather clothes or lab coats with big mustaches and heavy accents.  Oh hey and a word to the wise… if you meet a scantily clad, super hot girl ask her out.  If you meet a scantily clad, super hot girl with an Eastern European accent run the other way!  Seriously though, we have to have guys as good as Bond over there.  I know he is English, but our guys have to be at least as good as their right?  And the Soviets?  Well… what if their guys are good too?  Do you think they have any here?  What if they do, who would they be after?  Would I know one if I saw him?  What if I do know him?

Truman the Tiger

Shortly after the drop of the atomic bomb, Truman had to stand and address the public on why he felt it a necessary action.  The damage was larger than expected, but he assured the American people that the results of the attack were calculated.  Sitting in Congress years later as the nation wondered if the Soviets would to to them as they had done to Japan, did Truman ever blame himself?  Truman represented a state in Congress. A state that due to its geographic position and lack of many major cities, was probably safe from direct attack.  Still, Truman knew possibly better than any other Congressman what the bomb was capable of.  He knew that he had to be strong against the Soviets, yet gentle enough to not provoke an attack out of fear.  American walked the precarious edge of brinkmanship where one had to be intimidating in presence while camouflaged in nature.  Something like a tiger.  A tiger is hard to detect, imposing physically, soft to the touch, but capable of killing anyone at a moments notice. Truman the Tiger.

The Shelter

Sue had to step on the bottom rung of the wooden fence that stood between her land and the next to see over the peer over its top. Clara’s father was on the other side standing by his tornado house.  Tornadoes were fairly common in Sue’s area, she personally had seen two.  Some of the families around her had tornado houses, she did not but if she needed to Clara’s family would let her use theirs.  They were not really houses so much as a room behind their real house.  It had no windows, power, or bathrooms.  All that was inside was some food and mabe something to lay on until the tornado passed, which was normally only about a half hour, sometimes less.  Clara’s father had replaced the door with a new one.  The door had foam around its edges that looked like it would block out most of the air.  If he and his family were to survive in the shelter for an hour or so they would may be fine, but what would happen if they had to stay longer?  The hinges were what Sue’s dad called the “cheap kind” they would not hold up to a tornado.  Sue watched as Clara’s father carried in bags of food, a few guns, and a few masks with noses on them that looked like an elephant’s. 

Minutemen

There is an old road running the length of the boarder to Jefferson City Missouri.  The road is dotted with farms and barbed wire.  Rusted sings warn trespassers of dogs or guns or the law.  Tractors and Ford tucks tear ruts in the muddy road, kicking up rocks and sludge behind them.  Past the Greene’s and the Rife’s plots is the Minutemen’s plot.  Rusted signs warn trespassers of dogs or guns or the law.  Roaring transport trucks tear ruts in the muddy road.  Guards walk along the perimeter of its barbed wire fences with the slow, the measured steps of professional soldiers.  Some say that the Minutemen silos stand to protect America should she need it, some say it puts a bull’s-eye on the town.

 

 

Minutemen I Silos

  

       

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 33rd President and me

Looking at historical figures for my final project, I kept coming across Harry Truman. He is from Missouri, like my family. He was a prominant congressman at the time of the cold war, the lake that my grandfather took me fishing on as a child was named after him, I have been to his museum, Truman the Tiger is MU’s mascot (where my parents went to school, and while thumbing through a book I have on my fraternity I realized that Truman is my fraternity brother (he is a member of Lamba Chi Alpha). I had one of those small world moments when you begin to wonder if everyone is connected somehow. Talk about a social network if thats the case.

Response 6

Billy tried to do as he was advised even after the war. He would wake up and shave his face, then look into the mirror to see if he still had good posture. It didn’t matter and he knew it. Billy would be shot in a few years regardless of what he did. Still, it made him feel better. Billy lathered his face and began to lightly stroke the razor to his cheek. The Tralfamadorians said that Billy, that everyone really, was a machine. Billy did indeed feel mechanical as he went through his morning routine without even having to think about what he was doing. A sharp prick brought Billy back to his human self. The froth on his face turned from white to red as a drop of blood landed on his outstretched hand.

Roland Weary was bleeding. One of the studs on the knuckles of his knife had cut into his leg when he tripped over the log. It was a good thing that the knuckles cut him and not the blade Weary thought. If the blade had cut him, it would have never healed and Weary would have died. So it goes. One of the scouts laughed at this. Apparently he didn’t realize what the shape of Weary’s knife could do. Billy sliced part of his sleeve off and wrapped it around Weary’s cut. It turned from white to red as a drop of blood landed on his outstretched hand. Out in the woods someone screamed.

Billy sat upright kicking the man sleeping like a spoon next to him. Someone was screaming in the back of the car. “What the hell was that for?” the man Billy kicked asked. “Someone is yelling,” Billy replied. “You should talk, you do it too,” the man Billy kicked grumbled.

Montana Wildhack yelled. Billy blinked, realizing that he wasn’t on the train anymore. She was getting closer to having the baby. Billy was an eye doctor, not a baby doctor and he wondered he could deliver a child. He also wondered if the Tralfamadorians would help. Would the Tralfamadorians know how to deliver a human child? Where did Tralfamadorian babies come out of? “Relax its not here yet,” Montana Wildhack assured Billy.

Billy Pilgrim watched as the prisoner paced from one end of the guard stand to the other, and then back again. “He is going to try to make a run for it isn’t he?” Edger Derby asked from beside Billy. They were painting today. Billy’s hands were speckled with grey-green paint. Billy pretended he didn’t hear Derby’s question and continued painting his wall. He knew the prisoner would not make it past the guards. The prisoner had stolen a revolver, the old kind that needed to be reloaded after every shot, but the prisoner did not know that. Billy watched out of the corner of his eye as the prisoner drew near the first guard, pulled the hammer back, and shot. He missed and dove behind an assortment of wooden boxes as the guards gathered themselves and returned fire. He crawled to the end and raised the revolver to fire again. Click. Nothing happened. Bang! The guard’s rifle worked just fine. The prisoner went limp. So it goes. Billy kept on painting. Billy wanted his wall to look pretty when the bombers came in three days.

Poo-tee-weet?

I actually came across internet out here.  Well, technically I am told I am actually using cell phone towers… I am not sure how that works.  Another thing I came across today was mention of Truman in Slaughter House Five.  The section talks about a report he wrote on atomic bombing.  I thought it may be interesting to look into the origins of the atomic bomb.  It turns out tha the atomic bimb, and modern computers were developed at the same times.  Without the bomb, would computers be what they are today? If we could trade our computers for a world rid of nuclear weapons would we?  The bomb dropped on Nagisaki was called Fat Man.  Weighing at over 10,000 pounds it is pretty easy to see where its name came from.  However, at only 10.5′ x 5′ it is hard to imagine that this little object could spark so much fear.  On the outside that bomb does not look very powerful.