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This is what I was thinking about today.  I took this photo of the building left standing as a memorial at Hiroshima.  Earlier, some schoolgirls had come by, speaking English, and they showed us how to fold origami cranes to put at the Childrens' Memorial.  I cried, and they tried hard to cheer me up.  Some Buddhist monks were sitting on the ground nearby, in silence.  The building, to me , reverberated with ghosts.

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<u>The Big Blow</u>

 

 

When the Montcalm Nuclear Power Plant blew, I figured I was a goner. I was lucky, though. The doctors told me that, in spite of the beta burns and the lung damage, the bone marrow transplant did the trick. My brother Eddie was none too pleased about being the donor, but Ma got into him something fierce, and first thing you know, Eddie was bedded down, hollering his fool head off (till they knocked him out with on of those sweet drugs). I knew then I was going to pull through.

Lou and I always just laughed about living under that ugly nuclear reactor, even though it was an accepted part of the landscape. Just real bad luck that Lou was right there at home working on our income taxes when the "incident" happened. Somebody explained it to me about the rods getting stuck and all. But the picture of that big old reactor, collapsed in on itself, gave me all the explanation I needed. I guess Lou jumped right into his pick-up and drove on over there. His buddies, half of them, worked there at the plant, and it was just his nature to want to try and help them. A few weeks later, Lou finally passed on. It was real sad the way his gut just kind of rotted away, and he was passing blood and, you know, fecal matter all over the sheets. He was pretty well out of it by that time, praise God. Before that, I could hear him screaming for somebody named "Leona" all night long, even with those regular pain shots.

I was driving my Super Snax distribution route when the plant blew, and I was almost to the county line. Of course, I had to drive back to see what happened. Stupid me, I had the windows down all the way, hot air and dust everywhere, sirens screaming, vehicles going every which way. By the time the deputies stopped me, I’d picked up enough radiation to knock over a steer. So Lou and I ended up together in Cleveland Clinic (lucky us!).

So here I am now, living down near Tucson with Merle, the deputy who helped me when I was looking for Lou after the plant blew. We both saw a lot of things we’d rather not have – a guy’s skin sliding down his leg like a stocking coming off, a lady throwing herself out the hospital window because she couldn’t stand how she looked with her face skin burned off. We’re pretty happy, though. Merle’s a lot easier to live with than Lou ever was. And I even managed to snag a rural mail carrier job, though the heat can really get to you in the summer. So I guess you could say that, all things considered, I came out of the experience in pretty good shape. I’ve even stopped wondering who "Leona" was…like Merle says, every guy’s got a Leona somewhere. Guess it kinda served him right.