40 years after Three Mile Island

Excerpting a bit from the LNP/LancasterOnline's editorial this morning...

Forty years ago today, in the quiet hour between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m., a combination of equipment failure and human error ignited one of the biggest scares in Pennsylvania history. At Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Dauphin County, Unit 2 suffered a partial meltdown of the reactor core, just three months after it had been commissioned.

I was not around this area during the TMI partial meltdown. I was eight years old and we were living in Clayton, New Jersey, far outside the danger zone. I honestly don't remember hearing or talking about it at the time, either. It was only as I got older and returned to Pennsylvania that "TMI" became those ominous initials and, on occasion, we could see those four concrete cooling towers looming over the horizon when driving past Harrisburg.

My former mother-in-law was living in the Dover area during the partial meltdown. She says the plan, in the event the 1979 emergency escalated (it did not) was that her husband would be activated by the military to assist with traffic/evacuation control. She, meanwhile, would get in the truck with the goats and the gun and head in the direction of safety. Many thousands had to ponder plans like that in the days following the nuclear accident.

Years ago, while I was working at the York Daily Record, the newspaper discontinued its index-card archiving system. Over the years, each article had been documented on one or more topic cards, which were added to a sprawling catalog in the library. When they decided to ditch the system and "go digital," the plan was to trash all of those thousands of cards. Naturally, I took a couple of shoeboxes full, to use for notes and lists, if nothing else. Among the cards I kept were ones related to the York Daily Record's coverage of Three Mile Island over the years. And that's what I'm sharing today for the 40th anniversary.

TMI anniversary coverage links

• LNP: "1979 Three Mile Island accident changed arc of nuclear power, public perception" by Ad Crable
• LNP: "Whenever financially troubled Three Mile Island nuclear plant closes, it won't disappear for a long time" by Ad Crable
• WITF: "'Three Mile Island: As It Happened' — a three-part podcast" by Tim Lambert
• York Daily Record: "How a York newspaper predicted Three Mile nuclear accident days before partial meltdown" by James McClure
• PA Post: "Why one pizza shop owner is worried about Three Mile Island closing — but some don’t see a major impact" by Ed Mahon

Ashar and I visited Goldsboro in April 2018 to photograph Three Mile Island...

Book cover: "Wales" (Collins Holiday Guides)

• Title: Wales (But despite the cover and title page, this volume is listed elsewhere as Wales and the Isle of Man and Wales & Isle of Man. And, indeed, Isle of Man information is included.)
• Series: Collins Holiday Guides
• Author: George H. Haines
• Cover photo: "The cover photograph of a girl in Welsh National Costume is reproduced by permission of Colour Library International," reads a statement on the back cover.
• Publisher: Collins, London and Glasgow
• Publication year: This is the 1973 reprint of a book first published in 1969
• Dimensions: 4¼ inches by 6⅜ inches.
• Original price: 35 pence
• Pages: 96
• Format: Softcover
• Contributors: Per the copyright page, drawings by Barbara Crocker, maps by Regmarad, design and layout by Ronald Mongredien and photographs courtesy of the author. More about them below.
• First sentence: Do not be misled by the map, which shows Wales as a small projection on the western side of England, or by the practical considerations that there are no customs barriers between the countries and that for many administrative purposes they are one.
• Last sentence: 2 mls from St. John's is Glen Helen, an inland glen created in 1850 by the owner who planted a million trees to make a luxuriant valley culminating in a waterfall. Peel 2½ mls, Douglas 8½.
• Random sentence from middle #1: The Eastern section, covering the Black Mountains, has some of the remotest country in Wales.
• Random sentence from middle #2: This was a comic affair: the invaders were delayed by the discovery that many cottages had supplies of liquor salvaged from a recent wreck; Welsh women in national dress were taken for British Redcoats; and a surrender was signed in the Royal Oak! (This is regarding the Battle of Fishguard in 1797.)
• Reviews and ratings: I could not find any reviews online. There's a single Goodreads rating giving it 3 stars, out of 5.
• Other books in this series: This is just a partial list: Bavaria & Black Forest, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Israel, The Italian Lakes & Dolomites, Peloponnese & Greek Islands, The Rhineland, Venice, Yugoslavia.
• About Barbara Crocker: I only found a bit in connection to her husband, travel writer Eric Whelpton (1894-1981). The Rye Castle Museum website states: "His wife, the painter Barbara Crocker, illustrated some of his books." Elsewhere it is stated that Barbara Crocker is a pseudonyn that Barbara Whelpton painted under. She authored books of her own, including 1970's Art Appreciation (Made Simple).
• About Regmarad: This mapmaker's name comes up in connection with epidemiology and the 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak. A UCLA history of the outbreak states: "Many years later, other map makers attempted to improve on John Snow's map by using dots rather than bars to represent each death. One such map that appeared in cartography books was drawn about 1960 by Regmarad, a one-named illustrator. Yet Regmarad's map was filled with errors and is not generally cited in the epidemiologic literature."
• About Ronald Mongredien: Not sure if this is the same Mongredien who played chess, wrote 1975's Chess For Young Beginners (published by Collins) and died in 2007 at age 94.

We need to believe science

Fact: We have a tremendous problem in the world (especially America) these days with people who disbelieve or distrust proven science.

Some people don't believe in vaccinations. And thus we have an outbreak of about 100 cases of the mumps in the Philadelphia area, centered around Temple University. And a measles outbreak keeping hundreds of kids out of school in Washington state. And brave kids going behind their anti-vax parents' backs to get vaccinated. The terrifying list of examples is long...

And some people don't believe in the overwhelming scientific evidence for climate change or the role that we humans have played in contributing to that change. They don't accept, even as we are bludgeoned by catastrophic weather events (southeastern Africa and the American Midwest most recently) and rising seas, that we must, in the words of the LNP Editorial Board, "change our consumption habits, pivot toward renewable energy and be willing to make inconvenient adjustments to our fossil-fueled lifestyles."

Still astounded at lack of coverage this monumental finding got yesterday. We need to be discussing carbon capture research funding, radical increases in renewables and the cessation of all oil drilling - now! https://t.co/uO6OGCYcAr

— Adam McKay (@GhostPanther) March 15, 2019

Just want to reiterate the importance of this moment:

The UN Secretary General has essentially admitted the failure of all previous climate action, and has vowed for a fresh and more urgent approach as a direct response to today's youth #climatestrike.

That's huge. https://t.co/x4NUiK69jG

— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) March 15, 2019

Heck, some people don't even believe that the world is round. I'm looking at you, Kyrie Irving and Mike Hughes.

But is all this disbelief, denial and distrust new? Sadly, no. I was recently browsing through Science Year, The World Book Science Annual for 1971 (Doesn't everyone do that for fun?) when I came across an article titled "The Rejection of Science," by Harvard professor I. Bernard Cohen.

It starts off with a dig at astrology, but then turns its attention other related anti-science matters and also the lack of federal funding for scientific research. Here are some excerpts from this article, which is now nearly a half-century old:

• "A paradox of our times, and a dismaying one to any scientist, is the dual way in which people look at the planet and stars. We live in an astonishing era when man has made his first celestial voyages, employing all of his scientific and technical genius to send instruments, and even himself, to discover the physical realities of the heavens, Yet, at the same time, there has sprung up a new preoccupation with the stars as supposed messengers of men's fate, charted to guide his present and forecast his future."
• "The trend toward anti-science, and to some extent anti-rationalism, is surely anomalous in an age characterized by many great scientific advances, and so many new technological and medical applications."
• "Is this apparent turning away from science, at the moment of its greatest potential, a national, or a worldwide phenomenon? Is it related to increased pseudoscience and mysticism? Has it ever happened before? It often seems that those critics who express the most serious concern about our age assume that things used to be better. But were they? Has our era rejected science more than any other era? I believe that a careful study shows that it has now."
• "It would seem to me inescapable, therefore, that a real self education in science, its nature and its nurture, and its role in producing effects upon society through the medium of technology, is the first step for anyone who is seriously determined to contribute to a better world."

Footnote
1. Speaking of one particular denier of man-made climate change, as I write this on the morning of March 23, 2019, The Washington Post reports that:

"Attorney General William P. Barr is expected to make public as early as today the principal conclusions of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with the Kremlin to influence the 2016 election, giving the public its first glimpse into the findings of the 22-month probe.

Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein were at the Justice Department Saturday morning, where they were reviewing Mueller’s report and working on a summary of conclusions to provide to lawmakers."

So that's happening...

Postcard of good old Harry Truman

No, not the U.S. president. This is a postcard of Harry R. Truman (1896-1980). His life was long and fascinating, but his probable end was sad. I'll start with the caption on the back of the postcard:

MOUNT ST. HELENS. Harry Truman, crusty, salty speaking 84 year "Old Man of the Mountain", perished rather than leave his fifty-year home, friendly raccoons, sixteen cats, assorted antiques, and his beloved mountain. The owner of MOUNT ST. HELEN'S LODGE, near Spirit Lake, Truman spent the day before the eruption visiting with raccoon friends, watering his lawn, getting ready for summer visitors, and spouting his rambling reminiscences and "blue language" quotes. His memorial is the colorful legend he's left behind.

Mount St. Helens (aka Lawetlat'la or Loowit or Louwala-Clough) is a volcano in southwest Washington that erupted on May 18, 1980, killing at least 57 people.¹
Wikipedia adds that Truman owned a pink 1957 Cadillac and hated Republicans, hippies, young children, and especially old people. Of his death, it states: "Truman was alone at his lodge with his 16 cats, and is presumed to have died in the eruption on May 18. The largest landslide in recorded history and a pyroclastic flow traveling atop the landslide engulfed the Spirit Lake area almost simultaneously, destroying the lake and burying the site of his lodge under 150 feet of volcanic landslide debris. Authorities never found Truman's remains. Truman's cats are presumed to have died with him."

I wouldn't have worried about my own well being, either. But I think, unlike Truman, I would have evacuated the area for the sake of the cats. (Though I understand how hard that would have been, given he had no other place to call home.)

I would have tried to take the raccoons, too.

My preferred alternate ending to Truman's tale is that the raccoons had a magic portal and spirited Truman and the cats away to some peaceful land, where they lived out their days. Given no firm evidence to the contrary, I'm claiming this to be the true story.

And now I have to go feed my cats...

Postcard info

• Published by Coral-Lee, P.O. Box 314, Rancho Cordova, CA 95670
• Mike Roberts Color Productions, Emeryville CA 94608
• CL-MT. ST. HELENS SER. #7
• SC17280-Colorphoto: © Jim Pomerenk
• May 1980

Footnote
1. Another who died was photographer Robert Emerson Landsburg. Wikipedia tells his story: "In the weeks leading up to the eruption, Landsburg visited the area many times in order to photographically document the changing volcano. On the morning of May 18, he was within a few miles of the summit. When the mountain erupted, Landsburg took photos of the rapidly approaching ash cloud. Knowing he was going to die from the nearly supersonic pyroclastic flow about to overtake him, he rewound the film back into its case, put his camera in his backpack, and then laid himself on top of the backpack in an attempt to protect its contents. Seventeen days later, Landsburg's body was found buried in the ash with his backpack underneath. The film was developed and has provided geologists with valuable documentation of the historic eruption."

1954 U.S. newspaper mention of "Gojira" (looking skinny)

This might have been the first moment when some Pennsylvanians learned about the Gojira/Godzilla phenomenon. It's a standalone wire photograph from Page 31 of the October 19, 1954, edition of The Plain Speaker of Hazleton.

The caption states:

H-BOMB MONSTER — This huge balloon monster is being moored over Tokyo, Japan. It was made to advertise a movie called "Gojira," which means half gorilla and half whale. The creature supposedly came into being after the U.S. H-bomb tests at Bikini. It then swam into Tokyo Bay, clambered ashore, destroying several large buildings including the Diet.

Toho's Gojira made its silver-screen debut in Japan in late October 1954. Most Americans didn't get to see it, though, until the heavily edited American version (adding Raymond Burr and removing anti-nuclear overtones) called Godzilla, King of the Monsters! hit theaters in spring 1956. That version, and many sillier sequels, were staples of weekend TV in the 1960s and 1970s. Later, there came the Hanna-Barbera cartoon, the Matthew Broderick travesty and now Millie Bobby Brown hanging out with the atomic lizard and his famous kaijū pals this spring.

My great-grandfather's nostalgia road trips, Part 3

Following Part 1 and Part 2, here's another batch of snapshots from a road trip some of my family members — specifically my great-grandfather and my grandmother — took in February 1965. They were checking out sites in Delaware connected to the younger days of my great-grandfather, Howard Horsey “Ted” Adams (1892-1985).

Caption on back: "Alfred Adams House (reconstructed)
near Laurel, Delaware."
Alfred Adams (1816-1899) is Howard Horsey Adams' grandfather, on his father's side. Thus Alfred is one of my great-great-great-grandfathers. He is buried in Odd Fellows Cemetery in Laurel, Delaware.

"Chipmans Mill — Broad Creek"According to Delaware AHGP (American History and Geneaology Project) and History of Delaware, 1609-1888, by J. Thomas Scharf, Chipman's Mills is two miles from Laurel and was built by John Chipman around 1800. It had a saw-mill, grist-mill and carding-machine. I'm not sure if the structure pictured is part of one of those mills.

"Trussums Pond — 3 miles from Laurel, Delaware"
It appears the correct name is Trussum Pond. I have no idea how it fits into the family history. According to Bivy:

"Trussum Pond is located just 6 miles from Laurel, in Sussex County. It is a spectacular destination for paddling and has a great fishing population as well. Delaware has some of the northernmost Bald Cypress trees in the nation and Trussum Pond is the best place to see these stately trees. You will paddle through a maze of gorgeous Bald Cypress trees which grow right out of the water. It is a very unique and beautiful location."

"Alfred House (N. Side) Arrow indicates original kitchen before rebuilt"
I assume this again refers to Alfred Adams. While Alfred died in 1899, my great-grandfather (and Alfred's grandson), born in 1892, clearly had some memories/knowledge of this house in 1965.

Staged shelfie just for the halibut 4

These lands were made for you and me ... and everyone.

"Reptiles, mince pices, and artificial teeth," plus a familiar lament

Here are some interesting excerpts from a 140-year-old newspaper article about the state of the fledgling postal system in the United Kingdom. Specifically, this is from the August 22, 1879, issue of The Standard of London, England.

• The serious illness of Sir Rowland Hill, the founder of the penny postage system, imparts and unusual degree of interest to the Annual Report of the POSTMASTER GENERAL, which was issued yesterday. The Report bears witness to the ever-increasing commercial activity of the United Kingdom.
• England must be a very different place now from what it was a century and a half ago, when the post ran only three times a week between Edinburgh and London, and the mail-bag from the Metropolis on one occasion contained only a single letter. It is barely forty years since the penny post came into operation, and in the last year of the higher rate the number of letters delivered in the United Kingdom was eighty-three millions, including nearly seven millions of franks.
• A single firm in London is known to received three thousand letters daily.
• Men are pursued from morning to night by letters and telegrams, and the work of the day may be upset by a message received in the evening. The strain is never taken off, the arrangements never seem final. Formerly there was a clear interval between post and post, a period of calm which could not be interrupted. Now it is only during a few hours in the night that there is immunity from some startling telegram. ... Life subject to these influences is apt to be hurried and overstrained. A sea voyage is perhaps the surest way of escape.
• Let a man allow himself to be entangled in this net and he exposes himself to the risk of being talked at from all points of the compass.
• There are other strange things in respect to the postal service, odd matters in transitu, such as "wild animals," reptiles, mince pies, and artificial teeth. Letters without any address amount in one year to more than twenty thousand, and letters with very odd addresses continue to abound.
• There were more than five milllions of undelivered letters last year, while the undelivered post-cards, book packets, and newspapers exceeded four millions. Half a million letters could neither be delivered nor returned to the senders.
• In the United Kingdom the Post Office has developed into a vast institution, employing 46,000 persons, of whom one-fourth are engaged exclusively on Telegraph work.
• In the United Kingdom there are now nearly 26,000 receptacles for letters, London alone having nearly 2000.
• The British postal system is one of which the Kingdom may be proud. ... A single penny — or even a half-penny — sets the machine in motion, and the postman is the servant of everybody.