Nuclear Power: Based on a true story

         When the Unit 2 reactor on Three Mile Island (TMI-2) began to meltdown just before 4 am o Wednesday, March 28th, 1979 the NRC called my dad.  Admittedly, it was not the biggest mistake made that day but it was pretty indicative of the type of day the US government was having.  My dad worked at a local Christian school and painted houses on the side.  He had been clean for over five years but he wasn’t that far removed from protesting National Disasters rather than containing them.  

His father, however, for whom he was named, Joseph Robert Dietrich was nuclear physicist.  This surprises a lot of people. I kind of forget sometimes.  I guess it’s a big deal.  I used to imagine him as a hero, meeting at some secret location that had been secured by an Indian Jones like character discussing how millions of lives could be saved without dropping “the bomb.”  But even after he died and I stood in the coolness of my grandmother’s basement reading a letter from Albert Einstein to Doc, my grandfather, I knew that more lives had been lost by his attempts to harness atomic energy in a safe way than he could ever make peace with.  It haunted him, I think, the lives his genius had taken, drove him to drink, to hide deep within himself, to be a well dressed distinguished rambling man.  Eventually, he paid his debt for selling his soul to science sacrificing his revolting body to experimentation and study.  The still might not have a cure for ALS but thanks to my grandfather they know at least a hundred more ways not to cure it.  I think his friend Al would approve of that. 

I was born shortly after he died.  I was not a cute baby, no-one pretended that I was.  My godfather’s best description was “lumpy.”  Some people tried to say they saw my grandmother in me.  Mostly because we both had horrendous eyesight and our most prominent feature was always our coke bottle glasses. But I had head full of brains and that was power.  I didn’t have a way with numbers, just with words.  Reading surprised me by being so much harder than talking.  Talking has always been a breeze, it’s stopping that is hard.  One of my student’s insightfully commented that, “ words just fell out of [my] mouth.”  It’s true, my brain works so much faster than my common sense can keep up.  I need a neurological version of the bumper sticker “Don’t drive faster than your guardian angel can fly.”  Something like, “Don’t talk faster than you can process your own words and their possible effects.” 

It wasn’t just talking that came easily, I remembered the details of every day.  I found about the same time as my first panic attack that replaying the day in details was an effective way to ward off insomnia.  It was also a survival technique as my parents only had one rule: Obey.  And so listening and remembering was of vital importance to avoid the spankings that accompanied disobedience.  Quoting my mom to herself was the most surefire way to avoid punishment. (Don't worry I am getting full payback now that I'm a mom.)

I also learned the sort of facts that impress people.  I didn’t mind studying.  I studied the things that people I felt people who were smart knew.  So, I studied Doc’s work. I clearly remember standing in my grandmother’s basement, stuccoed inside and out.  The air was thick with Virginia humidity.  I had the door open to look out over the James river meandering past as I helped my dad clear out Doc’s things.  I was convinced we’d find a secret cabinet or trap door in his desk.  There were a good amount of classified documents but nothing top level. Still, I’m fairly certain I was the first 5 year old proponent of nuclear power.  I knew the fatal flaw in my argument was how to dispose safely of the Uranium but that was before we even knew were were tearing a hole in our own sky.  People were reckless but not ballsy enough to welcome a power source that also had fueled the greatest act of mass destruction to date.  It was understandable.  I am still contemplating the energy problem, over 30 years later.  

         Doc may not have given the world the power source he felt it needed but he empowered me to learn everything I could about this beautiful messy world.  And yes, he messed up a lot.  He hurt so many people, millions he never knew and  a handful who'd spent a lifetime loving him.  So, I learned that from him too...as Mr. Browne puts it in the fantastic book , "When given the choice between being right and being kind.  Choose kind." -RJ Palacio

Coach

    It’s hard to write about those that we have loved and lost.  But sometimes its the best thing we can do because words written amidst of tears can be like the tears of a Phoenix, healing us as we rise from the ashes. And it is from ash and dust that we all begin and to dust we all return.
    I often wonder if there is truth in the lyrics claiming “only the good die young.”  It feels like that to me.  It’s always the good ones, the people you want to hold onto forever who are suddenly gone. 
     So it was with my coach this past weekend.  For those of you who have ever played a sport and especially to those of you who have ever been an underdog, you have that coach.  The one who always believed in you, who never gave up on you even when you wanted to give up on yourself.  It’s almost as if they’ve walked out of the Remember the Titans script and are making it come true in your very own crazy life.
     My coach was named Ginny Hill.  At least that was her name when I met her as a 4 foot sixth grader, trying out for the middle school soccer team.  To be clear although the tryouts were really more of a formality than an actual culling process since we all made it in some sense of the word, I was facing them with coke bottle thick glasses, zero sports experience and little of hope of doing more than “riding the pine pony” or “keeping the starters spots warm” as you will… so when the very first game she started me in goal no less, I was speechless.  Coach told me later, when I made Varsity as a freshman that she chose me for my heart, my “lion bird heart,” a nickname my college roommate later resurrected. She changed my life that day she put me in goal and she continued to do so for the next 3 years of middle school.   It is part of the reason I love to teach middle school.  My own experience was so poignant.  I grew a quarter of an inch but leaps and bounds in confidence and friendships.         Coach had a pretty big 3 years too. The team fought side by side with her against her first bout with cancer.  I remember how seriously we took each poster we made her and each round of chemo she conquered.  She was a hero to all of us and amidst this crazy battle, she got engaged and married! 
    She could never convince me that anyone would ever be good enough for her.  She was a saint.  But as I got to know Paul over the next 20 years, he won me over.  He became a mentor to me as well, with his humble servant’s heart and constant faith in the face of hardship.  Every day found them with a smile on their faces, even at times amidst tears.  I saw them less and less after moving across the country and then back but she always made time for me.
     I won’t be there tomorrow to celebrate her life in CT but I will be thinking of her and telling all my kids about how God used her in my life. 

A Letter to President Trump on Martin Luther King Jr Day 2018

Dear President Trump,

         Confession.  I am prejudiced.  I cried the day you were elected.  I was frightened by a world who would elect a white, rich and powerful man.  A man, so much like the one who took away my innocence before I finished first grade.  

 As I sat in my bathroom crying, I remembered going into the voting booth with my mom back when Dukakis was running against the first Bush.  My job was to keep the cheap blue curtain in place while my mom got to pull the levers. I couldn’t wait till the day I got to pull those levers. I even aspired to be on the ballot.  

Full disclosure:  In my first Presidential election I voted for George W. Bush to serve a second term as our president.  I figured he was the one who got us into the Iraq war which my friends had heedlessly enlisted in, only to come back ghosts of their former selves. I guess I was just hoping that he had a plan and I was wise enough, even at 19, to see that bureaucracy required almost a decade to carry out a plan. 

Fuller Disclosure: I voted both terms for Barack Obama.  I not only wanted an African

American to be president, I wanted him to be president. I admired the way he wrote his memoir so humbly, admitting his weaknesses and insecurities. I liked the way he told stories of all the people he’d met along the campaign trail. He was so skilled at diplomacy and after eight years of war in the Middle East I believed that we needed someone who would sit down and talk, someone who was internationally savvy.  Maybe it was vanity, maybe as a speech and debate teacher and coach I wanted someone well spoken.  

Fullest Disclosure: I did not vote for you last year but neither did I vote for Hillary Clinton.  I did what most would say was wasting my vote by casting it for an independent.  

Now, here I sit, a white mother of three white children, trying to make sense of how to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. in light of your alleged racist remarks.  

I face 3 main problems:

1. My first dilemma- Your comments themselves.  Even if they prove to be inaccurate in the particulars I take issue with them and even to your rebuttal to the allegations:  "I am not a racist. I'm the least racist person you will ever interview.”  http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42685356 

This strikes me as ridiculous.  How can we ever crown someone “the least racist.”  It’s immeasurable and unquantifiable.  Even if someone is an activist for racial and ethnic equality we can never know the moments of snap judgements they make based on their own subjective experiences and unacknowledged indoctrination into “how life works.”

2. My second dilemma- Martin Luther King Jr. was not perfect.  He was a great man.  He made the world a better place but not without controversy.   “King was regularly accused of what today would be called ‘reverse racism;’ of hating white people. One piece of hate- mail is particularly revealing: “How can you be a minster and have such hatred in your heart for the ‘white’-race and the Nation in general?”  http://www.missioalliance.org/king-wasnt-peaceful Frankly, it makes me uncomfortable to contemplate that in his mind I owe Black Americans reparations for the sins of my forefathers  I hate being lumped together with bigots and racists because I am white. In fact it makes me want to dig up dirt on him such as the fact that he was unfaithful to his wife, and he put her and his children in danger as well as leaving them penniless. But I know that is petty.  

3. My final dilemma: What can or should I do?  My first instinct is to stay silent because I have yet to “win” a debate via social media or blogging.  Also, I run the risk of being misinterpreted and phrasing something in a particularly offensive way to someone, which would break my heart.  But in the end I love Martin Luther King Jr's message and I think he deserves to be celebrated. I found this article that I think is really helpful on how that can play out in each of our personal lives.  

https://hellogiggles.com/news/politics/9-ways-celebrate-martin-luther-king-jr-day-meaningfully

He was a man who truly made America great and he did so by recognizing that without humility, self-sacrifice, faith and love our own beloved country is a hateful sh--hole.  So, let's go President Trump. Let's honor the man who gave his life for equality and civil rights.  Let's make America great again.  

Sincerely,

    K.D. Simington

Silver Thunderbird

Prompt #4- Write about a car.

       Just before the start of school in 7th grade I was lamenting the poison ivy scabs that still oozed out of her chin despite my best efforts not to scratch them.  My dad came almost dancing into the indoor/outdoor flag stone floor of our kitchen.  I turned to him and threw the front door open wider motioning for us all to come and look.  I peered behind him and saw my mom’s maroon station wagon that he had bartered a whole summer of roofing to get, and next to it I saw a new car.  Well, truth be told it looked like a very used car but definitely new to us.  It held some similarities to the 1985 Camry that had died about the time Dad began his roofing for the station wagon. “It’s a T-bird,” My dad gleamed.  “The Shoemachers
      “Why?”  I asked taking a bite of my peanut butter toast.
      “Why?!” He echoed. “They are classic cars!  Marc Cohen ‘Silver Thunderbird?!’” I knew the song and I double checked.  This car could not truly be a Thunderbird.  It had no chrome, no fins, small lights and looked nothing like the bat mobile. Dad headed into the living room to play the CD. He was all about CDs in 1997.  I was skeptical but he had given me almost all of his cassette tapes in favor of the “Compact Disc.”  My mom still listened to her records on the record player and those songs were my very favorite.  I wished she’d let me play them.  But in no uncertain terms I knew that if I ever touched the record player I would instantly break the needle and then it could be months before my mom could harangue my dad into getting her a new one.  He slipped Marc Cohen into the entertainment center that he had built from scrap wood from various side jobs. 

    “Why were Rick and Lynn getting rid of it?”  My mom asked, wiping her soapy hands on a dish towel.
    “Aww, you know Rick, he doesn’t really work with his hands. Some small electrical problem and he’d just as soon get a new car.”
         I marveled at this.  “One man’s trash is another’s treasure” held Biblical status in our house and that was saying something.  I looked at my mom, for I knew she did not ascribe quite as whole heartedly to the axiom.  The pressure in the room suddenly made my head hurt, the same way the atmosphere warned me when a thunderstorm was coming. My headaches were totally debilitating but they were also what had taught me the joy of escaping to my room with tea and a good, easy read.  No-one would knock, knocking would make it worse.  So, I crept upstairs and tucked myself under my comforter.  It was a little scratchy but looked paint splattered which was exactly the motif I’d begged to instill upon my entire room.  It was not to be.
        
My sister came in, up from a nap, or a session of reorganizing her books across the floor of her room.  She wore the sesame street ABC comforter that I’d handed down around her like a cape.  She lay down next to my bed. 
        “I can’t read out loud.”  I told her flatly. 
        “Ok,” she shrugged. She produced her LiteBrite miraculously from the folds of the well worn canopy.  She settled down against the spray painted metal bars of my bed.  We’d rescued it from the trash and it’s fancy wrought iron work reminded me of “The Little Princess.”  I liked to imagine waking up to a surprise feast one morning.  I’d even imagine eating and enjoying a tangerine which was something I’d never done.  Anything with seeds was anathema to me.  I gagged at the thought. 
    
    “Do you want to make a radio show?” She asked.  Sometimes we’d hide in my wardrobe; I was fairly certain one of these days we’d be allowed to enter Narnia but until Aslan deigned to see us, we made radio shows.  We had a cast off cassette player from my dad and a good amount of blank tapes and those we’d tape over.