The End of the World

I just finished reading this book titled, "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy and it was effin' scary. I was extremely sad and frightened the entire time I was reading because it touches on my oldest, most primal fear. Mass Extinction.

One of my only and greatest fears is Nuclear Holocaust. "The Road" involves a Father and Son struggling to survive during Nuclear Winter. Anyone who has seen or read "No Country for Old Men" can imagine how stark this story is... It's an amazing read made difficult by the sadness of each, beautifully written, sentence. By the end, I wanted to throw it into the corner of my room and yell "YOU'RE JUST A BOOK!" at it.

Nuclear War is something that has scared the shit out of me ever since I was a kid. There was this movie called, "The Day After" starring Jason Robards that aired on the T.V. when I was little. I was still at an age when I couldn't readily discern between Reality and Fiction. So, when bombs started raining down on Kansas and the rest of America I thought it was News. I remember crying and people telling me it wasn't real. Not Real? But it is. It is real.

I've been spending every day after that trying to keep Nuclear Thoughts as far from my mind as possible. Who needs that Garbage clogging up the old imagination? I can't have my brain frozen in fear... Nuclear Winter... I got a lot of important stuff to ponder. Like how to invent the perfect popcorn machine, what improvements would benefit my "Snow Vacuum®", and blogging. So, I keeps the Nuclear stuff to simple entertainment.

I've written before about my infatuation with Horror flicks. Well, there are tons of different types of Horror subgenres. Each one causes a wide array of fears. There's the quick spook that makes you jump, the eerie, the weird, and the downright frightening. Only One thing fills me with all out dread, though, and that's Nuclear Holocaust. Everyone has their thing. This is mine. I can take Gory or Gross. I can take Shocking. Most things I won't bat an eye at. I get scared, of course, that's the fun part but I just can't take the thought of losing everything. You can walk away from a Zombie movie and say "that was awesome." Not quite so easy when you've just come from a movie or read a book about Nuclear Fallout. (Excluding Superman Four when he collected all of the World's Nuclear Weapons and threw them into the Sun. The greatest of Superman's many feats.)


Yeah, so, "The Day After" effed me up. As did "Miracle Mile." Some goof told me it was their "favorite" movie and I, like a bigger goof, borrowed it. It wasn't until "Miracle Mile" started that I realized the ending would be the saddest thing I'd ever seen. Two people meet, fall in love, and then get caught in the middle of Nuclear War. All in the same day. A real wrist cutter, this movie. I don't recommend it. Also, I don't recommend watching a sad movie when you know the locations where it's been filmed. Unfortunately for me I had visited the location- the La brea Tar Pits- a few months before and my cousin lives nearby so, that was an enjoyable period full of colorful nightmares. The ending was a real downer. (Likewise the La Brea Tar Pits.)

Another experience I had with Nuclear War, for pure entertainment sake, was neither a book nor a movie but a Museum. It definitely ranks up their as the weirdest of all four. On a trip to New Mexico, for a few days, a coworker and I were trying to keep ourselves occupied. Albuqurque has little in the way of amusements and for some strange reason we chose to spend our time checking out The National Atomic Museum. Now, if you click the link you may notice, about half-way down the page, they have a description of their Exhibit Halls-

Exhibits include:
* Pioneers of Science including Madame Marie Curie, Albert Einstein and Lise Meitner.
* What's Hot, What's Not - Radiation in the World Around You explaining both
naturally occurring and man created radiation.
* The Manhattan Project, WW II, and The Cold War
* Seeing is Healing, a look at Nuclear Medicine
* Waging Peace, the history of Arms Control
* Little Al's Lab™, where inquisitive young minds can try their hand at science
activities.

Little Al's Lab? Their description makes the place sound cute. In reality, most of those exhibits: "Pioneers of Science, Seeing is Healing, Waging Peace, and Little Al's Lab" are about one fourth of the total space. "What's Hot, What's Not" is more of a booth. (More along the lines of a Science Project or one of those Supermarket Blood Pressure Testing Machines.) It's tiny. Meanwhile, replicas of Bombs fill the rest of the joint. Floor to ceiling Surface to Air Missiles, ICBMs, Warheads, Fission Bombs... The absolute jewel of "The N.A.M." is a life-sized replica of "Fat Man." Yes. The same mutha-effa we dropped on Nagasaki.


Here's a lovely couple on their honey moon taking a few of photo-ops next to the A- Bomb. What's so striking about this picture isn't the happy interracial couple vacationing in New Mexico. It's the cartoonishly HUGE weapon they're standing next to. I know it had to be big, thus the name, but did they have to paint it bright Yellow? (If you think I didn't get my picture taken standing next to that thing you are out of your damn mind.) I was thoroughly entertained. And Horrified.

The weirdest part about the whole Museum wasn't the exhibits. It was one of the informational people. There was this guy who looked like Robert Duvall playing an old, ex-army guy. He had been at the actual test sites in Alamagordo, New Mexico. He had also been involved with all of the Manhattan Project stuff on the military side. One of the first things I heard him say was, "it's not exactly Politically Correct but what'd ya expect..."

...I don't know... I don't know...

Perhaps... I'm waiting for that amazing moment when the term "human intelligence" ceases to be an oxymoron. Hopefully, it'll be a few happy moments before we decide to get rid of the Earth Killing Weapons.

I got completely freaked out when he started to talk about "Yield." I mistook "Yield" to mean: "how many people will die" in the event one of those bastards is launched. This guy got extremely excited when talking about the "Trident Missile" which he was lucky enough to work on and he nearly got a boner when I told him about my bright idea. How they should put a seat up on-top of "Fat Man" so people could take pictures of themselves riding it like Slim Pickens in "Dr. Strangelove."

Lately, I have this vague, sinking feeling that George Dubs has a little key around his neck -looks a little like the key to a kryptonite bike lock- and on his very last day in office he's gonna want to finally see what it'll do to "that dohickey" in the corner drawer of his desk.

A few days ago, in an effort to quell my fear, a friend told me that each society has a moment where it believes the world will end. (Plagues, genocide, coldwar, and what all.) And, yet, Society always seems to get it wrong. That may be. But there's no reason not to be prepaired.

If you need me, I'll be in my bedroom. Fashioning a sign that says "The End is Nigh.".

-Chris