I was in Hershey elementary school in the Spring of 1979. We went to school on a normal day and on this particular day we had an assembly with a fellow playing acoustic guitar and singing folky type music like John Denver’s, “Sunshine on my Shoulders.” And it was a nice vibe and the sun was on my shoulders streaming in the window and I kept seeing parents coming to pick up kids and take them out of school. The actual parents were at the door and the kids were going to them and leaving the assembly. We were little and not really informed exactly as to what happened but we got the gist that something major was going on.
my mother had us outside raking leaves and sticks on the lawn!
As the day went on, word was spreading around and the rumor was that it was radiation was getting out of TMI and I really couldn’t wrap my little head around it, but I began crying picturing radiation seeping under the cracks of our doors and getting to my mom at home (kind of like the winter is coming cold spreading in Winterfell on Game of Thrones). My best friend Cindy said my mom was smart and was probably okay fending off the radiation. The day went on and on and less and less students were there but I still was!
In fact, I rode the bus home and my other friend, Nancy came over and my mother had us outside raking leaves and sticks on the lawn! It was a nice day and she was not afraid of any radiation! And I wasn’t even kept inside either! Out working all weekend long like normal.
My father was a doctor and my mother was a nurse and with all of their education and everything we stayed at home and kept on like nothing ever happened.
Would you really eat fish from that close to TMI?
Now, my father told me a story about a family whose father went fishing off of the Shores of Alaska or something and the whole family except the one little child ate the fish he caught, later all of the children and the parents who ate the fish tested positive for radiation, except the one little child who would not eat the fish! My father said he thought that was due to the Chernobyl incident, but never did he worry about TMI. I will never forget that day and crying for my mother at home, only to come home and rake outside! I will never forget Sunshine on my Shoulders…..
Years later, I used to go canoeing a lot with my boyfriend down the Swatara. We did the whole thing, and when we got to the end that connected to the Susquehanna and saw all the people fishing near TMI, we were stunned! Would you really eat fish from that close to TMI?
Then much later I dated a guy who worked at TMI as an electrician and he took me to a friends and family event right on the island and there I was….fearless.
I can’t say that I know anyone has had a bad health reaction to the TMI incident. I remember in college seeing it in a world history book next to a picture of Hiroshima and thinking, I live right next to that and was raking the day it happened! I do know that many women I know have had thyroid cancer or thyroid issues and I wonder, is that a kind of industrial disease that has come to all of us with new pollutants from places like TMI or eating so often from plastics etc. that people did not use in the past? I know we can’t all live forever, and I know that people are living longer and longer despite all of the new pollutants and all of our processed foods and additives, etc. but how do we explain all of the thyroid issues we all have?
I still live in that house where I was raking and I love it here in central PA.
Amy