Joe
March 28, 1979, the day after my birthday.
In March of 1979, my late husband, Joe (aka Robert Bobby) was just getting his band, The Speedboys, together and one of their first gigs was scheduled at the Pequea Inn in southern Lancaster County a day or two after the news broke about TMI. Everyone was very nervous and some band members were considering evacuating. Ultimately, I believe the bar cancelled the show. Joe wrote this humorous song about one of his bandmates with the third verse inspired by the true story that Peter did buy new sneakers in case he had to leave town. A real period piece that might bring you a few chuckles.
At the time, I was a psychiatric case manager at the Lancaster Guidance Center. I remember that all the staff were called into a meeting to prep us for the scenario that we might be needed to help with counseling in the event of a mass evacuation. It all seemed very surreal and now in retrospect, incredibly naive.
At first they all stepped back from us, making jokes that we must be radioactive.
Chris
Later that year, a few colleagues and I were at a conference in Chicago. I will never forget being in an elevator at the hotel when we were bombarded with questions and concern when folks noticed our name tags that said were from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. At first they all stepped back from us, making jokes that we must be radioactive. Then, things became more serious when we realized from the questioning that we had not been seeing and hearing the same news reports that were being circulated in the rest of the country. We basically had no idea how close TMI actually came to being in a meltdown status and it was obvious that our local authorities and NRC government officials were not telling us the whole story.
After the terrible Chernobyl accident, not too long afterwards, I felt very lucky and incredibly saddened thinking about how much differently things could have turned out.
Chris “Mrs. Bobby”
Listen:
“Don’t Mess with the Messer”
from Look What Love’s Done to Me Now by The Speedboys