My wife and I, then residents of York, married on April 22 of Year 1979, but we wondered for a time at the beginning of that month if the wedding would come off.
We had purchased a little house among a row of townhouses that were being renovated and so joined a group of new neighbors working there. Then came the burp at TMI and all plans went on hold for a week. Half of our neighbors disappeared. We gained a boarder. He was a close friend who lived in Highspire and worked in Hershey. His pregnant wife retreated to Springfield in the Delaware Valley. He had to keep working and decided to sleep a bit farther away from TMI.
Most of us had no option.
On the worst day, when there seemed to be no news but awful rumors, I worked to plant an asparagus patch in my new yard. Neighbors noticed and came out to chat. One brought beer. We debated and laughed at our circumstances. Wondered at our neighbors who had left and wondered at the security of our homes if we left. Most of us had no option. My bride, at that time a family practice resident, had been assigned to accompany patients to Baltimore hospitals if York Hospital were to be evacuated. The nuclear medicine specialist there took periodic readings from the roof.
We laughed at the official statements until someone pointed out it was gallows humor. Only when we started hearing statements from one, Harold Denton of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, did we believe anything we heard. He said what he knew and what he didn’t know and he gave us what we needed to move forward rationally. And, when the all clear was given, we went back to our lives.
Our wedding was held at the Accomac Inn on the Susquehanna River. It was lovely.
Charles