Ray
“What’s TMI?”, I blurted without raising my hand.
“Three Mile Island!”, the teacher (and most of the class) shouted indignantly.
Eleven year old boys can be clueless, and I was a case in point. I don’t remember if this incident occurred in the weeks leading up to the accident or if it was after the fact, but I remember the cognitive dissonance. This wasn’t the way the game worked. The game was that teachers would tell me stuff, and I would tell it back to them, and then they’d tell my parents about it on thin mint green sheet of paper every few months, and my parents would be happy. I was good at that game. But all of a sudden, I was being expected to know something that no one had told me about…
Around that time I also remember finding a piece of paper lying around that my mother had entitled “Things to take if…” Yep, it had the ellipses. I don’t recall what was on the list, but I do recall asking her about it. She mentioned something about radiation, and a 15 mile radius, and maybe staying with relatives whom I didn’t know. I can imagine the ad: “WANTED: Place to stay for family of 6. Four boys: aged 14,13,11, and 10. Fight daily. Dad 6’8” 350 lbs. Can you feed us too?”
The Givler Family
On the date of the accident I remember an electric atmosphere at school (no pun intended). Kids rushing toward buses to head home early from Fishing Creek Valley Elementary School. I didn’t know how we lucked into this opportunity, but my mind framed it as a snow day without snow! The weather was great (and a little googling verifies my memory: 69 degrees on March 29, 1979). We played outside, rode our bikes, laughed.
My mind framed it as a snow day without snow!
In the aftermath, I recall discussions with other kids about whether our families had evacuated. Some with more resources or better support networks had done so, but not my family. I dismissed it with a sour-grapes attitude, “Nah, we stayed put.”
There were a lot of stressors growing up in that rundown 19th century farmhouse – poverty, cold winters, sweltering summers, little access to healthcare, sharing the domicile with the occasional rat and the resident black snake… but radiation? That wasn’t one of them. Whether through insightful parenting or sheer poor communication, my parents had insulated me from the problem and I had remained blissfully unaware of any risks. Thanks, Mom!
Ironically, 40 years later, I have an eleven year old child, my daughter Sylvia. This calls for an experiment.
“Hey! Sylvia! What’s TMI?”
“Three Mile Island. Why? Or Too Much Information, depending on the context.” Well, I certainly hadn’t suffered from the latter.
Ray