A Hundred Year Story, Part 12

By Elton Camp

My father’s disappearance when I was a tot was due to a new work assignment.
He decided to slip away without telling me, thinking it would be the best way. He had
gone to Washington State at the behest of the federal government. It was his belief that he
was to work at a gunpowder plant at Hanford, Washington. For many years, it seemed
strange to me that the government would move him thousands of miles to do the same
thing he was doing at Childersburg. Apparently, he never questioned it. To the end of
his life, he continued to believe he merely had worked at a powder plant. He rebuffed my
attempts to explain the true nature of the place. “It was just a powder plant,” he insisted.
He was much mistaken.

As an adult, I learned that the facility he helped guard was actually a part of the
Manhattan Project that produced the atomic bomb for use against Japan. The main task at
that western location was the production of weapons grade plutonium. The concrete and
block buildings were deliberately designed to resemble a large industrial complex.
Behind the facades, in the deepest secrecy, was developed the world’s first full-scale
plutonium production reactor.

The Hanford Facility Looked Like a Normal Factory

The work at Hanford was one of the biggest scientific experiments of modern
times. There were many uncertainties and dangers associated with the developing
technology. Because of this, the facilities were grouped into several clusters with
extensive areas of open land between. If one cluster was destroyed in an accident, the
others might survive.

Plutonium produced in that reactor powered the first atomic explosion, the Trinity
test at Alamogordo, New Mexico on July 16, 1945. On August 9, 1945 an atomic bomb
containing plutonium from the Hanford reactor was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. The
tritium used in the first hydrogen bomb tested at the Pacific Proving Grounds on October
31, 1952 was irradiated within the same B Reactor. Hanford played a significant role in
one of the most horrific events in world history.
 Fewer than a dozen people who worked on the Manhattan Project knew of its
actual goal. Tens of thousands unwittingly aided ushering in the horrors of the atomic
age. The project was spread all around the United States to maintain secrecy, but the
facility at Hanford was the largest. Of course, my father played no scientific role in
devising the bomb. He was a security officer who walked and rode a bicycle along miles
of tall hurricane fence. As such, he had to punch a series of time clocks that showed he
made regular rounds on a scheduled basis. He reported that on the coldest nights he
sometimes took refuge in an underground chamber. I realize now that it was provided for
protection in case of the accidental release of radioactivity. He never seemed to question
the presence of such an odd structure or the reason for its existence.

“It was cold, exhausting, and extremely boring,” he later reported. “I hated
working there.” I wonder how he’d have felt had he realized its true nature.

He drove to that western location with a group of men in a private car. They
made the mistake of letting him be the navigator. He later boasted about taking them on
a roundabout route that let him see places of interest. On the way, the men gambled by
matching coins to see who would pay for each meal. “I only had to pay a couple of
times,” he later gloated.

My mother was fed up with living at her family home. She actually never got
along well with her mother, although she had a good relationship with her father.
According to her, the last straw came when they went on a trip and left her with a flock of
chickens to kill and preserve. She got Vada Gibson, later King, to come help her. I can’t
remember Vada being there. Vada has said that it was a long time before she could stand
to eat chicken again after that experience. I wouldn’t have known who she was at that
time which is likely why I didn’t keep it in memory.

On the day that we moved away, Uncle Embry White rode the bus down to help
us. I didn’t know who he was, but thought he was fun since he paid attention to me. We
had so few possessions that we loaded them all into an old Chevrolet coupe that had only
one seat. It still held three passengers (or more accurately, two and a half). “Tie my
tricycle behind the car with a rope,” I requested. “I want to ride there.”

I was quite put out when they refused. That it would’ve been impossibly
dangerous never occurred to me and I thought they were most unreasonable. I still recall
my frustration and childish outrage that they wouldn’t let me do what I wanted.

Because we made regular visits, Fayetteville continued to be a big part of my life

even after we moved away. I especially enjoyed the cattle farm. The creek that ran
through the farm, while small, was wide and deep enough to make it inconvenient to
cross except at a log. My grandfather knew places where the bottom was smooth rock
and the water shallow enough that he could, when wearing rubber boots, wade across. At
other places large, deep pools of water provided excellent fishing for bream.
 A fishing trip was a high point of almost every visit. My grandfather drove me to
his creek to fish with poles and worms. We generally started at one side of his property
line and fished favorable spots all the way to the other side where it ended at a plank
bridge over the public road. The biggest problem I had was getting my line caught in the
thick bushes that lined the creek. Occasionally, I’d get my hook hung on a rock or limb
in the water. He was a skilled fisherman, so we nearly always had a mess of bream for
supper. I caught far fewer, but enough to make it enjoyable.

Toward the end of his life, he had a good-sized pond built near the spring, stocked
it with catfish, and regularly feed them. The fish food made them grow rapidly to an
edible size. It also made them easy to catch. It seemed to me like fishing in a bucket. “I
like to fish, but I can’t go along the creek bank anymore,” he explained. “This way I can
sit in a chair and fish. It may not be the best sportsmanship, but I enjoy it.”

Delorise and I took him to the pond on most visits if weather permitted.
Unfamiliar with fire ants that hadn’t yet reached north Alabama, she accidentally stepped
on one of their mounds. Hordes of the insects poured through the breaks in the ground,
ready to repel the invader of their domain. “They’re going up my legs. They’re stinging
me. Do something,” Delorise demanded. She escaped serious injury and has since
steered well clear of the telltale dirt mounds that announce the presence of a fire ant
colony.

Those predatory ants aren’t native to Alabama, but were introduced at the Port of
Mobile. Slowly but surely, they spread northward. Their march accelerated as the
climate changed due to global warming. Now they’re far up into the upper South where
they are a menace, especially to animals and to small children. Their stings raise painful
blisters and a few people are allergic to them.

The Morris farm originally covered over 100 acres, some of it steep hills. It was
necessary to check on the cows periodically. I often went with my grandfather to do that.
He had a herd of Black Angus serviced by a massive Angus bull named Pete. Pete
became something of a pet of his and lazily turned on his side to be scratched while his
owner sat atop him.

By that time, I had a graduate degree in biology and was on the faculty of a small
college. Nevertheless, I made a surprise discovery in practical biology. “I didn’t know
they had that,” I exclaimed as I looked at the bull as it lay on its side in the pasture.” A
bull has a small sack and teats. I couldn’t have been more shocked, even though I
should’ve known. There are at least nipples on males of other mammals. There’s no
reason why a bull would be any different. My grandfather barely concealed his
amusement at my ignorance.

Despite his size and muscular build, Pete was docile. He stayed apart from the
cows until one came into heat. Only once did he get out of the pasture, but he caused
considerable damage when he trampled down Doc Daniel’s garden. Doc, as was his
usual custom, was exceedingly hateful about it and even wanted my grandfather to pay
him for the damage at a wildly inflated price that he suggested. He got nowhere with that
greedy attempt to extort money. Grandfather simply ignored it.

Grandfather kept Pete as long as he could, but too much inbreeding eventually
began to produce genetically defective calves. He had to dispose of Pete. After that,
Doc Daniel’s white bull began making conjugal visits to the herd, damaging the black
beauty of the Angus breed, but keeping the herd growing. It saved the trouble and
expense of getting another bull.

(Story to be continued.)