225 US Steel Jobs In Gary

Throughout the end of the last century tens of thousands of workers were employed in the Indiana mills and ancillary jobs of supply and service. I recall driving through Gary past midnight in 1973. The flames of the blast flames lit the night sky. The jobs were shipped out of the country to cut labor costs. The price of steel never went down. The poverty rose throughout tge mill towns. 225 jobs ain't ____

Hiroshima Plus One Month 1945

This rare photo of the Hiroshima mushroom cloud was taken on August 6, 1945. The Hiroshima bombing claimed approximately 120,000 lives and the subsequent leveling of Nagasaki annihilated 80,000. The US military strategists have long held that these two attacks saved over a million US troops by forcing the Japanese Empire to surrender to the Allies.

My uncle Russ had passd through Hiroshima on his way to a US Army assignment in Nagasaki.

"Everything was gone. There was nothing left. Sometimes you'd see someone wandering in the streets, but there was nothing there."

Everyone else had been turned into shadows.

Hiroshima August 6, 1945

"There was a very strong flash and a heat wave. The whole world turned into something orange. I felt like I was thrown into an oven for a moment."

This quote comes from a Hiroshima survivor.

Only a few of dead had anything to say and that was merely with shadows.

Gems Up And Down

In 2008 after telling a story about selling a cabochon Sapphire, Lisa, a Palm Beach friend, recounted a tale about her wealthy mother's Burmese sapphire ring. A collection gem. Worth a hundred thousand thirty years ago. Her mother had worn it always, partially because it was too tight to take off her finger.

One evening in the 1980s the house was robbed by three Dominicans. One of them a member of the household staff. They couldn't get off the ring. Her knuckles were too swollen. The other two wanted to cut off the finger. The house boy said no. The ol lady ha always treated him right. They took the loot and were never seen again.

Cut to five years later. Her mother dies suddenly and her body is sent to the mortician. Because drugs are found in the blood, the Palm Beach county ME orders an autopsy. Drugs were not the cause of her death. The old lady was buried in a closed coffin. Planted in West Palm Beach. I'm always surprised to hear that families can bury people in the coral crust of Florida.

Weeks later when Christie's went through the mother's inventory of jewelry and valuables, it comes to light that the sapphire ring had been buried with the mother in Woodlawn Cemetery across Lake worth in West Palm Beach. No human has ever been buried in Palm Beach. Only two pets.

So her mother was disinterred back above six feet and then reburied replanted sans sapphire.

The dead are worth nothing, except to grave robbers.

ps - I don't ever recall seeing a cemetery in Florida.

Mushrooms Clouds Teriyaki

1992 marked the last nuclear bomb test in the USA, although the nuclear club of the USSR, the USA, UK, France, India, Israel, and Pakistan have conducted nearly 2000 explosions since the first blast in Los Alamos, NM. Only two were on populated targets.

For years my Uncle Russ ha recounted at family gatherings to his nieces and nephews that he had been about to parachute into Japan, when a flash had appeared over a city. The airborne assault troops had watched the mushroom cloud consume Hiroshima and the pilot had returned to base saving my uncle from a suicidal attack on Imperial Japan.

We believed the story until years later my uncle admitted that his tale was a fabrication based on a real event.

"I was stationed to Nagasaki after the Armistice. One day a B-29 bomber caught fire in flight. Nine parachutes appeared in the sky. The bomber lost altitude and crashed into a nearby mountain. We searched for the four officers left on the plane. The aluminum fuselage had been melted by the fire. The only human remains we found was a half a skull. One of the sergeants said that the B-29 normally carried a crew of 11. Two more survivors should have floated to safety. No one ever heard any more of that story."

Uncle Russ went to Japan immediately after the Armistice. He said these words about his time in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

"Flat."

"No people."

"I was 19."

Uncle Russ never spoke more about those wasted cities.

People from wars rarely tell stories.

At least ones that are true.

Old School Godzilla お願いします

Godzilla first emerged from the Pacific in 1954. Gojira was a portmanteau for 'ape' and 'whale'. The nuclear devastation of Nagasaki and Hiroshima were blamed for the evolution a creature dedicated to the destruction of Japan i.e. a manifestation of the USA.

Godzilla was relatively thin for an all-consuming atomic fire monster sheeronking during his rampage, but his last reincarnations has increased in weight.

A Fat Boy.

Not unlike the First Fat Boy served to Japan by a vengeful demon.

GODZILLA was shown on Saturday morning UHL channel TV before pro wrestling

The movie helped transform us from Christians.

No one prayed for salvation from Godzilla, except the Christians.

And we all know what happened to them in the end.

All bow to the Monster.

See Them Next Year - Horseshoe Crabs - 2025

Last weekend I spotted the last horsecrab carapace on Ditch Plains beach. Earlier in the month I spoke with Mike the Marine officer who said that their breeding numbers had been decreasing year by year. I was lucky to see females without their numerous beaus under the Broad Channel Bridge on Howard Beach. A glorious evening wading through the algaed waters of the Jamaica Bay following a creature destined to survive mankind's upcoming collective self-extinction. I'm spending time every weekend working at jewelry store in Montauk at the end of NY 27. I sleep in a tent under the stars listening to the waves and waking to birdsong. Awaiting the horseshoe crabs of 2026.