The Superior Express -

Very interesting . . .

At least to me.

On occasion I do get contacted about some things I have written about. I hope you don’t think I’m boasting, but most of the time people let me know they enjoy what I’ve written. Some of the time I have furnished information about something of a historical item, or just plain trivia and I’ll get contacted.

Well, last week was such a time. Jack Gilsdorf, Lawrence native and LHS alumni of 1960, called about the item I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the book I read concerning the nuclear accident in Chernobyl, in the USSR in 1986.

We visited about a number of things, but what I enjoyed the most was his information about a Lawrence native involved in the nuclear scientific field about that time.

The older generation about Lawrence will remember Tom Mazour as the gentleman who ran the Lawrence Lumberyard for many years. His son, Ervin and family, moved to Wood River to farm mainly because of the drought in the 1950s. Ervin had a son, Tom, and this Tom went on to a career in the nuclear industrial field that involved national and international affairs.

I’ll grant that little bit of information isn’t going to be of much use to anyone, but I enjoy learning about what Lawrence natives do with their lives.

I bring this up to start this week because I’m going to relay several items I got from the book, “Midnight in Chernobyl” that I found interesting and apply today even if the event happened almost forty years ago.

A O

The book, “Midnight in Chernobyl” give insights to the Socialistic economy and culture the Russians built up over so many millions of graves in the early years of the 1900s. I would like to relay just a few incidents from the book. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did while reading the book.

A O

My first note about the book involves something close and dear to my heart: “crab grass.”

You see the book noted that in 1959 the U. S. was trying to build atomic-powered air planes. As part of the research, they had an underground experimental site in North Georgia. As part of their activity they brought the reactor up from its underground site. The effect was the killing of almost everything in the vicinity stone dead: bugs fell from the air and small animals and the bacteria living in and upon them were exterminated. Plants and trees reacted in various ways, but . . . crabgrass remained strangely unaffected.

I’m beginning to think my lifelong battle against crabgrass is for naught.

A O

Vodka . . . ya the alcoholic drink was brought up often in the book. It seemed to be the source of many crimes and accidents in Russia. The Secret Police were arresting many people for telling jokes about the leader at the time, Brezhnev, crimes were not officially recognized because according to the precepts of Marxism-Leninism were supposed to be a strictly capitalist problem. At one time in the Chernobyl crisis a lot of people in Russia believed vodka would protect them from the nuclear radiation.

A O

It is interesting . . . in the U. S. schools, governmental buildings, hospitals . . . buildings of all kinds are given grand and glorious names, usually in honor of someone. (Even if some in America now want to change the names in today’s society.)

In the USSR, the problem with names was simplified. For example, the hospital where many of the people who suffered from the radiation were treated at “Hospital #6.”

The government set up an account to help all those people who lived in Chernobyl. They were all paid something from account number 904.

Nothing fancy or anything to object to in those names.

A O

From the beginning of this socialist government in Russia in the early 1900s, every effort was made to educate the young in the Communist way. It came down to where this book’s author noted that in 1986, “young people were technologically sophisticated but morally untethered.”

Most all religion was done away with and “Right” or “Wrong” depended upon what the Communist said it was.

A O

The book ended with an overall view of nuclear power development around the world. After Chernobyl and the nuclear accident in Japan just a few years ago, many nations have stopped the building of nuclear power stations such as those existing in the late 1900s.

However, in looking to the future, the book’s author noted a new fuel source, liquid fluoride thorium, can be used to produce equivalent energy. He points out that nuclear power plants emit no carbon dioxide and have been statistically safer than every competing energy industry, including wind turbines.

Thorium seems to hold the promise that power plants can be constructed on such a compact scale that every steel mill or small town could have its own micro reactor tucked away underground.

A O

The book was interesting, informative and got me in touch with and old friend who happened to be a Lawrence native as well.

Reading . . . you never know where it will lead a person.

A O