The following comes from my visit to Trinity Site. I only had one such opportunity, but it sticks in my mind.
October 7, 1989
My uncle, David, the ex-Marine and disciplinarian in the family, shocked us all when he invited me - his least favourite nephew - to go with him to Trinity Site. I'll admit that even I, ever the adventurer, was a bit hesitant, but it was something new. And believe me, if you grew up in Alamogordo, NM, you'd be anxious to try something new, too.
It was a slightly overcast day, typical for the rainy season in the Tularosa Basin, but uncharacteristically cold. We packed light - windbreakers, video camera, sack lunches and water. I, as always, took a book. Chris, David's adult son, went with us, whether to keep his father company, or to keep us from killing each other, I'll never know. Traveling with Uncle David was unusual, at least to someone used to a talkative family. He is almost silent, intense in his focus on the road, as if to let one broken line, one pothole, one piece of gravel slip by would ruin the entire trip. Needless to say, I got a lot of reading done, in-between counting telephone poles.
The trip out there was horrendously long, but we made it by 10. Since the site only opens twice a year, there was always a huge caravan heading out there. We were somewhere around car seventy-eight. We got there, finally, to a somewhat anti-climactic scene. No lines of soldiers, no military police, not even a tank to excite the mind of a teenager desperate for any diversion. The only lines, in fact, alternated between the souvenir stands, the snack and soda stands, and the porta-potties. Proof that no matter where you go, there's a souvenir for it.
Besides the miles of chain-link fencing and radioactive warning signs, the first real evidence that it was something other than a huge empty piece of desert that hasn't changed in two hundred years, was a gigantic, rusty tube of metal. Jumbo. Lying on it's side, so people can stand in it, it's about twelve feet tall, eight to twelve inches thick where you can see the end-caps broken off, and acting as a mute testament to the incredible lengths the American government can go to, in order to waste taxpayers' money. We stood in it anyway. "Look mom! I'm an ant in a soda can!"
Just on the other side of Jumbo was the gate to the long walk leading to the actual bomb site. The sound of rapid clicking fading in and out caught my attention. I walked closer to a table surrounded by other curious oglers, to see a professional tour guide operating a geiger counter. Now maybe it's just me, but from what I remember on TV, the geiger counter making any noise is bad, much less sounding like a herd of hiccuping crickets. He moved the counter away from the case he was measuring, and the cricket chorus faded to one lonely cricket, chirping a final warning that, even more than 40 years later, this place was still dangerous.
"As you can see, the Trinitite is still dangerous, and so you shouldn't pick it up or carry any home with you." A vague warning, heard by few, heeded by fewer.
Moments later, at "Ground Zero", I found myself greatly disappointed. I don't know what I expected - a bunch of animatronic soldiers playing "duck and cover", a huge reproduction of the mushroom cloud, set to go off every hour... I don't know what, but I certainly wasn't prepared for a fenced in field, about 200 yards square, with simple shellacked plywood plaques tied to the chain-link fences. I was underwhelmed, to say the least.
Tiny monuments and chained off squares indicated "points of interest" ("a metal leg once stood here - sheared clean by the blast", "approximate location of Jumbo's tower"), while the shellacked photo-boards told the story of the site, in still images and brief essays.
One long, low (2') building covered the last pristine deposits of Trinitite. Little glass windows let you see the stones beneath - but even that's a disappointment. Somehow I thought it would be more like Kryptonite - you know, glowing, pulsating, something! - but instead it just sort of sits there. Rock-like. It's not even a very pretty shade of green - instead, it's olive green, as if the military influence on the site had been so great that even the side-effects had to conform to protocols.
Really, the only interesting thing on this part of the site was the monument. A large black obelisk, made of lava hauled all the way from the incredibly distant Malpais State Park (about thirty minutes to an hour away.) Attached to this obelisk are two small signs. One commemorates the event, the other details the fact that Trinity site is now a National Landmark. Somehow that doesn't stop people from bending over every three feet to find some of the mysterious rock.
A short walk later, and we were back at the parking lot, this time waiting for the semi-millennial buses to the McDonald Ranch House. More lines, more souvenirs.
Arriving at the somewhat distant house was about as exciting as snails having sex, but there we were all the same. Finally some military uniforms at least. In fact, a whole lot of military, and even a camera crew. They were all surrounding an elderly man. A sharp inake of breath followed by a low whistle was my Uncle's indicator that this was somebody important.
"George McDonald. Returning to his house for the first time in seven years. Now that's a site you don't see every day." My Uncle must have been a Captain in the Marines. Captain Obvious. But at least he was never one to miss an opportunity. He moved us in close enough to exchange pleasantries and handshakes, and then let the old guy go on to a home he hadn't lived in for nearly five decades. He looked sad, mournful even. I mean, most old people have that sort of "I've lost my children, now what?" look in their eyes, but his somehow went deeper than that. As he turned to enter the building, the crowd followed. With the soldiers and cameras gone, my uncle related the "real" story to us.
"McDonald never wanted to leave. Fact is, when most of the ranchers were selling out, taking the military's 'generous offers,' he refused. They forced him to leave his home, and turned it into a bomb factory. For years, McDonald's been real bitter about that. I heard tell he's even taken pot-shots at passing military airplanes. It's nice to see him back out here, though."
I was surprised to hear my uncle, such a staunch military man, make disparaging remarks about the military - even subtle ones. I guess even he gets riled once in a while, and with his Texas "homesteader" personality, I could see why.
The building itself was nothing special - just a building, restored after many years of disrepair, and with a few pictures and displays discussing the events that went on there. For me, the tour was over. After the look on George McDonald's face, it had gone from being a voyage of discovery and a learning opportunity, to something more of a funeral. With one look, he'd dropped a bigger bomb than Oppenheimer could have dreamed of.