1962 - Christmas in Virginia

 One of my earliest memories of my dad is something he told me about AND it coincides with one of my first memories of myself that I have retained into my old age.

My first image was playing in the snow on a hill (at my age it was probably more of a little mound) with other people. It was probably my sisters, my two older sisters. I would have been 3 years old, making my sisters Debbie 8 and Cheryl, or Cherie as she was called back then, 6.

It turns out, at the same time, Hughie was commanded by his wife, my mom, the Admiral of our house, to bring home a Christmas tree. When he got off his work, working for the Navy in the Pentagon (see the episode about Hughie at the Pentagon during the Cuban Missile Crisis) at the time, he had his friend drive him to get a tree in the friends VW bug. Apparently, the best he could do to get it home was to hold the tree against the door of the bug with the window down...

IN A BLIZZARD! 

(The pic above was how I would have done it, but whatever.)

He said when he got home his arm was frozen, as you can imagine. I love the imagery of him holding a tree out the window. It still makes me smile.

Postscript: Mother (more on that name in a future story) told me, like the younger brother in "A Christmas Story," she would put my 23 layers of clothes on to go out and play, come in after 5 minutes (it was dang cold out there), and after getting the clothes off, I would want to go back out. Good times...good times.

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night! (C. Moore)

1958 - South Pacific Nuclear Testing

In 1958, from April through August, the government ran an Operation; Hardtack I. It was one of many nuclear testing operations between 1946-1958 in the South Pacific. 

If you can believe it, the US government shot off so many nuclear bombs on, under, and over the Bikini Atoll from 1946-1958 that the islands are still radioactive today. 

Hughie was assigned to a squadron in the Pacific for the atomic testing in 1958. Part of their responsibility was to shoo away other ships that wandered into the blast safety zone. 

So one time, at band camp...I mean, one time, when their job was done, they had nothing else to do...apparently, so they were placed on to the deck of a ship that was directly under an atomic bomb that was exploded overhead at night way up in the atmosphere. They weren't the only ones on the ship that night, by the way.

Hughie said they could read the newspaper for 30 minutes on deck after the explosion, it was so bright. (Of course, they had their eyes covered for the initial explosion. They wanted to be safe. Duh!) Hughie thought it was pretty cool.

The pic above is one of a nuclear bomb set off high in the atmosphere. Interesting.