Isn't that weird?" No, Pattyn, it's not. Now l'm going to tell you a little story, and it isn't very pretty. But it's honest-to-God true. 257 Another Ugly Story I sat, fascinated, as Aunt J remembered: In the 1950s the U.S. government detonated nuclear weapons aboveground, down at the test site near Vegas. They didn't have a clear idea what radiation might do, so they tracked where the wind blew it, and what happened to those who came in contact with thefaüout. I saw anger fiash in her steel gray eyes. Your father and I were kids then, living near Ely. These men in suits, driving official-looking cars, would come around with these little badges to wear on the days they set off their bombs. They asked our family--and others-- to sit outside and watch the blasts, which were visible hundreds of miles away. 258 We learned a little about them in school. The mushroom clouds were spectacular. Some people even had "blast parties," drinking and carrying on as those venomous puffs lifted into the air and spread across the sky.
