Tag Archives: Atomic Bomb

Circa

Circa: (prep) approximately (often preceding a date)

Circa the time that humans discovered fire, they started cooking their meat.

Circa the arrival of iron, swords and plowshares were made. (Unfortunately, our species preferred the weapon.)

Circa the revelation that knowledge could be transferred into manuscripts and eventually books, libraries were built to confirm the power of
our more docile wisdom.

Circa the season when souls from Africa were considered slaves and only two-fifths of a person, the “Abraham of America” came and made us all a great nation.

Circa the arrival of instruments came music.

Circa the introduction of music came soul-washing.

Circa the introduction of a madman, the atom was split.

Circa the dropping of a bomb, we discovered the power we have to destroy ourselves.

Circa one war after another, young men and women have learned to protest the insanity of blood-letting.

Circa the arrival of the Internet with the ability for international communication, there is a scream for moderation and a prayer for personal contact.

Circa this moment, we are in search of our heart.

Here’s hoping we find it.

 

 

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Ballistic Missile

Ballistic missile: (n) a missile with a high, arching trajectory, that is initially powered and guided but falls under gravity onto its target.Dictionary B

Speaking in the abstract is the most common way to end up with abstract thought.

Sometimes I am greatly confused how people who have absolutely no experience with some matter expound feverishly on the issue, displaying both intensity and ignorance.

That’s the way I feel about a ballistic missile.

As we deal with the many hot spots of controversy and conflict in our world, there are those wearing three-piece suits, ties, with freshly trimmed hair, sitting in Washington, D.C., who postulate on the need to aggressively launch air strikes against other nations to keep them from doing things which we have found unfavorable.

One day I found myself at a rally in Mobile Bay, at the coming-out party for a new battleship. I was not able to get on the ship since I didn’t have a pass, but stood about fifty yards from the vessel, as a dummy load of explosives was shot off into the air.

Once again, I was far away from the source of the explosion but the volume of that sound rattled my chest, giving me heart palpitations and leaving me unstable on my feet for the next half-hour.

It was terrifying.

So every time anybody mentions bombing, attacking or sending drone strikes to another country, I remember that sensation.

I often wonder how important it would have been for Harry Truman to have gone to New Mexico for the testing of the atomic bomb. Sitting in his office having it described to him made the decision to bomb Hiroshima too easy.

He had no idea exactly what he was doing. So when it came time to bomb Nagasaki, he rubber-stamped his decision and dropped a second annihilator.

It’s not so much that I question the wisdom of that move. Instead, I challenge the immaturity involved in making the decision.

If you’re going to pronounce death on a group of people, you should have an awareness of the power you’re unleashing.

I am tired of ignorant people talking about war like it’s a game of Stratego.

When a ballistic missile goes into the air, gravity brings it to earth–where it kills people who were once living.

 

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Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

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Baby Boom

Baby boom: (n) a temporary marked increase in the birth rate, especially the one following World War II.

I am a baby boomer.Dictionary B

As with many other titles that have been thrust upon me, I have no idea in hell what that means.

I will say this–I often smile when people say the young people today are growing up in “much more perilous, dangerous and tempting times.” Honestly, there was no place crazier than the United States of America circa 1959 through 1972.

We were killing off leaders like we were part of a drug cartel from Columbia, and drugs were surfacing everywhere, which people experimented with in order to do their part in assisting the FDA.

We were also periodically threatened with atomic bomb annihilation, just to make sure we didn’t get too comfortable in our new hush puppies.

The music was turbulent. If you were a young man you were constantly threatened with being drafted and sent over to bleed in a rice paddy, and the sexual revolution, which was on the drawing boards, required a rotation of guinea pigs.

We were angry, frustrated, disconsolate, overjoyed and unrepresented.

I spent my teen years in that period, and even though I was a church-going boy and not a member of the SDS, when I look back on it, my life was surrounded by dying principles which were tumbling down around me like the walls of Jericho.

I remember one day, my father was in the middle of a speech about personal responsibility and how I needed to take more of it, when suddenly he stopped speaking, stared off in the distance and never continued. I don’t know what crossed his mind–but I think that even though he was an old guy, he realized that everything he was sharing was being disemboweled in his lifetime, and he did not yet understand what the New Order would require.

The travesty of the baby boomers is that they remained babies.

  • So we never got the boom.
  • We never got the sense of accomplishment.
  • We all just eventually learned to sign on the dotted line, and started attending financial conferences on better mortgage rates.

But I am an oddball.

I have maintained a spark of revival, revolution and rejuvenation.

It causes me to be adequately dissatisfied … while on my way to find some moments of satisfaction.

 

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A-bomb

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

A-bomb: n. short for Atom Bomb.

I was able to duck but not cover.

When they tried to teach our second-grade class what to do in case of an atomic bomb landing somewhere near our school yard, the huskiness of my being permitted me to duck, as required, but I was unable to get UNDER my desk, to cover. My little second-grade desk was unwilling to provide shelter for my large self.

It was rather embarrassing. Matter of fact, my friends, who loved me, were nearly moved to tears, realizing that they would have to continue their school life after the bomb cleared away, with me destroyed by being uncovered. They were SO overwrought that I started to cry, because I did not want to have an atomic bomb eating away at my body, butt first.

It was very real to my eight-year-old mind. Of course, no one explained to us that an atomic bomb had little respect for a small wooden desks, and would not honor them as adequate defense.

But since none of us really knew what an A-bomb was, we were only concerned about our part and responsibility of ducking and covering, which I was only prepared to fulfill half-heartedly.

It was a strange time. And it was a bizarre notion–to think that at any moment the world as you knew it could disintegrate and burn up like onion skin paper in a hot fire, simply because some nation was crazy enough to believe they could conquer someone by disintegrating their environment.

I was so distraught after finding out that I was unable to cover beneath my little desk that my teacher went out into the storage building and found a larger desk for me, which would accommodate the full extent of my duck, as I covered.

I was moved.

The entire class was relieved, and somewhere deep in my heart, I believed that the Soviet Union found out that we had once again foiled their plans by discovering a way to protect ALL of our citizenry–by acquiring larger furniture.

This is my experience with the A-bomb.

Fortunately, I have never had to implement this particular safety procedure, although occasionally, just for old times sake and fun, I will duck.