Edson Joseph Reeves, my uncle, was born July 6, 1944, not so exceptional, not in time to be in the grouping of baby boomers, just a bit early. The Trinity test (detonation of the first atomic bomb) occurred a year and ten days later on July 16, 1945 making Joseph’s life, one intertwined with the age of atomic aggression, most likely along with a lot of other people. What makes Joe’s birth exceptional to me and hopefully to you also, is that he was born in Oak Ridge Tennessee, one of two top secret cities built by the U.S. government, specifically to be engaged in developing and producing fissionable material for the bomb. Considering there were around 7100 families living there at the time, he wasn’t alone in that fact either or in the fact that his father, the chief design engineer at Oak Ridge, knew about the Trinity test and was invited to be there, but couldn’t, he had more pressing business. I’m not trying to impress you with my families lineage but as my story fuddles on maybe to impress upon you some of the nature of my uncles personality and on the purest of my own speculation, how my uncles paranoia of the American establishment and hence my own, might be tied to the circumstances of his birth.

Joe’s name was often uttered in the same sentences sharing the word crazy, although never really in his presence, as I’m sure mine has shared the same company, not that I’d think either of us would care. Both of us are or were, Joe died in 2010, understanding of our own situations enough not to really care how others would judge. Since my youngest days I had often been told how much I shared of Joe in my self. A few times in my life I found it quite hard to maintain the calm it takes to make through the days without attracting what I perceive as odd looks from others and a few years ago I came to realize that because of our similar natures Joe must of gone through the same, as many others I’m sure to lesser or greater extents. Crazy is just an adjective isn’t it, used to describe someone or something out of control, maybe more importantly out of order. Whose order? Somewhere along the line a classification has to take place. Doesn’t it? Absolutely, and thank god our society has an authority who is completely in control to make those decisions for us poor souls. What would become of the world with a bunch people running around outside of normal, questioning: what is? Aren’t the people making these decisions representative of the same people who established these secret cities, which created a fear of annihilation lasting how long? One day Joe and I were standing in the Las Vegas heat, leaning on his ’72 International Harvester, Scout and he explained that because his Scout had no solid state electronics, when the bombs were exploded in the atmosphere, see neutron bomb, his truck would still run.

Sometime in 1945 my mom’s, Joe’s sister of course, family moved to Greece. WWII having just ended Grandpa Jim had been tasked with rebuilding bridges and other civil infrastructure for the Greeks. They lived in a beautiful old hotel in the northern mountains; I was lucky enough to see it and meet the Bell Man some 28 years later, 1973, he was Desk Manager when I met him, after all that time he still recognized mom. The mezzanine of the hotel comprised a circular balcony overlooking the ground floor and enclosing the balcony from the rest of the floor were multiple glass doors. Among the other devious acts the Reeves siblings got involved in, was Joe’s deal, which would follow him his whole life; although I don’t think devious thought was involved. Joe at age two or three was a pretty stout little fire plug, while on the mezzanine he would build up a head of steam with his short little legs and burst through the glass doors leading to the balcony, by burst through the glass doors I mean burst through the glass in the doors leading to the balcony.

While having Chicken Korma with my parents yesterday I engaged my mom in a discussion about Greece. Turns out they were actually there in 1948, same deal though, Marshall Plan. Joe didn’t actually run through the windows, he would walk by and punch out the individual panes. Apparently the staff there actually enjoyed the Reeves children compared to the other American children; a pair of twins, belonging to a doctor, who had a tendency to scream a lot and one had stabbed a waiter with a fork, I guess my mom and her brothers’ shenanigans were deemed more favorable. Other discrepancies existed between her recollections and mine, her version is probably correct but in the sake of making the story better I might stick with my version, or not, I haven’t decided yet. Just two days ago while driving my father to some doctor’s appointments we listened to a radio show on memory. Some people implanting memories in rats and using a new drug to erase the memories cool show. What struck me was a neurologist who stated our memories don’t exist between the experience and the time we remember them. Then how do we remember them if they stop existing till they come back? Also posited was the more we remember things the more they change, like entropy of a mold after multiple positives. Grandma (Fritzi) had been exchanging Christmas cards with the hotel manager for 28 years and probably continued until she or he died.

Between Oak Ridge and Greece, mom’s family lived in Panama while grandfather researched a sea level canal. After Greece they moved to Walla Walla, Washington where Jim engineered McNary Dam, then to Albuquerque to manage remote location testing for The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). Remote locations meaning the tests in the Pacific, Bikini, Eniwetok and the Nevada sites, more entirely top secret stuff. Between ’53 and 1968, the year grandpa retired, 488 detonations occurred, I can’t really decipher how many James managed but am including the data as an indication of what our government was up to while keeping it pretty secret from its citizens. My mom, Ann was finishing up high School about this time and started moving off to college, marriage childbirth and such. Joe around ten at this point was most likely getting involved in Cub Scouts, Tommy the youngest sibling, unmentioned so far, was born in Panama so he was about six in ‘53. I don’t really know how long they stayed in New Mexico, I do know that eventually AEC opened another office in Las Vegas and put Gramps in charge.

The corner they moved to in Vegas was on Bock St. across from a large public park and elementary school, which my brother attended, about a mile and a half down the road from the Tropicana. Their house was a beautiful ranch style home with a cactus garden in the center of the corner driveway, a beautiful meandering layout, the back wall one long boundary to a yard filled with Oleander, the dining/living room and a another large living room with a flagstone fireplace over looked the oleander through two large sets of sliding glass doors. Legend has it, at least in my mind; Joe had walked, absent-mindedly, through these glass doors at least a couple of times. Not on purpose of course but like he hadn’t seen them or had seem them and not had the impulse control to stop. Impulse control, don’t know how many times I have to tell myself to not smash something because it’s ripe for the smash, nothing vengeful, just ripe. They put bird stickers on the sliding doors in an effort to heighten Joe’s awareness of his impulse control.

Joe was a Boy Scout he excelled at it. He became an Eagle Scout and was indoctrinated in to the Order of the Arrow, a select group based on idealized spirituality of native culture. Say what you will about scouting in the end it’s broadened the life of a lot of young boys and girls. It could also be considered a paramilitary organization, as an Eagle Scout you become eligible or recruited to the governments officer training colleges, which require your congressman’s recommendation for admission. The families military lineage being fairly illustrious, Joe might of felt obligated to join up, though he probably joined because it was an easy decision that and the fact he loved being on boats. He attended the Coast Guard Academy in Connecticut. I don’t know what really happened after school or even when he graduated what I do recall is Christmas of ’68 he brought his wife Sukanya from Thailand to the family celebration in Vegas.

Sattahip, LORAN station was commissioned 29 Aug 1966, Joe was promoted to the director in 73, info which I gleaned from a LORAN history website. Digging a bit further I see Joe was first based at LORAN, Lampang 66-67 then Sattahip 73-74 leaving six years in the Coast Guard unaccounted for. LORAN, an acronym for long-range navigation is the predecessor to GPS. Developed by the Navy in the 40s and taken over by the Coast Guard in 58, LORAN was used as
the military guidance system until 1980. A LORAN station consists of three towers close to six hundred feet tall each with three bright strobe lights, which pulse in a consistently timed sequence. These towers send out a radio pulse in milliseconds. So as a pilot if you know the locations of two separate stations and the time it takes a pulse to travel from one to the other then measure the time it takes the pulse to reach you from each station, through some simple trig you can locate your position, accurate in some cases to tens of feet. During the gestation stages of the Vietnam conflict the United States set up four or five stations in Vietnam and Thailand. Not only would LORAN be awesome for finding your way, its also perfect for dropping bombs, napalm and nuclear warheads in exactly the place you want them. Pretty much the standard for guidance systems LORAN stations were set up all over the planet by our government leaving almost no space uncovered. Check out, LORAN history. Info, full of eccentric info on the subject.

Joe signed up in 64 after spending a year in college he felt the education wasn’t relevant enough; Tommy also tried college for a year and felt it wasn’t rigorous to his standards and dropped out also. Tommy signed up for the Navy in 66, I think. My brother and I were talking about this the other day and concurred that they had both signed up in the forces they did to avoid the draft sending them into combat positions. Tommy trained for two years for the position of assistant reactor machinist spent some time on USS Valley Forge and at a large nuclear research facility in Idaho Before receiving his assignment on USS Puffer; a defensive nuclear powered submarine. He spent four years on that ship up to 2 months underwater at a stint with a nuclear reactor as a companion. Tommy told my brother that he knew the environment was bad when came to the understanding cockroaches wouldn’t survive down there after watching them die off.

I understand completely how I became obsessed about the atomic age and when I finish this idea I’ll get you back to the story of Joe’s life. Having seen quite a bit of the world and being educated in the arts and design I come across a lot of mistakes in planning of the whole; mistakes often similar to ones seen in projects completed by freshmen art students. Things that seemed like really great ideas at the time but when the critique comes around and some deeper perspective is realized those great ideas start to look not so great. Aside from creating new landfill these mistakes aren’t so horrible, some would claim it’s what art school is for. Society is a little more permanent then art school. Trickle down theory, housing projects, the highway act, etc, and so on: I could take pages to explain why these are all bad ideas but it’s not my point. The point is that these things were all sold as solutions to make everyone’s life better, quick solutions to complicated problems and as the critique comes around it becomes apparent that they weren’t great ideas at all. But the damage is much more serious than a little landfill. The nuclear solution in the space of 20 years was sold as the answer, although a choice was never offered, our fate was discussed and decided in secretive back rooms; celebrating sweet government contracts to various constituencies’ of congressmen.

Joe left for Thailand some time in 64 and came to the families Christmas gathering in 68 with his newborn son Jamesy and his Thai wife Sukanya. Men in our family are not very apt in socialization skills or mating rituals. Grandpa’s relationship with Fritzi started while she was holding a woman’s hair out of a toilet. We’re all kind of amazed when a women shows any interest, is it genetic or a product of travel at such a young age and not really understanding rituals. We had no idea of how Joe and Sue got together. I can’t imagine what it was like for her; coming from rural Thailand and its culture to the culture and space of Las Vegas. She was cool and we accepted her, we had all lived in a variety of cultures. Still in the same way our minds were blown by new places, I perceive her experience was the same. During that unknown period of six years I spoke of earlier Joe was stationed in Bremerton Washington, where his other two children Amy and Tommy were born. Then back to Thailand in 72 and when America was forced to pull out of Vietnam his time there had no more purpose. Joe got posted in DC and the family moved to Maryland.

We visited Joe and his family in Sattahip 1974 after dropping my brother at his boarding school in India on our way to Florida. Students in Bangkok were planning to riot against the American occupation in Thailand. We: mom, dad and I caught a Baht bus to Sattahip and met Joe at the base. We got another Baht bus and headed down south and got rooms at some beachside resort. I went swimming while young Tommy held on round my neck in the elaborate pool, he loved it and wouldn’t let me stop. The first thing Joe did when got to our rooms was open the sliding glass door.

The next phase of this story is a little hazy for me, as I had been sent far away from the family to engage in my own series of treatments, I’ll recollect best I can. Sukanya left Joe sometime in the mid-eighties, to pursue professional bowling, professional bowling, word from my mom living 2000 miles away. Maybe the phone conversation was garbled but that’s what I heard. Joe went into rehab. The kids Jamesy, Amy and Tommy all moved in with my grandparents in Vegas. Joe quit drinking got discharged from the Coast Guard and Sue disappeared. After rehab Joe moved back home to Vegas got an Apartment for himself and the kids and went to meetings. I had a few chances to visit during the eighties; my own life was a little weird, learning how to be on my own in Wisconsin, not drinking, going to meetings, 19 years old. So Joe and I had something in common and maybe more than we knew, what we did know is that we learned how to label ourselves alcoholics. This is the first real time I spent with Joe as an adult, although Joe never really treated me as a kid, but now I felt as an equal. I mean yeah, I thought Joe was a little weird but who was I to judge, really in reflection his life was huge shit sandwich and it wouldn’t disappear until he took quite a few bit bites if ever. It took me another decade or so to really realize the depth of how big a shit sandwich could get. We got to hang out, go to meetings, talk about that one day at a time thing, shitting all over today, nuclear war, his Harvester Scout, fucked up things about the American government and it’s clandestine policies. We also delivered the papers together with the kids.

Joe and I would go get the papers, pick up the kids at school and we’d all sit in the back yard folding papers, Sundays issue was fun. That completed we’d all load up, three of us in back with the hatch open, drive around the neighborhood tossing papers on peoples stoops. Late winter of 87 was Grandpa Jim and Fritzi’s fiftieth anniversary, the whole family showed up. Mom and dad, Uncle Tommy was married, had a newborn son, adopted daughter and wife of course, Joe and the kids, minus Jamesy he had just left for boy scout camp, my brother and me. The largest family gathering since the early seventies and we kept it secret from the grandparents, grandma was elated as people just kept showing up. We reserved a big table at good Italian restaurant and everyone had a great time. I ate the Shrimp Diablo. Afterwards Uncle Tommy and his family went back to Reno, Mom and Dad to Casper, Dave to Montana, me to Wisconsin, Joe and his kids stayed in Vegas.

Fritzi died within the year, diabetes, after losing both legs.

It was a little weird visiting Grandpa after that; I went twice. The alcoholism thing with Joe and I made drinking strange for the rest of the family or maybe it was just strange for me. Dependency awareness was all the rage in the Eighties, Grandpa had quit a couple of times or at least he told mom he had, my dad quit for a while. Tommy was having gambling problems and was on and off the dependency wagon I don’t remember if his wife had left him by then. That stretch of sobriety was good for me, but if I could go back, I would get shitcanned with grandpa and my uncles and we would have a hoot of a time. Drunkenness is something we all do quite well and have a great time doing. That didn’t happen and it was weird. Young Tommy had started getting in legal trouble; Jamsey and Amy were also having problems. I felt some kinship with young Tommy seeing I had gotten in my own share of legal trouble. At 25 I thought I that had some experience in life, there’s no way I could’ve understood what he had been through. The last time I saw them, my brother, his wife and I flew out from Phoenix, we spent the day at the water park by The Luxor.

Grandpa had his first heart attack after Grandma died, he said Fritzi’s hospital bills caused it and soon after my last visit he had his final heart attack.
Joe got quite lit at the funeral; I didn’t make it. A lot of people came, Joe and my brother stood next to each other in the receiving line. A young man in an official looking suit caught my uncle’s focus; grandpa wouldn’t have associated with anyone that young except us. The suited man greeted my brother with condolences, said that he had known and respected grandfather, as he moved on to Joe, Joe stared him down and said, “You’re a little young to know my father aren’t you? You’re from the government.” The man walked away.

Little Tommy got sent to Juvie for burglary, talk is he got involved in the gangs. Amy moved away to live with Sue and go to cosmetology school; I don’t know when she got handed her bipolar diagnosis. She’s on meds now and lives in a group home. Jamsey married a much older woman, who said she wouldn’t marry him unless he took her to Disneyland. Jamsey called Joe for money, Joe called my mom for money for Jamsey, mom and Joe didn’t talk for a few years; I guess mom was pissed Joe spent all his inheritance. Uncle Tom bought a condo in Reno, Joe moved in and they probably went on a bender.

Somewhere in all of this Joe got a diagnosis of schizophrenia and was put on meds.

An agency of the government sent someone out to interview grandfather before he died. Remember Jim had supervised many atomic tests and some had exposed soldiers and workers to lethal amounts of radiation and various class action suits had been filed over the years. I don’t know that the two are related but seeing they, the government, wouldn’t release the interview until fifteen years after his death could lead some to suspicion. The interviewer asked grandpa many specific questions about specific projects he had worked on for the Atomic Energy Commission and grandfather told the man stories about having to jump out of airplanes and having a hole drilled in his head but in the end didn’t really answer to any of the man’s specifics. Exasperated, the man asked if Jim would answer any of his questions and Jim responded to the man that his security clearance just wasn’t high enough.

Joe died in his sleep June 20, 2010 no autopsy, his heart just stopped, they say. Amy choose a star of David to place on his vault, because it was a symbol on Joe’s coexist bumper sticker he kept on his truck. My brother put an Eagle Scout medal in the vault with his ashes and Uncle Tommy appreciated that. On tributes.com under the announcement of Joe’s death Jamsey left a message, “I love you dad” and a phone number, under the post it was identified from Cleveland. I didn’t make the funeral.