First Chapter from Tickling the Dragon's Tail

Chapter One: Where the spaces are wide open . . .

A-long the trail you’ll find me lopin’

Where the spaces are wide open

In the land of the old A-E-C, (Yahoo)

Where the scenery’s attractive

And the air is radioactive

Oh the wild west is where I want to be-e-e-e …

From a song by Tom Lehrer

I love all deserts, but I have a particular fondness for that bleak and barren piece of wasteland that sprawls for hundreds of miles west and south of Idaho Falls, Idaho. It is blistering hot in August, bitter cold in January, barely tolerable the rest of the time.

It’s called the Snake River Plain or the northern Great Basin Desert, depending upon which map you peruse. Nothing there grows higher than your knees, and mostly it’s scrubby sagebrush that claws at your legs when you walk through it. In spring, after the snow melts and the rains fall, this desert has a green blush that masks the outcroppings of black lava bedrock. When it rains the air is heavy with the camphorous odor of sage. In September the sage and grasses turn pale and, after those searing hot days of August, the desert smells like burnt grass and everything is crackling dry. In winter, just before dawn, the snow is tinged icy blue, like a scene out of Dr. Zhivago. The cold, dry air stings your nostrils when you inhale.

Perhaps the real reason I like this desert so much is because it’s a land of extremes, and I

worked in it doing extreme things. It was important, cutting edge science. In recent times one reporter called us “The Right Stuff” of nuclear science because we were pushing the outside of the envelope of reactor safety. And on November 5, 1962 I punched through that envelope by blowing up a reactor. Deliberately.

My God, but it had been fun. And exciting.

Headed west in 1960, fresh out of Michigan Tech with a degree in physics and an eye toward California, land of sunshine and aerospace industry, I took a wrong turn in the middle of Wyoming, or thought I did at the time. I wanted to see Yellowstone, make one of those typical in-and-out-of-the-park trips, mostly to confirm the wild stories I'd read about the place. My road map had been lost for days, buried somewhere in a backseat that was full of clothes and empty beer cans, but I knew where I was going and I knew that somewhere, just before Yellowstone, I would pass a mountain range called the Tetons. That name conjured up dim memories, from an old calendar photograph, perhaps, or a travel article, of towering peaks covered with a frosting of dazzling snow.

West of Riverton and across hot, shimmering desert, the blue forms of distant mountains took shape. Past Dubois they were confirmed, rough, rugged mountains jutting out of a deep-green sea of forest —the Tetons, obviously. (Actually, as I was to learn later, what I was seeing was part of the southern Absaroka Range.) The highway continued on, climbing upward and apparently through the range. Funny. I didn't recall the map showing any highway cutting across the Tetons. Near the top of Togwotee Pass I stopped to breathe in that crisp air, take a picture of the great cliffs towering above, and listen to a Californian brag to another tourist about why he lived in the land of smog instead of here: "Ya can't eat scenery." ("Damned good thing," I muttered to myself.)

I was totally unprepared for what happened next. Having seen and crossed the "Tetons," I continued my journey. In a few miles I rounded a bend on the west side of Togwotee Pass and very nearly drove off the road. Before me was the most stunning panorama I had ever seen. Laid out like a lush green carpet below me was the valley of Jackson Hole. And at the far edge of that carpet, poking upward like carnivorous teeth biting into a deep-blue Wyoming sky, were the most incredible mountains. No. They couldn't be real. They must be the leftover backdrop from a ridiculous Hollywood extravaganza. Even in my wildest dreams I could not have conceived of a range of peaks so awful, so bristling, so wild and rugged and magnificent. But there they were. As I drove closer the first impressions were amplified. They were awful, looming jaggedly over Jackson Hole. Frightening. Wild. And fascinating.

The Tetons from Togwotee Pass

 The aerospace industry could do without my talents. I chose instead to settle somewhere near these magnificent Tetons—my Tetons. (I secretly laid claim to them that day on Togwotee Pass.) And thus began what was to become—and remain—a love affair with a great mountain range and wild country everywhere.

Fortunately, before leaving the East Coast for my cross-country jaunt, I had submitted a resume in response to an ad in a technical magazine. A prime contractor for the United States Atomic Energy Commission was seeking physicists for reactor-safety studies at the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho.

Idaho! I had never been west of Wisconsin, so I hadn't the foggiest notion of what Idaho was like. I suppose in my mind there was some vague vision of a Sun Valley ski resort rising like Mt. Fuji, abruptly and snow-capped, out of a vast sea of potatoes. It didn't matter; if it was close to the Tetons and Yellowstone, Idaho it would be. Especially if I could be in the nuclear field as well.

I had deep roots in nuclear science. When I was ten years old, I could write complex chemical equations and I knew the symbols and atomic weights for most of the known elements. By then I had graduated from the simple chemistry sets and had a fully stocked chemical laboratory in our basement. News of the atomic bomb drew me into physics like a magnet. By the time I was twelve I could explain in great detail the concept of critical masses and the fission process. My career path was becoming clear.

I received my first AEC/FBI security clearance at age eighteen, right out of high school. This gave me access to information classified up to Top Secret. In order to earn money for college I had taken a job in Attleboro, Massachusetts as a lab technician in a metallurgical laboratory doing research on fuel elements for nuclear submarines. I guess I impressed them enough for they hired me back each summer during college. It was there that I handled Uranium-235 (the highly enriched fissionable isotope of an atomic bomb) for the first time and I got to play with exotic elements from a big chunk of the periodic table. Then, at nineteen, I was accepted with a scholarship to Michigan College of Mining and Technology. It was the poor man's MIT, located in the wonderful boondocks of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. I majored in physics with a minor in beer consumption.

So, when I hauled into Idaho Falls, only a two-hour drive from the Tetons, I was pretty excited. I put on my only suit and tie and went to see a man about a job. I was ecstatic when they offered me a position there.