The Atomic Blast Lives On
by David Gallagher
I’ve been writing short stories for many years. In February 2015 I wrote, designed and self-published The Barn Board Goalie and Other Short Stories. One of those tales, “The Atomic Blast,” is about a real event that happened in the mid 1950s.
It is narrated entirely by Kenneth Eddy, the main character, who lived in Clifton on Chaleur Bay. Ken was and is fondly remembered as a remarkable storyteller. His deep bass voice and vocal mannerisms earned him respect and admiration throughout the Chaleur area.
Ken had been a miner most of his life. In the story I recount, Ken describes how his brother-in-law and two friends wanted to blow up a 40-foot steel boiler, left to decay in an abandoned limestone quarrying operation along the banks of the bay. They hoped to sell the pieces for scrap metal. In those years, miners were in the habit (boys being boys) of taking dynamite sticks home from work. Ken, who had some, gave 24 sticks of dynamite and a fuse to his brother-in-law and friends. The men tied the sticks together, stuck them in the boiler, and lit the fuse.
Ken’s house lay a kilometre from the site and witnessed the colossal explosion. As the boiler blew, a giant mushroom cloud rose above the bay. Over more than a square kilometre, the air was brown, filled with bits of rust that fell from the sky for the next half hour.
Kenneth Eddy
Sadly, Ken died in June of this year at age 82. His family held a service at Central United Church in Clifton, and the place was crowded. As Minister Kathryn McIntosh addressed the faithful, she held up a copy of The Barn Board Goalie and Other Short Stories, saying “If you wish to remember Kenneth, he’s in this book, talking to you in his original style. Go out and buy it!”
When people gathered outside after the service, some asked where to find the book. I began receiving phone calls from others asking the same question, and sold several books. The church bulletin published my name and information on where to buy copies. More books sold. The minister invited me to speak at Ken’s church to explain how he came to be in the book, which led to even more sales. Number of books sold thus far by Minister Kathryn: thirty in total.
This experience powerfully demonstrates to me the strength of story. It shows how we need to put the life of our community into a larger context, how we need to narrate our own lives … and how we yearn to hear narrative renditions about the lives of others we know. These truths, it seems, are a large part of what fuels us as writers.
