In 1962, I obtained my first Geiger counter and tested this glass and was astonished to see the meter peg at the highest level of sensitivity. And that was 10 years after we picked it up. So to this day I wonder how radioactive that glass was when were were there in late 1952 or early 1953. Now what I remember afterwards I was extremely ill for near a month as we were residing in Alamogordo at the the time. I did recover from this “unexplained” illness, and after my father’s untimely death in 1955 we left Alamogordo and went to NY.

But I was from that time always prone to illnesses. And oddly, I would recover and be in perfect health, but when I did get sick, it was always very bad, and on several occasions I had near fatal events separated by about 10 year intervals. In 1975 I nearly died from an undiagnosed liver condition when I turned “yellow”, 1986, a near fatal case of Chicken Pox, 1991 a near fatal case of Hanta virus, 2003 nearly died from an auto-immune (ADEM) condition that caused damage to my left brain hemisphere and a exploratory brain operation that has now left me disabled. (I was not expected to live through it).

Over the last nine years since I have been illness free. Everyone around me gets the flu and I get a mere snivel for a day at best. And the reason for this I have a hyper-active immune system. And I always wondered why. So I did some searching and discovered that children exposed to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs often have hyper-immune systems. And they have odd singular solid type cysts in their thyroid glands, and I too have the same singular type thyroid cyst for which I am being treated.

After looking at this and many other web pages regarding those that were exposed to radioactive fallout from that first A-bomb I now wonder if that is not the reason for the hyper-immune system that at times will turn against me. My brother who was never exposed, or brought into contact with the Trinity Site as I was has not had the problems that plague me to this very day.

I have posted a link to this rare auto-immune disorder (ADEM) which was triggered by a spider bite toxin. Hyper auto immune reactions, such as mine can be triggered by any toxin or biological agent. But the underlying hyper-immune condition might very well be related to the exposure that I had when I picked up pieces of that green glass and kicked up the dust in 1952 or ’53.

The nuclear winter movie Threads (1984) is a documentary-style drama that stuck with me long after viewing, with elements of “white fright,” as you say, but sticking firmly to ordinary, realistic, day-to-day lives. Even as the existence becomes horrific (to us), the surviving protagonists (especially the children) adapt and accept what becomes the new norm with unsettling dispassion. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/