Search where?

This Portfolio (jim-d)

All of Writing.Com

◄ May ► 2021
S	M	T	W	T	F	S
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28	29
30	31
Archive				RSS

Create New Item

Read & Review

Community

Browse By Type

Browse By Genre

Writing Resources

Fri, Jan 23, 2026

6:18am EST

Members: 488

Guests: 4,643

Total Online: 5,131

Memories Of My Past

by Jim

Rated: 13+ · Book · Community · #2224976

Writings about things that have occurred in my life. Not in Chronological Order

Things that have happened in my life, good or bad. The entries will not be in Chronological order

Show Recent Comments

10 Most Recent Blog Comments:

Winter's spud❄️

Jan 7, 2026 at 11:32am
In response to "SL-1, The World's First Nuclear Reactor Accident"

I knew things got bad when nuclear stuff goes wrong. Still holy shit, being impaled by a controll rod is a bad day for anybody. Then the people who had to suffer for a long time after the initial incident.

Makes the theme of the "ghost ship" I worked on seem a lot darker and kind of a little too close to reality.(the "curse" kept the crew undying while still suffering from the effects of massive radiation exposure. According to that backstory, we'd been suffering from supernatural radioactive experiments conducted aboard a ship that went missing 80-ish years prior. Anyways.)

S🤦‍♂️

Jan 6, 2026 at 11:55pm
In response to "SL-1, The World's First Nuclear Reactor Accident"

I had never heard of this before! Down here, we were barely told about 3-Mile island, and the only reason I had some knowledge of that was because MAD Magazine made a deal of it!

Is the area around the site still considered contaminated? Did they encase it in concrete like Chernobyl?

Just did not know this had ever occurred. Thank you for the lesson, and with your added knowledge as well.

2 Like

Robert Waltz

Jan 6, 2026 at 11:39pm
In response to "SL-1, The World's First Nuclear Reactor Accident"

I'd heard of SL-1, at least what They let us civvies know about it.

But the nuclear foulup that sticks out most in my mind was the Demon Core

(though that was for a weapon, not power), because it was involved in not one but two fatal accidents.

One of which involved someone messing around with neutron shielding by using, instead of shims designed and approved for that purpose, a simple screwdriver.

"I'm just going to handle this near-critical ball of plutonium by manipulating the beryllium cover with this 25-cent (1940s money and just guessing there) tool I picked up at the hardware store." And once again we see that someone may be incredibly smart and still be stupid.

1 Like

Soldier_Mike

Jan 6, 2026 at 11:27pm
In response to "SL-1, The World's First Nuclear Reactor Accident"

I've read a couple of articles and seen a couple of YT videos about this. It's terribly sad, of course, but it could have been so much worse.

1 Like

Jim

Dec 2, 2025 at 5:59pm
In response to "Starting A Nuclear Reactor"

Kåre เลียม Enga

& ForeverDreamer

we were all very young. When I reported to the USS Theodore Roosevelt, I was only 19! Most of the Nuclear Trained personnel were under 30 years old, our Chief Petty Officers were a little over thirty on average. {susderr:enga} I'm also old. There's no way I could do things like this now, though I'd love to.

While underway, I mentioned that the Throttleman was the busiest. I want to clarify that and say he would only be busy when a new bell (or speed) was ordered on the Engine Order Telegraph (the large dial on the upper right side of the slanted portion of the panel). The large dial on the left hand slanted side showed the Shaft RPM. A certain RPM meant a certain speed (Ahead 1/3. Ahead Standard, Ahead Full, etc). Yes, we were very young, but we were a team. A team of 'Nukes' back aft, a team of Submariners on the boat.

Redtowrite

Nov 22, 2025 at 7:33am
In response to "My Early Years"

This was interesting-it is amazing what we can remember even as young as 3-4. Your life is similar to mine since we are the same age and I was in Michigan until I was 5 and then came to Georgia. When you wrote about the roller skates, I remembered Melanie singing that song about the brand new key. Memory (the brain) is a wonderful thing.

Kåre เลียม Enga

Aug 25, 2025 at 1:34pm
In response to "My Early Days In The Navy"

At least others showed and explained. I valued trainers who knew how to train... not all did.

Winter Wonderin' Wanderin'

Jun 6, 2025 at 11:42am
In response to "My Early Years"

Isn't it amazing what we can retain and remember?

Lazy Writer est 4/24/2008

Jun 6, 2025 at 12:03am
In response to "My Early Years"

You've led an interesting life. I've looked at the old places we've lived and your right that hill wasn't nearly as big as I remembered.

S🤦‍♂️

Jun 5, 2025 at 10:19pm
In response to "My Early Years"

Glad you've come back to this!

Some interesting memories here!

1 Like

May 30, 2021 at 4:41pm

#1011022

A Day At The Races

A Day At The Races

Okay, so I wasn't actually at a race, but I spent the early afternoon watching the Indianapolis 500. I believe this is the first time I've been able to watch this the whole time. There's always been something that popped up to interfere with my viewing pleasure, but it's been okay. I feel a little history is in order.

I've been an Indy-car fan for over 60 years now. It started when we lived in Milwaukee Wisconsin from 1960 to 1962. The Wisconsin State Fair held a Indy-Car race during the fair, and I listened with my father to the race both years we were there. Being only 6 or 7, I quickly grew to idolize one of the racers, Eddie Sachs. Every year my father would prepare a sheet to document the Indy 500 race standings every 25 miles of the race. This was 1962 or so, he would prepare this paper before the race, and fill it out as the race progressed. Sadly, my idol and Indy-car hero was killed in a horrific crash on lap 2 of the 1964 Indy 500. But filling that paper out, listening to the race on the radio, became a 'thing' for me. Yet I never listened (or watched, once it came to the television) a complete race. Today I did that, and loved every minute of it. Helio Castroneves became the fourth driver to win the race 4 times. This was last done in 1991 by Rick Mears. He joins the elite group of Rick Mears, A.J. Foyt, and Al Unser.

Five years ago I was given the birthday gift of a lifetime. I was given the chance to take a 30 minute course on driving an Indy-car, then had the opportunity to actually drive one on the Chicagoland Speedway! It wasn't new by any means, was probably a good 10-15 years old, and had an engine limiter on it so you couldn't go faster than 175 mph. Still.... I was in heaven. During the course, they told us a few things, one of them being to put the pedal to the metal and don't let up. The car would not skid or flip on us. They were right. My fastest lap ended up being right at 150 mph. Not quite what I'd hoped to reach, yet at the same time, faster than I thought I was going while in the car. Yes, that's the car I drove in the photo below. A special gift, a special day, and for me, a special race. Now to see about maybe getting tickets to the race one day.

Jim Dorrell

Comment • View 1 comment

Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/books/item_id/2224976-Memories-Of-My-Past/day/5-30-2021