I Was Irradiated
Yesterday, I warmed a bowl of soup in the microwave. For some reason, a memory of my mom being suspect about our first microwave popped into my brain. She didn't trust the science behind the contraption; at least not at first.
From there, I thought about my dad and his darkroom. He was a writer/photographer for Nebraskaland magazine for decades. We had a darkroom in our house. My dad even took a course from his idol, Ansel Adams. Adams critiqued some of his photographs. I digress. I remember my dad had an anti-static brush he used for film negatives. It had a strip of polonium just above the bristles protected by a small metal screen. I remember using that brush quite a bit. I had no idea it was radioactive. By the way, Putin would later use polonium to kill Alexander Litvinenko.
That reminded me of my greatest irradiation story. In the late seventies or early eighties, my mom took my brother and I to a shoe store in Alliance, Nebraska (home of Carhenge). We were shopping for hiking boots or "waffle stompers" as they were called. At some point, the salesman took my brother to check the fit with a "shoe-fitting flouroscope". My brother came back excited. "Not fair", I thought. I asked if I could do it too. The salesman brought us to a dusty room with a machine that looked like something out of the 1930s. It was ornate with a small viewport and a place to insert your shoe. I followed the salesman's instructions and looked through the screen. I could see my toes moving inside my waffle stomper. Amazing!
When we got home, I told my dad. He was angry. I vaguely remember a loud argument. Only then did I realize the whole shoe-fitting flouroscope thing was probably a bad idea. I'm pretty sure I had seen The China Syndrome by that point. I will say that neither of my parents remember any of this. Wikipedia has an entry about shoe-fitting flouroscopes. It lists the late seventies as the last sighting of a flouroscope in the United States. I don't have an exact date but I think my story occurred later.
Anyway, as far as I can tell, I'm fine. My brother is fine. My parents are both fine. My mom happily uses the microwave without a care in the world. My dad still takes photos and still tells the tale of how he ordered the Ansel Adams print "Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico" for a couple hundred bucks back in the day. My parents canceled the order because it was too much money. Later, a print sold at auction for $973,000 in 2025 dollars. As mentioned, my dad still takes photographs but with digital now. I'm guessing there's no polonium involved. Importantly, my shoes fit just fine.
Wikipedia Article On Shoe-Fitting Flouroscopes
A Story And Self-Portrait By My Dad (Nebraskaland Magazine, September, 1975)