This was during the hiatus between the two halves of my Penn State career. By early '79, I realized the limitations of working for someone else's family business. So I hied on back to Happy Valley a coupla weeks before the meltdown and moved out to the second circle, map below.
I was just settling back in at Penn State when the disaster occurred (what we used to call it before 9/11). It was a scary damn thing. My brother was still running the sister restaurant in Elizabethtown, just outside the first circle, top map....
I spoke on the phone with Claudia Hegenstaller & Donna Beaver with whom I'd worked (I can't believe I remember their names!). Both living in Royalton... right on the Susquehanna, literally a few hundred yards from the power plant... Donna a single mom with two or three little ones. The conversations were, basically, WTF do you do? Still don't know.
The apocalyptic vibe was over-powering..... Jackson and Bruce did a concert.
