I try to stay focused on my blog at ignoredheroes.com about Oak Ridge during World War II. Sometimes I stray. I added my two cents about the kerfuffle over Confederate monuments, but even then it did have an Oak Ridge connection. The Manhattan Project workers have been cast out of our nation’s history and it seems the Confederacy is now heading for the same fate. Oak Ridge and southerners are being ostracized and I offered a sympathetic ear to an entire region of the country being kicked to the curb by a condescending finger-wagging majority.
My entry today is about the untimely death of Tom Petty and it is personal. His song, The Waiting has been my personal theme song for over 15 years. The waiting is always the hardest part.
But there is even an Oak Ridge connection for me and Petty’s song. I’ve spent much of the last 15 years trying to get the Oak Ridge story out on the national stage. I have failed constantly. I know it is the greatest untold epic story of American history, but the national media refuses to even to take a cursory look at the story. There is a national taboo against this amazing story. Absolutely nothing positive can be said about The Manhattan Project. It is forbidden.
There has been a local taboo in Oak Ridge too. The leadership in town ignores the World War II legacy. It pays lip-service to the story when they must, but actions speak louder. Local institutions lined up to finance a new venue for the Japanese Peace Bell, a local act of contrition, while at the same time they sold The American Museum of Science and Energy to a private developer who will take a wrecking ball to it as quickly as it can. Actions speak louder.
The leadership finds heritage tourism as being very backwards looking and just plain backwards too. To thrive, Oak Ridge must be forward looking, innovative, progressive and on the cutting edge of technology. To honor the city’s role in ending World War II is to wallow in the distant past.
The locals think I am Don Quixote: a dreamer chasing 70 year old windmills. Perhaps they are right. It is frustrating. When the locals shake their heads in dismay at my efforts, I lose almost all hope.
Petty’s The Waiting, got me through many of those hard days. It took Petty many years before he attracted a large audience to his music. He kept his shoulder to the grindstone and kept pushing. If he had doubts, I have never heard them expressed in interviews. He let his music do the talking, never losing faith in his talent.
I think to myself, If Petty could keep fighting…I can too.”