Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Letters From Under the Mushroom Cloud
    Letters From Under the Mushroom Cloud
    Letters From Under the Mushroom Cloud
    Ebook62 pages38 minutes

    Letters From Under the Mushroom Cloud

    By Ray Hoy

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    A hopeless romantic, chaser of rainbows, lover of dogs, and reluctant realist, Ray Hoy has been a professional writer, editor, publisher, and producer for over five decades. During his long media career he somehow managed to spend twenty years as a casino marketing consultant working with major properties such as Cae-sars Tahoe, Wayne Newton Gaming, and others. Ray specialized in opening land-based casinos, river and ocean-going gambling boats, and casino/horse racing fa-cilities.

    In addition to Ray’s casino career, he has another connection to Nevada — a more sinister one. He is one of those so-called “Atomic Soldiers” from the 50’s. While serving with the Signal Corps, his unit was sent to Camp Desert Rock, Nevada to provide communications for a series of atmospheric atomic bomb tests. While sta-tioned there with 5,000 fellow servicemen, he observed a number of “shots” (as the military referred to them), up close and personal. Today the number of survi-vors is down to 500 or so, and most of those men died horribly. However, to date Ray reports that he is still healthy, happy, and going strong, so he considers him-self blessed. He appeared as a featured guest on many television shows.

    Ray wrote Letters From Under the Mushroom Cloud, a book about his atomic ex-periences, and he is happy to report that it was recently accepted for permanent display at the National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMisty Mountain Productions
    Release dateJul 16, 2020
    ISBN9781581246629
    Letters From Under the Mushroom Cloud
    Author

    Ray Hoy

    A hopeless romantic, chaser of rainbows, lover of dogs, and reluctant realist, Ray Hoy has been a professional writer, editor, publisher, and producer for six decades. During his long media career he also managed to spend twenty years as a casino marketing consultant working with major Nevada gaming properties. He retired from the "casino wars" in 1997. Jack Frost is a composite of three Special Forces men Ray met when he was in the casino business. Those men are gone now, victims of their chosen profession. They were amazing warriors doing an amazing job. Frost's sidekick, J.T. Ripper, is based on a real Doberman by the name of Scorpio. Ray was introduced to that monster dog by a friend who knew he was in the process of creating a Doberman character for his Frost books. Scorpio is gone now, too (as so many real warriors are), but J.T. Ripper carries on. The Ripper that Ray created gets more fan mail than Jack Frost does. Ray has no idea why, because the Ripper he created was born pissed, and he pretty much hates everyone and everything - everything except an occasional shooter of Scotch. And Ray defends Ripper's Scotch habit: "We all know that dogs should be kept away from alcohol of any kind, but since Ripper is not of this world, he can do whatever he damn well pleases, and believe me, he does. Truly a fun dog to write about."

    Related to Letters From Under the Mushroom Cloud

    Related ebooks

    Relationships For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      It Happened to Me…

      Apr 20, 2023

      It Happened to Me…
      7 min read

    • Article

      Mark Eitzel

      Feb 9, 2023

      Mark Eitzel
      6 min read

    • Article

      Bubble & trouble

      Dec 11, 2020

      Bubble & trouble
      3 min read

    • Article

      Mark Eitzel

      Feb 9, 2023

      Mark Eitzel
      6 min read

    • Article

      After “The End”

      Oct 10, 2022

      I walked down the road with a hunched back and a wet cigarette in my mouth—the fire had died a while back. My hands were tucked into the pockets of my jacket, and my hair fell over my face, limiting my sight. But I wasn’t really seeing where I was go

      10 min read

    • Article

      BITS & PIECES

      Oct 3, 2023

      I come from a large Italian family, and we knew how to celebrate Christmas! We would gather at my grandmother's— the entire clan of aunts, uncles, and cousins of all ages. I remember one particular Christmas Eve when I was about 6 or 7 years old. My

      5 min read

    • Article

      It Happened to Me…

      Jun 15, 2023

      It Happened to Me…
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Gospel According To Justin Hawkins

      Nov 9, 2021

      Justin Hawkins has experienced all the highs and lows that rock’n’roll has to offer. His band, The Darkness, were a Brit Award-winning early 00s phenomenon, unexpectedly selling more than three million copies of their debut album Permission To Land b

      6 min read

    • Article

      It Happened To Me…

      Jan 5, 2023

      It Happened To Me…
      8 min read

    • Article

      It Happened To Me…

      Jan 26, 2023

      It Happened To Me…
      7 min read

    • Article

      Unbroken Angel: Happy Birthday, Absent Brother Juan Francisco Urrea

      Mar 1, 2018

      Carnal, today is your birthday.  I don’t know where you are now.  But I know you’re somewhere. Many of our intellectual friends would argue that if you’re dead, you are nowhere.  I know you well enough to know you are busy wherever

      4 min read

    • Article

      A Puzzle Of Nostalgia

      Aug 26, 2022

      A Puzzle Of Nostalgia
      5 min read

    • Article

      Joel O’keeffe

      Dec 5, 2019

      AIRBOURNE WENT BACK to basics for new album Boneshaker, flying to Nashville to record a stripped-back, rough and ready new album with famed country producer Dave Cobb. It was the latest learning curve in a career packed full of them, so naturally, we

      5 min read

    • Article

      Why, Dad? Why?

      Oct 2, 2022

      Why, Dad? Why?
      7 min read

    • Article

      A Haunting in Manhattan

      Oct 23, 2023

      A Haunting in Manhattan
      8 min read

    • Article

      Telekinesis

      Dec 15, 2018

      Telekinesis
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Amazing Ranchero Slide

      Aug 26, 2019

      The Amazing Ranchero Slide
      5 min read

    • Article

      Greg Puciato

      Jun 23, 2022

      Greg: loving the solo life In 2001, Greg Puciato became the frontman of notoriously chaotic upstarts The Dillinger Escape Plan. Not only did Dillinger’s live shows become legendary for the way that Greg and his bandmates pushed their bodies to the li

      9 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Letters From Under the Mushroom Cloud

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Letters From Under the Mushroom Cloud - Ray Hoy

      Dad.

      Chapter 1

      Waiting for Diablo

      Monday, July 15, 1957

      0400 hours (4:00 a.m.)

      Yucca Flat, Area 2b

      Nevada Test Site

      Dear Dad,

      They’re going to detonate this big firecracker in exactly 30 minutes, so I’ll have to hurry with this letter. It’s 0400 hours (4 a.m.) and pitch black up here in this desolate place they call Yucca Flat. This is the so-called Forward Area and it must be what the moon looks like.

      They test atomic bombs here.

      Our actual base is Camp Desert Rock, which is located just a few miles south. It’s really just an ugly scattering of Quonset huts and motor pools situated a few miles off U.S. 95, about 70 miles north of Las Vegas.

      When we go into Las Vegas on a weekend pass, people ask us what we do at the base. We tell them, with a straight face, We grow mushrooms in the desert.

      I’m sitting on the sand with my back against the front wheel of a truck, writing this letter in the glow of my flashlight. I find myself shivering from time to time. Yeah, I know it’s July, but there’s a pretty good wind blowing—and I’m a little nervous.

      For the past hour or so I’ve been wondering if the wind might cause the shot to be postponed. However, I just overheard a lieutenant talking on a field phone, and apparently they’ve been waiting for the wind to blow away from Las Vegas and toward some little town in Utah called St. George.

      I wonder if the people in St. George know that? Somehow I doubt it.

      Artie (a street-wise kid from New York, and my best friend here at Camp Desert Rock) just said to me, C’mon, Ray! Our government wouldn’t put us here if they thought we’d be in any danger! We’re really lucky, if you stop and think about it. Not everyone gets to see an atomic bomb blow this close and live to tell about it!

      He laughed when I said, What makes you think we’re going to live to tell about it?

      But of course, Artie has to be right . . . right?

      It was interesting to see how we got here. Our first sergeant called us into formation yesterday and said, I’m looking for volunteers to go up to Yucca Flat tomorrow morning to witness a shot. If you don’t feel like volunteering, you don’t have to—I need K.P. people for the next month or so, anyway. Now then, all ‘volunteers’ take one step forward. Needless to say, we all took one step forward.

      Don’t you love the way the military works?

      Off in the distance I can see a light flashing at the top of the 500-ft. steel tower that holds the bomb. By the way, the military likes to call it a device rather than a bomb (maybe they think it sounds more civilized). However, Artie said, If it goes ‘boom’ it’s a bomb! I agree with him.

      Because it’s still dark, we can only see the flashing light on top of the tower, not the tower itself. But I heard it’s about the size of a large oil derrick. I don’t know how far away it is, but in

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1