{"id":7742,"date":"2021-11-28T13:00:17","date_gmt":"2021-11-28T19:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/?p=7742"},"modified":"2023-12-09T12:34:54","modified_gmt":"2023-12-09T18:34:54","slug":"mfdj-11-28-2021-flickering-doom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/?p=7742","title":{"rendered":"MFDJ 11\/28\/2021: Flickering Doom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today’s Flickering Yet Truly Morbid Fact!<\/h3>\n

In the wake of the heat flash and\u00a0the blast wave from the atomic bomb set off over Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m. on Monday, August 6, 1945, came fire, caused partly by the direct radiated heat from the bomb, partly by other causes – gas leaks, electrical sparking and so forth. A nightmare was faced by the wounded who had survived the flash and the blast but who were trapped in the rubble of the devastated city. Yamaguchi, a ship designer, was about one and a half miles from ground zero:<\/p>\n

As the dust blew away and my surroundings became visible, I saw what seemed to be thousands of tiny, flickering lamps all over the street and in the fields. They were little circles of flame, each about the size of a doughnut. Myriads of them were hanging on the leaves of the potato plants.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Air rushing in to feed the flames of these many fires caused a firestorm to develop. As was noted by the British survey, fires burnt with an unusual ferocity and thoroughness and many injured burnt to death, unable to escape them. Survivors became frantic in the struggle to get away from the flames and this created its own series of tragedies:<\/p>\n

As I went further, I came upon a reservoir used for the prevention of fire. In the reservoir there were numberless corpses piled one upon another. It was a hill of dead bodies in green. All of these people must have jumped into the reservoir because of the heat.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nA rare image of the Hiroshima firestorm.<\/em><\/p>\n

At the moment that the bomb detonated over Hiroshima, it is thought that there may have been about 320,000 people present in the city. The heat flash, the blast wave and the subsequent fires probably accounted for 80,000 of them in the first few hours, but those that survived were, as the Los Alamos scientists thought, in a ‘new world’:<\/p>\n

Although I knew the city well, it was actually difficult to find my way, for all the familiar landmarks had gone, and the streets I had often walked were now buried in debris and ashes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The survivors were now faced with the problem of trying to avoid the flames and go to the aid of friends, family, loved ones and strangers; or simply to escape:<\/p>\n

The whole city was burning. Black smoke was billowing up and we could hear the sound of big things exploding… The fires were burning.\u00a0 There was a strange smell all over.\u00a0 Blue-green balls of fire were drifting around. I had a terrible lonely feeling that everybody else in the world was dead and only we were left alive.I was determined not to escape without my mother. But the flames were steadily spreading and my clothes were already on fire and I couldn’t stand it any longer. So screaming, ‘Mummy, Mummy!’ I ran wildly into the middle of the flames. No matter how far I went it was a sea of fire all around and there was no way to escape. So beside myself I jumped into our water tank. The sparks were falling everywhere so I put a piece of tin over my head to keep out the fire. The water in the tank was hot like a bath. Beside me there were four or five other people who were all calling someone’s name. While I was in the water tank everything became like a dream and sometime or other I became unconscious… Five days after that I learned that mother had finally died just as I had left her.<\/p>\n

I left my mother there and went off… I was later told by a neighbor that my mother had been found dead, face down in a water tank… very close to the spot where I had left her… if I had been a little older or stronger I could have rescued her… Even now I still hear my mother’s voice calling me to help her.\u00a0 (Schoolgirl)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Culled from:\u00a0Eye-Witness Hiroshima<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

An Incredible Tale!<\/h3>\n

I have an incredible tale to share with you, so strap-on your seatbelt!<\/p>\n

It all began when my dear friend Eleanor posted the following photo and caption on my Facebook page:
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nWish they all could be Minnesota girls!<\/em><\/p>\n

Just look at that smug smirk!\u00a0 What sort of mayhem do you suppose our Bertha was involved in? I suggested perhaps she kicked a man in the nether regions with her pointy boots; my friend Jim suggested perhaps she’d poisoned her husband; I suggested that would still be called “murder”, not “mayhem”.\u00a0 We continued our debate for awhile until I thought, why not do some sleuthing?\u00a0 I had a name and a year after all, so I went to Newspapers.Com and found the following clue from a 1908 San Jose, California newspaper:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At this point, we knew that she may have been a native of Minnesota, but she did her crime in San Jose.\u00a0 We also had a date of the crime, so I did some more searching and found this:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The clues of exactly what sort of mayhem Bertha did are abundant here!\u00a0 “Every person who unlawfully and maliciously deprives a human being of\u00a0a member of his body<\/em>\u00a0or renders it useless… is guilty of mayhem.”\u00a0 Additional clues come from the description of the attack:\u00a0 “Mrs. Boronda without warning attacked her husband in the dark with a razor, maiming him fearfully.”<\/p>\n

At this point I thought, did she Bobbitt him???\u00a0 I think she Bobbitted him!!!<\/p>\n

And lo and behold!
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nIndeed, she Lorena’d before Lorena!\u00a0 Now we know why her mug looked so smug!<\/p>\n

On Ancestry I found additional photos from the San Quentin mug shot collection.\u00a0 I know, RIGHT???\u00a0 THERE’S A SAN QUENTIN MUGSHOT COLLECTION ONLINE!\u00a0 SQUEE!!!\u00a0 Stay tuned for ‘Beaucoup De D\u00e9tenus Du Jour!”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Additional sleuthing found that she was divorced by her much-abused husband in 1923.\u00a0 Yeah, I know – he stayed marry to her for an additional 16 years after she “frightfully maimed” him?\u00a0 Bit of a pushover, wasn’t he?\u00a0 Of course, I suppose he didn’t have a lot to offer a girl after, you know…
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Bertha remarried but apparently didn’t re-Bobbitt.\u00a0 She died in 1950 at the age of 72.
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nFind-A-Grave Entry<\/a><\/p>\n

“She was just a saleslady from Minnesota…”<\/p>\n

As for the much-suffering Narciso, he did remarry and he ended up living until 1940, when he died at the age of 72.
\nFind-A-Grave Entry<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Memento Mori!<\/h3>\n

Michael Marano\u00a0<\/strong>recommends a page from\u00a0MessyNessyChic.Com<\/a>\u00a0which details some glorious memento mori that we all wished we had in our collection.\u00a0 Try not to be too jealous!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nA Brief Compendium of Mesmerizing and Macabre Memento Mori<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s Flickering Yet Truly Morbid Fact! In the wake of the heat flash and\u00a0the blast wave from the atomic bomb set off over Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m. on Monday, August 6, 1945, came fire, caused partly by the direct radiated heat from the bomb, partly by other causes – gas leaks, electrical sparking and so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-facts","category-sundry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7742"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9949,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7742\/revisions\/9949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}