Full Body Burden

The Rocky Flats factory keeps its barrels of waste in an open area where the radioactive material can contaminate groundwater, soil, and a local rabbit population. Iversen states that, “some workers privately call it the Launching Pad, where all sorts of things are launched into the environment” (48).

Iversen returns to the year 1969, the national unrest at hand, and her family’s detachment from concerns like the Vietnam War. Her father acquires horses for each sibling; the creatures are alternately dopey and misbehaving. The family also adopts more dogs, including the nervous sheepdog Shakey.

Her mother also comments that Iversen’s father “is going down the tubes” (51). Her mother reminisces about marrying her father after one date and his two-year stint serving in the Korean War. Iversen’s mother’s family disapproves of her father, since he is Danish and her mother is Norwegian. After their wedding, they move to Colorado for a new life away from family tensions. 

After the Mother’s Day fire, protests begin outside Rocky Flats. An activist and member of the Sisters of Loretto, nun Pat McCormick numbers among the citizens demonstrating against Rocky Flats. A local woman named