THE  CHATTERBOX  RESTAURANT

Back in the 70's the Arizona Section of the American Nuclear Society use to hold monthly meetings.   They would have a guest speaker at each of their meetings which dealt mainly with Nuclear Power generation.   I found the meetings really interesting.   I worked for the Arizona Atomic Energy Commission at the time and so had an interest in radiation topics.  

The meetings were held in a restaurant in Casa Grande which is about halfway between Phoenix and Tucson.   If they held the meetings in Phoenix then the members in Tucson might not attend because of the long drive.   If the meetings were held in Tucson then the members in Phoenix might not attend.   So the best compromise was Casa Grande which is halfway between Phoenix and Tucson.  Well, maybe not exactly halfway between Phoenix and Tucson.   A bit closer to Phoenix which was good for me since I lived in Phoenix.  The restaurant that was selected for the meetings was The Chatterbox Restaurant.  

 

It wasn't an especially large restaurant but it did have a meeting room for groups.     But what amazed me was the caliber of the people who attended these meetings:   people from the companies that built nuclear plants to people from the Manhattan Project on the building of the first nuclear reactor and the first atomic bombs.   I was always in awe of who I considered to be the most stellar person at the meetings: Norman Hillberry.  

 

I considered him as living history because of the stories he would tell of the days of (CP1, Chicago Pile 1), the first nuclear reactor.   He was present when Enrico Fermi first started up the CP1 reactor.   Various scientists had various jobs at that moment.   Some pushed the control rod in and out of the pile, some stood on top of the reactor with large flasks of boronated water which would be smashed against the top of the reactor if the reactor started to "run away".   Would I stand on the top of a nuclear reactor with flasks of boronated water to be smashed on the top of the reactor?    Let me think about that one........Okay, I am done thinking.   No!

 

 Norman Hillberry stood at a railing above the squash ball court where the reactor was located with an axe to chop a rope that was holding an additional control rod so that it would drop by gravity into the nuclear pile.   In the picture below he is the scientist bent over at the railing.

 

Here is a qoute of Norman Hillberry telling the story.

"Scram is usually cited as being an acronym for safety control rod axe man; however, the term is probably a backronym. The actual axe man at the first chain-reaction was Norman Hilberry. In a letter to Dr. Raymond Murray (January 21, 1981), Hilberry wrote:

When I showed up on the balcony on that December 2, 1942 afternoon, I was ushered to the balcony rail, handed a well sharpened fireman's axe and told, "if the safety rods fail to operate, cut that manila rope." The safety rods, needless to say, worked, the rope was not cut... I don't believe I have ever felt quite as foolish as I did then. ...I did not get the SCRAM [Safety Control Rod Axe Man] story until many years after the fact. Then one day one of my fellows who had been on Zinn's construction crew called me Mr. Scram. I asked him, "How come?" And then the story."  

Note:   I found the above two quotes on the internet but lost track of the sites where I found them.   My apologies.    Lew
More on Scram in the link below to an earlier blog.

https://lew-cabintalk.blogspot.com/2011/11/scram.html

I would have expected the meetings to be held in a Merriot or Hilton.   But the Chatterbox Restaurant was conveniently located.   But, alas I think that the Chatterbox Restaurant is gone.   I have gone to the site with Google Maps and I couldn't see it.   I wish now that I had gotten pictures of the restaurant both inside and outside.   Now all I have is a recently acquired postcard of the Chatterbox Restaurant.   I wonder if the owner of the restaurant ever knew of the people eating in his restaurant those nights.   Comments always appreciated.   Thanks.   Lew