Radioactive Tumbleweeds

To the tune of "Tumbling Tumbleweeds," music by Bob Nolan

Nuclear inspector
Riding all day long
While my geiger counter
Sings its lonesome song.
Checking each bunny, bug and weed;
Won't let the hot ones spread or breed.

See them tumbling down,
Pledging their love to the ground,
Where'er they go I'll be found
Chasing the radioactive tumbleweeds.

Though the plutonium's gone
Nuclear waste lingers on.
I spend each day in the sun
Chasing the radioactive tumbleweeds.

Bridge:
I know it will be long
Until radiation's gone.

So I'll keep checking each hole
Look at each snake, fly, and mole.
Kill or contain is my goal:
Chasing the radioactive tumbleweeds.
First hot frogs . . . now radioactive tumbleweeds.

Words copyright (c) 21 May 1999 by Julia H. West

Author notes

Background picture credit: http://www.pierce.ctc.edu/bbenedet/fall04/Documents/tumbleweed/tumbleweed.htm

The mention of "hot frogs" first has to be clarified: it comes from the song of the same title, written by Fred Small, about small radioactive frogs in ponds near Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.

This song is about radioactive animals and plants in Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State. When I read an article about how radiation was escaping from their underground storage containers, and it mentioned radioactive tumbleweeds, the tune for "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" instantly leapt into my head, and I had to write this filk.