In this chapter Kristen mentions how she thought that nothing ever happens in her home town. She says "I spent years in Europe traveling around and looking for things to write about.. It's turned out that the most important story to tell is quite literally in my back yard" (Iverson 283) . To her Rocky Flats was just a normal part of her life, but we are fascinated reading this memoir. I feel like a lot of people feel like Kristin did. Many people don't realize how many unique and interesting stories they have to tell. They may not be as grand a story as Kristin's, but readers like verisimilitude. The stories that all of us have to tell are relatable, and therefore important.
Another topic that is prevalent throughout the book and summed up at the end of the chapter is plutonium as an unseen enemy. No one can see it or prove that it's causing all these negative health advantages. For the first several chapters, most citizens paid no attention to the warnings against the plutonium. They could see the plutonium or the harm it was causing so they paid no attention. The threat from Rocky Flats was described as "invisible, unseen, and unverifiable" (Iverson 299). It like the Spanish-American war when more soldiers died, while liberating Cuba, from disease than from the Spanish. No one paid any attention to the poor health of the camps and lack of medical supplies until it was to late and thousands had started showing symptoms and eventually died. We as humans are often more concerned about the visible smaller danger than the unseen danger that eventually gets us.
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