Ed Grothus doesn't really need a special forum for speaking his mind. He's been doing it for almost 39 years, since he left his job as a machinist with Los Alamos National Laboratory and began speaking out against nuclear proliferation and selling the lab's throwaways at the store he calls the Black Hole.
During that time, he often found himself in the national news, whether it was for accidentally finding a book with the signatures of 47 major Manhattan Project players that sold at Sotheby's for $23,000 or for getting a visit from the Secret Service after sending some "organic plutonium" to then-President Bill Clinton.
But on Thursday morning, the Los Alamos Study Group, a lab watchdog, decided to give Grothus, 84, a forum in the Roundhouse rotunda.
"We're here to celebrate with Ed 40 years of peace activism in Los Alamos, one of the most challenging places to do that," the group's Greg Mello said.
Wearing his trademark camouflage pants of purple, black and white and a 5-inch bolo tie over his white shirt, Grothus opened his remarks saying, "More than anything in this world, I want to see humanity survive."
Grothus was bleak in his hopes for ending nuclear proliferation. But he said, "I challenge Los Alamos and the Santa Fe Institute— may the wisest people in these places act to prevent a nuclear holocaust."
And he pointed out the reasons he believes everyone should care.
"I don't think the CEOs understand: They die, too, unless we ensure a future for humanity," he said.
Grothus also talked about the disempowerment the general public feels.
"We think, 'I can't really do anything. I think I'll go out to breakfast,' '' he said.
Now dealing with inoperable cancer, Grothus said he doesn't think his illness is related to his work at Los Alamos.
"If I was affected at all, I think it's because I tremble," Grothus said, indicating his hands. "I may have absorbed trichloroethylene. I used gallons of it without any protection. It may have affected my nerves, but you can't prove anything."
Peter Neils, president of the Los Alamos Study Group, said, "If you look at the arc of Ed's life, it took extraordinary courage to become a critical voice of the arms complex, especially considering that he's lived there and worked there. The pressure to be quiet is enormous."
Over the years, Grothus' activism has begun to attract a wider audience.
"I had a wonderful session with CBS Tuesday," Grothus said of a Discovery program called "Welcome to the Future" for which he is being filmed. It's about "a future beyond nuclear bombs, beyond war," he said.
And last year, Grothus was honored with the Allan Houser Memorial Award, given alongside the Governor's Awards for Excellence in the Arts.
The Houser award is given for artistic success and community involvement. Grothus' Black Hole has provided material for artists and for movie and theater productions.
Willem Malten of Cloud Cliff Bakery was at Thursday's forum for Grothus and recalled that back in the early '80s, when he was trying to expand his bakery operation, he wanted to use salvaged equipment and light fixtures.
"I came across an ad for Black Hole," Malten said of his examination of the telephone book. The ad said "billions and billions of dollars of inventory."
After visiting the Black Hole, Malten said, "I realized it was billions and billions of dollars of inventory."
Malten said he believed people are finally listening to what Grothus has to say.
"People are finally scared because they see that this war (in Iraq) has consequences for their pocketbooks," he said.
Grothus' son Tom was visiting from Seattle and recalled being sent with his four siblings on trips around Los Alamos "to haul things out of buildings."
Tom said his father bought an old Lutheran church A-frame and started the Omega Peace Institute during the Vietnam War, then bought the old Piggly Wiggly building next to it and turned it into the Black Hole.
Grothus' current challenge is finding a place to erect two obelisks in Los Alamos that will create a 40-ton, 42-foot-tall monument with a message that will partly read: "It is only in Los Alamos that the potentials for unimagined, fantastic good and demonstrated horrendous evil are proximate."
