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Where is the nuclear weapon off the coast of Georgia?

In the 50 years since a nuclear weapon splashed into Wassaw Sound, it has become a local legend, a 7,600-pound good ol' bomb that has dodged all efforts to detect it even as its draws enormous attention on the Web.

Its profile seems certain to grow even larger since a novel that revolves around its presence was released last week during the Savannah Book Festival.

This new burst of publicity comes as a disappointment to retired Air Force Col. Howard Richardson, the man who actually dropped the bomb in the early hours of Feb. 5, 1958.

"Once and for all, I just want to put this thing to rest," said Richardson, the sigh in his voice easily discernible as he spoke from his home in Brandon, Miss.

Now 86, Richardson served for 31 years, a sterling career that included 35 missions as a B-17 pilot in World War II. He also put in thousands of hours as a Strategic Air Command pilot, shepherding B-47s and B-52s on globe-circling flights during the peak of the Cold War, an era when SAC bombers and crewmen were the tip of America's nuclear spear.

"Wassaw Sound" is just the latest in a lengthy series of books and other publicized accounts of the incidents surrounding the dropping of the bomb and the searches for it.

The Washington Post has covered it, as has The Times of London. Magazine stories have been done by Atlantic Monthly and Boating, which declared in its July 2007 edition that you should "pray that we find it."

In spite of, or perhaps due to, all this publicity, the bomb has become a hot fashion item on Tybee.

Joe Inglesby, the daytime bartender at Doc's Bar on Tybrisia Street, has put together a line of hats and shirts that bear the logo "Tybee Island Bomb Squad."

Parents of twins are a small but loyal club. We can pick one another out of a crowd. Turns out one of our senior members has a son running for president of the United States. From NBC's Bethany Thomas, watching the GOP debate on Sunday night.

Huckabee just stood up for McCain's age of 71 by bragging about his 95 year old mother, Roberta McCain. Have you met this woman before? She's hard to keep up with and would be sitting in the audience if she wasn't currently driving all over Europe on holiday with her twin sister. McCain usually answers the age question by telling the story of his mother who last Christmas was told she was too old to rent a car in France. So, she bought a car, had it shipped back to the US, and drove it from the east coast back to the west coast.

From my experience, this article about tech for tots is dead-on. The Times says the hot toy items this year feature a screen and allow preschoolers to emulate their parents. Forget the toy phones, we want REAL phones Mom and Dad. But with screens now overshadowing
wheels and dress clothes on toys, sounds like we have to start monitoring toy-time as well as tv time. Call me fuddy (my mother-in-law does!), but I certainly think so.

"The bigger toy companies don’t even call it the toy business anymore,” Mr. [Jim} Silver of Toy Wishes said. “They’re in the family entertainment business and the leisure business. What they’re saying is, ‘We’re vying for kids’ leisure time.’ ”

Technology has been slowly permeating the toy business for a number of years, but the trend has been accelerating. On Wednesday, six of the nine best-selling toys for 5- to 7-year-olds on Amazon.com were tech gadgets. For all of 2006, three of the top nine toys for that age group were tech-related.

The trend concerns pediatricians and educators, who say excessive screen time stifles the imagination. But more traditional toys — ones without computer monitors, U.S.B. cables and memory cards — are seen by many children as obsolete...

Wiring toys for a young audience is worrying some children’s advocates and pediatricians. The American Academy of Pediatrics advises against screen time for children ages 2 and younger, and it recommends no more than one to two hours a day of quality programming on televisions or computers for older children.

Donald L. Shifrin, a pediatrician based in Seattle and the spokesman for the academy, said tech toys cannot replace imaginative play, where children create rich narratives and interact with peers or parents.

“Are we creating media use as a default for play?” Dr. Shifrin asked. “When kids want to play, will they ask, ‘Where’s the screen?’ ”