Radio Waves From Outer Space

The Old Man has a long history with radio. I even spent several years as a disc jockey back in the heyday of AM radio, before FM became the powerhouse it is. We were on 24 hours a day playing the top hits........we rocked the Roanoke Valley with the Shirelles, The Four Tops, Elvis, and all the rest of those folks who made rock-n-roll fun. But my involvement goes way deeper than that.

When I was a boy, we put together Crystal Radios. They came in kits and consisted of some fine copper wire which you wound around a cardboard core, a little round crystal of some sort of rock, and a few miscellaneous parts like headphones, a bit of wire like a cat's whisker and some basic instructions. When it comes to electronics, I'm pretty much as clueless as Elmer Fudd on the space shuttle. Somehow, when you moved the little cat's whisker wire around on the crystal while moving a whisbidget along the copper wire coil, if you got really lucky, you'd pick up a radio station in your headphones. I would lay in my bed late at night trying to find some voice from the ether.

As I grew, a man who lived a couple of doors up the street worked for our local radio station. He took me on as a project and attempted to teach me about ohms, cycles, resistance, and watts. Elmer Fudd, remember? He did help me build my next generation radio. A little short wave set that could pick up lots of "squeaks and squawks" along with Morse code and some Mexican fellow who I think was preaching; either that or he was advocating another attack on the Alamo. This thing had for an antenna (we called them aerials) a wire stretching from my window to a huge cherry tree that stood in our yard 30 or 40 feet from the house. There was a gadget called a "lightning arrester" attached to the wire. I could never figure out how a bolt of lightning that could destroy a 100 foot tall oak tree would somehow be intimidated by a few pieces of porcelain. Elmer Fudd, remember?

Let's dig a bit deeper. The first Christmas they were married, my father gave my mother a radio. It was in the style of the day called a "cathedral top". I didn't make my grand entrance until about 7 years later. Some of my earliest memories are of us sitting around listening on that radio to Lowell Thomas, Edward R Murrow, and a host of others bring the news of the day. And the programs........The Shadow, Straight Arrow, Sky King, Lum & Abner, Jack Benny, and Inner Sanctum with it's "creaking door". I still listen to those programs; only now they come to me from outer space courtesy of XM Satellite Radio. I still have trouble coming to grips with the technology. Elmer Fudd, remember?

Take a look at this picture. There's the radio with Miss Alma by her side. I now have that old cathedral top and it still plays. I can turn the switch, wait for the tubes to warm up and hear those rich tones speaking to me. Would that I could do the same with Miss Alma.