Re: [IRCA] Nice Visit

[Stephen Hawkins <ng0g@xxxxxxxxx>]

Don,

On Friday 11 November 2005 15:28, The Kaskey Family wrote:
> Hi (ex) neighbor!
>
> We were out by the Cliff House & Lands End....Parking Lot (very dark) just
> up the Great Highway from the Cliff House.  Overlooks the former Sutro
> Baths, then out over the Pacific..........

Great spot.  I know right where that is.   
Below is a short piece I wrote some time ago when my son was younger, about my 
Grandfather Dxing, and my son Dxing.
----------------------

When my father was a little boy, his father, a career Army Sergeant, was 
stationed at the Presidio in San Francisco California.  My Father lived there 
from 1922, when he was two, until he was about 13 years old.  The Presidio is 
a beautiful place and my father grew up playing in a world filled with tall 
trees, abandoned bunkers, old cannons, and marching soldiers.   

	In the late 1920's early 30's although the radio explosion was already 
moving, it was still pretty exotic stuff.  There weren't as many stations as 
there are today and most people still put up outside antennas.  An evenings 
listening was an expedition into new and uncharted territory.  Many radios 
made at that time would receive short-wave bands in addition to the local AM 
broadcast band that we use today.  My Grandfather and one of his peers were 
among the first people on the Presidio to purchase radios.

My Grandfather, as had several others who owned radios, climbed up some of the 
very tall trees and strung up as much wire as he could, to use as an antenna 
for his radio.  Radio was new enough that my grandfather and his peers found 
it very exciting to hear broadcasts from foreign countries.  My Father tells 
of his fathers excitement one foggy morning.  Elatedly relating his night’s 
adventures by exclaiming, “I got China, I got China, on my radio”.

	My 10-year-old son is an inveterate junk collector.  It is difficult for him 
to pass a dumpster without looking in to see what valuable treasure some dolt 
might have carelessly thrown away.  Consequently he has this gargantuan 
hoard, which must be periodically culled lest it swallow us like some immense 
floating biblical plague.  

	Occasionally this heaving, surging mass will expel some piece of real worth.  
I came home from work late one Friday night and on the back porch I nearly 
stumbled over what at first appeared to be a fairly new and expensive 
Boombox, one of the rare ones that in addition to the usual AM/FM CASSETE, 
would also receive  short-wave.  Upon closer inspection I could see that it 
had been dropped.  Hard!  And that this adventure had not been pleasant.  The 
entire back which contained the power supply had broken off, severing all of 
the wiring connecting the two halves.  

	My sons complete confidence in my ability to bring it back to life found me 
sitting at my bench late that night working on it, until suddenly the dial 
lights glowed and out of the speaker came the sounds of foreign broadcasts on 
the short-wave bands.  This captivated my son, who for the next several days 
spent hours hunched in front of the radio carefully turning the tuning dial 
with the intensity and concentration produced by small boys in pursuit of a 
dream.  These periods of quiet were interrupted frequently by him leaping up, 
and running down the hall to my radio room yelling,  "I got China!  I got 
China on my radio!"
--------------------------------------------

Steve
-- 
73 49 111 01001001
Stephen Hawkins NG0G
ng0g@xxxxxxxx


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