HOME SWEET HOME

I love rummaging through my drawers! They’re actually getting big enough that you could get in them with me and walk around!

Seriously, I was fumbling through stacks of papers in my bedroom dresser and came across, yet another masterpiece, this old doodle at the top of some notes I took years ago, probably about 1978, while just beginning my communications career.

I know it was 1978 because that is my Trans Am sitting in the driveway with red fire coming out of the exhaust, and black marks running up the drive. That’s also the little bungalow I bought after my divorce. It was a great little 2-bedroom house, with gas logs, carpet, and much peace and quiet. Note the CB antenna (on the house and car) the “Black Max” used to broadcast hot tunes from the turntable, and check out the female CBer’s on the weekends! I suppose that was the beginning of “Friday Night Blues!” I’m sure the FCC tried many a night to triangulate my “twenty.”

Ah…what a time I had there! Truthfully, it began lonely, but with music, women, pen and paper, I worked out my issues and grief and got on with my life. I think you could say I grew there – yeah, you can say that!

I apparently thought more about home and things to do outdoors than I ever did about the job, from the looks of my notebooks. However, I somehow survived, even got promoted regularly, even if I doodled instead of focusing on work problems. But, who is to say I was not thinking about solutions when I did my scribbling? I think I probably did, otherwise, I would not have had the opportunity to sit, think, and doodle quite as long as I did!

It’s been said that doodling, an unfocused drawing, can help you to think more creatively, unlock a mental block, and brainstorm ideas. Damn, I must have been good!

THE NEW CITIZEN’S BAND – BLOGGING!

Well here’s another topic that I did not originate, but I did come to the realization on my own. Blogging is the new CB radio of the modern age.

I used to be a 1970’s CB’er with two call signs, one publicly known and the other I used for cruising and carousing!

I was the “Silent Runner” talking with friends when leaving or arriving at work and along the highways and byways. I got the CB handle from a 1958 movie called Run Silent Run Deep staring Burt Lancaster and Clark Gable. “Rig for silent running” was a command the captain gave when the sub was being dogged by a destroyer. The sub would sit quietly on the bottom or float along with no engines, electrical, or mechanical sounds and listen to the sonar pings. That’s the way I usually ran the Interstates, silent and listening – amused by the trucker's banter and conversations lonely women started up with them.

Of course, later there was also “Silent Running” with Bruce Dern. That movie always leaves me in tears – I hate to see anything lonely and the robot left watering the forest with its little watering bucket in deep space was the ultimate in loneliness. Sniff – I’m a softy I suppose, so I guess Silent Runner was a blend of these significances for me.

I was the “Black Max” on weekends while cruising around my home base area after my divorce. Being the typical low-life scum of a man, I didn’t want to meet women before seeing what that looked like, so I would set up a situation where I could peruse the quarry without being seen and then if they looked promising I would then pull up and say “Howdy, I’m the Black Max.” Kind’a sounds like a chat-room stalk – huh? Just tends to add credence to my point about blogging evolving from CBs.

I did a lot of successful cruising, but it cost me a maxed out Exxon credit card even with gas being only 63 cents then. I finally sold the ’78 Trans Am for, of all things, a Toyota Celica GT! My hotrod days ended for quite a while, but I made a come back later (That’s another story and covered quite well in “Where They’ve Gone” – as a matter of fact, you can see the Black Max there with the Big Mamma CB antenna sticking up in back!).

I also had a base station (the 1970s blog access device) with an Astatic D104 "Golden Eagle", a.k.a. the chicken-choker or lollypop, microphone! I loved to choke this baby and broadcast out on the airways and even “shot skip” a few times across America when conditions were right.

Basically I just bellowed out “Breaker! Breaker! Uh, how ‘bout’ it there Doe Eyes, got’ca ears on? Come on.” Thus would begin a night of hollering at friends around the county – friends I never met in person, but with who I talked about life and general happenings until the wee hours.

CBing kind of faded out quickly for me, but now I blog and talk to new friends who I have never met in person, but we discuss life and general happenings until the wee hours just the same.

So, blogger, blogger, how ‘bout it Grouchy Old Cripple, Rat Man, Herb, and Goddess, ya got your eyes on tonight? Come on.