Greeting to all and welcome first time visitors to the East Wing
On behalf of my family as well as myself, thank you one and all for such kind words and expressions of sympathy on the loss of our beloved Mother, Mother in-law and Grandmother. She will remain a part of all of us forever. Your words and precious thoughts toward my family and I shall never be forgotten. I could never have anticipated the extent of such outpouring of sympathy from around the world. I’m truly humbled by just the thought. From the start of my ramblings from the East Wing, I have never received such a volume of email. I thank you so.
With the coming of November all hope of warmer weather is all but lost when ya live in the cold county of Northern Indiana, even though yesterday and today are exceptional to say the least. From now until March or so we will tend to see more gloomy weather than that connected with the 4th of July. I love gloomy weather as much as I love 4th of July weather.
When I typed “cold country” it reminded me of when I used to talk on the CB Radio Frequency of the public air ways. On long cold winter nights, before computers, there was just not too many toys to play with. Ya can only watch so much television, then ya become a slug. I didn’t want to be a slug, so I decided to talk.
Now this was back in the day when ya had to apply to the FCC and pay, yes pay for a CB Radio License. The application had your name, address, age, sex, DOB and all that stuff. It cost $25.00, I think the price was so high to keep out the riff raff. It didn’t work. I joined the party.
With a new FCC License in hand, I sat out to purchase my radio station. The first stop was the Radio Shack, it just made since to me as a good place to start. Looking at all the radio stuff they had won both my heart and checkbook. Now this was before credit cards. If ya bought something, ya paid for it. If ya didn’t have the money, ya didn’t buy it till ya saved up the money, or ya didn’t get it. WOW !! such a novel idea, wonder if that would work today? I wonder if the Obama people have ever heard of that idea? Probably not.
In no time at all I had my radio station installed in a corner of my living room (this was a long time before the East Wing was even thought about) and with trepidation flipped the switch, the lights came one and I sat in amazement that I could hear people talk. I listened for a long time gathering enough courage to press down on the microphone and speak my first words on the air way. When fear was conquered, the magic button was pressed and I spoke the gospel according to BobbyRay.
The FCC License limited the radio station to 4 watts broadcasting power. Using the original capacity of the licensed transceiver I was able to talk to other people 10 to 12 miles away maximum. That seemed a rather short distance to me. I decided to enhance that broadcasting power ability somewhat by the use of additional electronic equipment attached to the radio. Equipment not readily available at the Radio Shack Store. Ya had to make this equipment yourself or know somebody who could, or they knew somebody who could.
I made my own, of hammers and nails and puppy dog tails, that’s what little boys make stuff of. It worked better than I expected. In fact it worked so good I decided to build a bigger, better one. So I did. It worked so good, I decided to build a bigger, better one. So I did, four times. Each time I sold the one being replaced as soon as I got the new one built. I thought about going into the radio manufacturing business, but too lazy, rather talk than work, and besides ya couldn’t sell this stuff until the sun went down.
Now with the additional equipment made of hammers and nails and puppy dog tails I was able to talk a little farther away, like South Florida and even Cuba, to New York State like it was across the road. The FCC tended to frown on that type equipment being used on the assigned Citizen Band Frequencies, so we built equipment to modify the frequencies which the radios would broadcast. That little business enterprise produced a revenue stream also.
One winter night when there were men walking on the Moon, I turned my antenna toward ‘em and said hello from the cold country of Northern Indiana, but they didn’t answer back, now ya got to understand they were real busy at that time and were probably just too busy to visit with me. But there’s no doubt in my mind they heard me if they were on the same radio frequency as the Thunder Base Broadcast, or even close frequency to where the Thunder Base was broadcasting.
While talking on CB Radios everybody had a nick name, mine was The Medicine Man, ya didn’t get to choose your nick name, someone else did. I never liked mine, it reminded me of an old Indian with a big black hat and pig tails. But it worked, and so I was The Medicine Man.
Now during the day and early evening when I talked on the CB Radio, I was just the same Medicine Man that everyone talked to. It was after prime time TV that things changed. Changed a lot. A few flipped switches and a couple turns of knobs, and things started to heat up. Now this was the old days of radio, still had tubes inside things and it did take time to warm up. But when it did, WOW! IT WAS HOT !
The Thunder Base went on air as “Radio Free Indiana, the voice of the Cold Country”. Talking long distance radio is kinda dependent on the weather. It take certain weather conditions to do the best job. Winter tends to work better than summer. Clear night skies work best. On clear, cold winter nights, under full power, the Thunder Base was a fun toy to play with, AND THE THUNDER ROLLED!
The only downside of the Thunder Base was its capability to interrupt television and radio reception in the neighborhood, total wipe out for one mile, extensive interruption for two miles, considerable disruption at three miles, noticeable disruption at four miles. But by the time ya got to Toto from my house ya hardly even noticed the Thunder Base was broadcasting, just thought that interference was the weather or something. Back then a lot of electric motors produced interference on the television frequencies, some more so than others. So a lot of times when the Thunder Base spoke on air, the neighbors thought a local farmer was just wielding or something.
Thinking about it, talking on CB Radios in the late 60’s through much of the 70’s was much like facebook today, except no faces. I’ve done both, I have spoke from the Thunder Base, and I’m on Facebook. Well, after seeing some of the faces, I prefer the Thunder Base. Pictures in your mind can serve ya well. Pictures on facebook can scare ya, early and often.
One of the amazing transformations which has taken place in the East Wing as a direct result of the arrival last June of the Garage Cats, is Sophia the Republican Cat’s attitude toward things, everything. As ya remember only one of the small cats survived the “Night of the Wild Dogs” and Regina named her Angel. Well, because of that Angel, Sophia is now an inside / outside girl. She goes outside with Mustina and comes inside when Mustina comes in. She still slaps the Angel around every once in a while just for the fun of it.
The one thing that has not changed is her politics. Last Tuesday evening as two gubernatorial races went Republican, I thought that cat was gona have kittens she was so excited, bouncing off the walls, got in the 2girldogs face and never shut up all night.
Wednesday Morning when the White House put the spin out that the election results in both Virginia and New Jersey had nothing to do with the policies of the President, or the Democratic Agenda in Washington, I thought the cat would bust a gut laughing out loud. Then to top it all off, Nancy Pelosi comes out with her statement that the Democrats really won last night. I’m telling ya the cat was doing hand stands, back flips and standing on her tail. This cat was so excited that she, herself, could have easily been one ring of a three ring circus.
Now I’m use to seeing Sophia smile, but that standing on her tail thing, I’d never seen that before. The Sophia tail stand may be the single most impressive cat trick in the history of hearth. When I asked her to do it again so I could take a picture, she said “did I really do that?” She tried and tried, to no avail. But she did once, just once, in jubilation over Nancy Pelosi’s most embarrassing moment yet, trying to pretend that the loss of two governor seats did nothing to reflect the country’s attitude toward events in Washington.
Sophia is starting to look ahead to the next local election, She may be working in the background already, laying the groundwork, just getting ready. Not sure what office she may be looking at, but would not be surprised if she decides to get actively involved in local politics next time around. She had compiled an extensive email list of Red Cat Republicans within the last several months, and I can only surmise that something is up. (Damn Republican Cat)
Did anybody get that letter last week from President Obama asking your financial support for the Democratic National Committee. Wanting donations to assure his agenda of change is implemented in our society? Strange letter, poorly written. It left me cold, and I’m a democrat.
The letter made assumptions about me and my life and my home and family that were so far away from reality that I decided to respond to the letter and offer the DNC to write a better letter.
Said he wanted to come and sit at my kitchen table and talk with me about the needs of our country, and hear my thoughts on issues concerning me and my life. Now the President’s writing me this personal letter and all, and he doesn’t even know that I don’t have a kitchen table. That just don’t seem right. After reading that letter several times, I’m not too sure he wrote it himself.
But if the President wants to come by anyway, even without the kitchen table, that’s ok. I’m sure Sophia the Republican Cat would be more than happy to entertain the President. Maybe she’d be able to do another one of those cat tail stands. So far the DNC hasn’t gotten back to me yet about me revising the letter.
Went stargazing last night, me and Johnny, looked at star stuff. One of the thrills ya get with stargazing is knowing that most wherever ya look in the heavens, you may be the first human ever to see that spot in the sky. Ya could spend a life time just looking at the Milky Way and never see 1/1000 of 1% of 1%. I don’t care who ya are that’s a small amount, the Milky Way’s just that big. Now the Milky Way is not even a bump on a log when it comes to the whole universe, and I’m not even talking ‘bout the universes’ outside ours, yes, outside ours. It’s kinda like, just outside Chicago, there’s a place called Illinois. Stargazing-----it’s such a cool trip.
Surly yesterday and today have been special weather gifts from God. It’s not too often we see mid seventies in November, Uh oh, mid seventies in November, Al Gore is gona start that global warming crap again. The fact that this summer past was the coldest since 1947 does not play into the formula, nor the fact that the average worldwide temperature has declined every year for the last ten years. It’s mid seventies in November, the sky’s falling….Chicken Little.
As usual we have enjoyed you company on this second Sunday in November. We thank you for coming to visit.
Stay safe in Baghdad, South Iraq and Afghanistan
From the East Wing,With The Thunder Base, Sophia laughing at Spin Doctors, and Stargazing.
I wish you well
BobbyRay
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