Monday, August 14, 2006

Hungry for Certain Sounds

Much of stuff I thought I could not live without is locked up in a storage locker on the other side of town.  When I moved into a studio apartment, many treasures were left with no place in my new home.  I could not part with them...so like many of us, I STORED THEM.

I never see them, I don't go near that locker for which I pay yearly.  I know they are there, and perhaps that is some comfort.  Would Linus be happy if his security blanket was locked up and not handy?

What is there that I have no room for?  A short-wave radio.  I am (was) a Ham radio operator.  There are couple of rigs there, with the wires needed for an antenna. I should part with them. My license has expired, I will never send out another CQ.  There are receivers there too.  I get hungry for the sound of Morse code. 

I struggled to learn Morse code in the Army.  But once I had it, it stuck with me.  I would love to sit down and copy more.  The news sounds newsyier when you take it down from dots and dashes. (Dits and dahs, we say now)

And records... 45's and LP's.  I would probably have to go to an antique store to get a player for them.  But I would like to hear Time is Tight, Hot Toddy, The In Crowd, and Night Train again.  I have half a dozen different versions of Night Train.  I would love to compare them again. I even have Harry James' Trumpet Blues on 78 rpm, and, get this, Glen Miller's In the Mood.

There are books I loved, and books I never got around too.  Can't throw them away.

There are home movies of the kids growing up, and then the same movies on video-tape.  Time to get 'em on DVD. And boxes and boxes of photos.  Somewhere in the locker are the collected negatives of all those snapshots.  I bought a scanner that takes 35mm negatives, just so I could see them all again...but never got the scanner and the negatives together. 

I have a stamp collection, started by my MOTHER a generation ago, that ought to be worth something...someday, to some of my heirs, I seem to have lost interest in collecting more  The same with coins.  I havecomplete sets of coins -- up to the time I locked them up-- and no interest in continuing...yet no inclination to get rid of them.

I won't go into the psychological term for people who collect, collect, and cannot stop.  The kindest part of the term is "retentive".  That's me, I am afraid. 

And now my compulsions drive me to write a journal, and I will, until I find a way to lock them all up in a locker.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Boy! This brings up the memories of things I have saved and will never use again. I have quite a few of the old records and nothing to play them on, dancing skirts, oh my. Paula

Anonymous said...

Dear Chuck,
DON"T YOU DARE TRY TO LOCK THESE JOURNALS ENTRIES UP SOMEWHERE WHERE WE CAN NEVER SEE THEM AGAIN!!!! LORD HAVE MERCY........

Isn't it something how we get into collecting things that seem so important at the time, but then somewhere down the line we lose interest...except for those movies of our family...I always wished I had been able to afford to make movies of my babies..fortunately I do have pictures to look at...

I only have ONE picture of myself as a baby of two or so...as we were not able to afford a camera!

This was a very good thought provoking entry Chuck...How in the world do you learn Morse Code???

Take care friend,
Carlene

Anonymous said...

There are plenty of people in the world who are interested in buying OLD records, stamps, coins and dancing skirts!  There is a resurgence of interest in all things 50's including home movies and slides.
You all have gold mines!

Anonymous said...

You just locked your journal up but now you have a key to open it up when needed, great journal, those stamps got to be worth something and if your hams have tubes they are worth something, you certainly amaze me a man of the times , thanks for the great read!

Anonymous said...

CHuck -- time to take some of your stuff out and start playing. In the meantime, try this link to fill your morse code copying needs:

http://www.qsl.net/oe3mzc/receivers.html

There is absolutely no reason I can think of why you had to give up your license... a 2 or 10 meter rig can be run from your room if you could convince the janitor to put up an antenna on the roof for you. Likewise a shortwave receiver and it's attendant antenna -- I used a slinky I strung out across the room when I wanted to listen in college until my roomate and I snuck up on the roof and ran a longwire from one end of a 100 foot dorm to another (He was former Army Signal Corps from the cold war era -- Russian translator).

And I envy you the slide scanner something fierce. I need to do that too, and soon, before I die or it just ain't going to happen.

wil

Anonymous said...

Chuck, you have great memories locked up... I know you would enjoy hearing the records again as much as you love music.....
Jackie

Anonymous said...

I hope your family enjoys the host of fun that is locked up there. B. lynne