Time to start a new thread for dredging up some of those humorous old 'Let's-take-a-Stroll-down-Amnesia-Lane' memories.
I'll start:
The year was 1978 and there was I, a carefree (and 'full-of-himself') 18yr old, a waiter at Dan McGrew's restaurant, and living in Danville California, a nice little bedroom community for the East Bay area.
On this day, however, I was back in my old home town nostalgically visiting the old neighborhood behind my High School when out from my mobile CB speaker came a voice I remembered from 3 years earlier when I used to get hassled by him for causing interference to his radio. - Partly, I'm sure, it happened because we lived within half a mile of one another, and partly (mostly) because I had a somewhat modified radio transmitter with maybe just a little too much power to be legal, ...actually about 60-70 times legally permissible wattage.
Yep, seasoned old "Seasick Charlie" was a-whoopin' it up with his buddies, the "Old Farts"* on Ch.23 when I decided to cruise on over his direction to see if I could 'Rabbit hunt' the guy and find his location, as I zipped through familiar old neighborhoods in my little lacquer silver Porsche 914.
I was fully equipped with a neat old Johnson Messenger 323 mobile CB radio and a 100 watt CMI AB1 amplifier feeding an Antenna Specialists 'Formula One' base loaded magnet mount antenna stuck behind the rear window on the passenger side where it almost disappeared from sight.
What a monstrously large meter had that classy old Johnson 23 channel, making it a breeze to find the guy, and what made especially quick work of it was I recalled he had a silly, odd looking antenna called an Astroplane which stood out like a 'Turd in the punchbowl'.
(Forgive my crude metaphor.)
When I saw the needle on the Johnson 323 meter slam against the far peg I knew he had to be within 4 or 5 houses from my location and then, sure enough, there it was on a diminutive 20' telescoping mast, barely over his roof, leaving the bottom of the strange looking antenna a mere 12' from the ground.
- Poor Mrs Seasick Charlie, the TVI she must have endured while he jawed away his retired afternoons and evenings on the air...
As I slowly drove past his house, hearing his signal strength almost overwhelm the front end of my radio, I saw his garage door was open and him sitting there in plain sight in the garage at a desk just outside the adjoining house wall, his back facing the street, talking CB to his heart's content while trying to understand whomever was talking back, his volume setting so loud that I could hear his radio over mine on this sunny Summer afternoon with my Targa top removed and the windows down.
Just then a dark angel crept into my thoughts, and as my previously mellow day suddenly erupted into a dark moment of spontaneous teen-age prankster genius, I decided I'd launch a dastardly deed to get a little humorous payback for all those times when he came to my channel to harass me for causing interference to his "Cheap little bleed-over box of a radio" as I then impetuously referred to it.
Turning down the volume most of the way on my CB, I gained courage as I recalled that ol' Seasick was rather hard of hearing, I gently tapped the throttle carefully so as not to rev the engine too high causing an early alert, and reversed up his driveway, gingerly persuading the gearbox into 1st gear with the clutch pedal in while still slowly coasting backward INTO his garage at perhaps 1-2 mph.
Now before I had begun to carry out my nefarious plan, I had told my friend Donn (on a lower channel) to go to Ch.23 and just listen for any possible comment from Seasick Charlie.
So there was Donn, quietly sitting next to his radio awaiting something, though he knew not what.
...I had now come within about 3-4 feet of Seasick Charlie sitting contentedly in his office chair at his radio desk, (I suppose it was either the rumble of the Monza exhaust or the smell of fresh German combustion which alerted him that something wasn't right) as I could see him in my rear-view mirror slowly begin to come around in his chair,
...and that was my cue.
In a New York second I spun up that snappy 1.8L engine to red-line and dumped the clutch leaving behind a limited-slip black number 11 as my tires spun delightfully along that smooth garage floor spewing smoke, squealing and screeching down the driveway into the street where I caught traction, whipped the steering wheel to the right, skidded sideways, corrected, shifted and wound it up to an easy 40mph getaway.
...and as I gleefully chortled an adrenaline laden guffaw of delightful self-satisfaction, I heard his somewhat shaky but now quite energetic voice clamoring over the CB exclaim,
"Those [Blankety-Blank] Punk Kids and their Maseratis!"
- and I laughed 'til I gasped for breath.
*Now I'm one!
I'll start:
The year was 1978 and there was I, a carefree (and 'full-of-himself') 18yr old, a waiter at Dan McGrew's restaurant, and living in Danville California, a nice little bedroom community for the East Bay area.
On this day, however, I was back in my old home town nostalgically visiting the old neighborhood behind my High School when out from my mobile CB speaker came a voice I remembered from 3 years earlier when I used to get hassled by him for causing interference to his radio. - Partly, I'm sure, it happened because we lived within half a mile of one another, and partly (mostly) because I had a somewhat modified radio transmitter with maybe just a little too much power to be legal, ...actually about 60-70 times legally permissible wattage.
Yep, seasoned old "Seasick Charlie" was a-whoopin' it up with his buddies, the "Old Farts"* on Ch.23 when I decided to cruise on over his direction to see if I could 'Rabbit hunt' the guy and find his location, as I zipped through familiar old neighborhoods in my little lacquer silver Porsche 914.
I was fully equipped with a neat old Johnson Messenger 323 mobile CB radio and a 100 watt CMI AB1 amplifier feeding an Antenna Specialists 'Formula One' base loaded magnet mount antenna stuck behind the rear window on the passenger side where it almost disappeared from sight.
What a monstrously large meter had that classy old Johnson 23 channel, making it a breeze to find the guy, and what made especially quick work of it was I recalled he had a silly, odd looking antenna called an Astroplane which stood out like a 'Turd in the punchbowl'.
(Forgive my crude metaphor.)
When I saw the needle on the Johnson 323 meter slam against the far peg I knew he had to be within 4 or 5 houses from my location and then, sure enough, there it was on a diminutive 20' telescoping mast, barely over his roof, leaving the bottom of the strange looking antenna a mere 12' from the ground.
- Poor Mrs Seasick Charlie, the TVI she must have endured while he jawed away his retired afternoons and evenings on the air...
As I slowly drove past his house, hearing his signal strength almost overwhelm the front end of my radio, I saw his garage door was open and him sitting there in plain sight in the garage at a desk just outside the adjoining house wall, his back facing the street, talking CB to his heart's content while trying to understand whomever was talking back, his volume setting so loud that I could hear his radio over mine on this sunny Summer afternoon with my Targa top removed and the windows down.
Just then a dark angel crept into my thoughts, and as my previously mellow day suddenly erupted into a dark moment of spontaneous teen-age prankster genius, I decided I'd launch a dastardly deed to get a little humorous payback for all those times when he came to my channel to harass me for causing interference to his "Cheap little bleed-over box of a radio" as I then impetuously referred to it.
Turning down the volume most of the way on my CB, I gained courage as I recalled that ol' Seasick was rather hard of hearing, I gently tapped the throttle carefully so as not to rev the engine too high causing an early alert, and reversed up his driveway, gingerly persuading the gearbox into 1st gear with the clutch pedal in while still slowly coasting backward INTO his garage at perhaps 1-2 mph.
Now before I had begun to carry out my nefarious plan, I had told my friend Donn (on a lower channel) to go to Ch.23 and just listen for any possible comment from Seasick Charlie.
So there was Donn, quietly sitting next to his radio awaiting something, though he knew not what.
...I had now come within about 3-4 feet of Seasick Charlie sitting contentedly in his office chair at his radio desk, (I suppose it was either the rumble of the Monza exhaust or the smell of fresh German combustion which alerted him that something wasn't right) as I could see him in my rear-view mirror slowly begin to come around in his chair,
...and that was my cue.
In a New York second I spun up that snappy 1.8L engine to red-line and dumped the clutch leaving behind a limited-slip black number 11 as my tires spun delightfully along that smooth garage floor spewing smoke, squealing and screeching down the driveway into the street where I caught traction, whipped the steering wheel to the right, skidded sideways, corrected, shifted and wound it up to an easy 40mph getaway.
...and as I gleefully chortled an adrenaline laden guffaw of delightful self-satisfaction, I heard his somewhat shaky but now quite energetic voice clamoring over the CB exclaim,
"Those [Blankety-Blank] Punk Kids and their Maseratis!"
- and I laughed 'til I gasped for breath.
*Now I'm one!