W 9 G R F

 

Joseph Shields

 

 

At the time, my father was one

of only a hundred guys in the world

who had contacted every country

via HAM radio and let me tell you

everyone in our neighborhood knew it.

 

When he fired up his unit, it messed up

the television reception for every house

in a two block radius and, though it was

technologically impossible, some said

they swear they saw my old man's face

appear through the fuzz on their tv screens.

 

With his 75 foot tower in back of the house,

my pops was blamed

for most of the communication mishaps

which occurred in the area.

 

My mother would commonly bang on the floor

to notify my father downstairs that he was

interfering with Hawaii 5-O or that fat boy Cannon.

That was usually followed by a couple of phone calls

from irritated neighbors which my mother fielded.

Apparently Cannon was quite popular in those days.

 

My father's voice also cut into our phone line.

In his low sailor voice, he would call out

"W9 Gulf Romeo Fox-trot. Do you copy?,"

much to the dismay of my older sister, Christine,

who was chatting with her boyfriends.

 

She used to holler downstairs to my father saying

he was embarrassing her and ruining her life.

 

He usually yelled back something like

"Listen, I'm talking to a Lithuanian peasant

about potato farming. Why don't you call Jimmy

or whatever the hell his name is back later?"