Page 29 - Winterling's Chasing the Wind

swarms of small flying insects out of the house, but we sometimes saw one at night
flying inside an illuminated lampshade. One not so pleasant discovery occurred at
dinnertime when we had just sat down at the table for supper. Suddenly, we heard a
clink over our heads as one of the chains broke holding a glass shade on our ceiling
light fixture. As the shade tilted downward, we received a shower of dead bugs!

Among our household chores was washing the dishes, making the beds, dusting the
furniture and vacuuming the floors. We sometimes gathered outdoors with
neighborhood kids to play softball or touch football, depending on the time of the year.
On days when it was too cold, or raining, we stayed inside and played cards or read
comic books. Not having TV, we only had a radio, but it did have interesting programs.
We felt like cowboys when listening to Tom Mix and the Lone Ranger, or airplane
pilots as we heard Hop Harrigan saying, “This is CX4 to control tower, calling for
permission to land”. We often spent the last hour of the day in the bedroom looking at
the lighted numbers of our Silvertone radio dial as we listened to G-men going after the
bad guys on Gang Busters, or the mystery behind the squeaking door on the Inner
Sanctum.

I belonged to an “off and on” Boy Scout troop that had trouble keeping enough boys for
meetings. Eventually, I earned enough merit badges by studying the manuals, doing the
projects, and meeting with counselors to become a Life scout. I loved camping. Being
outdoors, I could relate to the pioneers who discovered our country as I pitched the pup
tent and built the campfire. I was fascinated with the battery-less crystal radio, which
would simply operate from a copper wire antenna and a “cat’s whisker” wire touching
a piece of galena embedded in lead. We listened through headphones connected to a
coil of wire around a paperless toilet paper core. When camping in the woods, I’d
attach a string of copper wire antenna wire to a nearby tree for an antenna that enabled
me to listen to the radio in my tent. Jacksonville had only four radio stations. WJAX the
municipal station, WMBR, and WJHP the Jacksonville Journal station were the oldest
ones. Then one day a new one joined the selections, WPDQ. We usually camped under
the live oaks along McGirt’s Creek (Ortega River) near a high point called the Bluff.

In order to receive more distant radio stations at my house, I decided to string a copper
wire to a point as high as I could climb in the young pine tree outside my window. As I
was about 12 feet above the ground in the tree holding the wire, I suddenly felt an
electrical shock in my hand at the same instant there was a lightning flash in the
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