daily scratchpad

(2)

Jenniffer Anne was born in Mississippi. We were hoping for a boy this time, and when the good doctor gave me the news that it was a girl I said, 'Oh well, back to the drawing boards.' He laughed. We rented a small house in Mississippi City, not far from Keesler, and Kootch went back to being a full time mom-housewife. I revisited the place on the drive to Florida, and found a slightly different house. It had been destroyed by a hurricane and been rebuilt. I suppose it was destroyed again by Katrina.

The training at Keesler was unremarkable except for the beginning: they mistakenly assigned me to basic computer school. I tried to correct the problem to no avail. After several days they realized the mistake and sent me to basic electronic school where I belonged. Basic electronics was really interesting. I was fascinated by amplifiers (mister boom-boom has calmed down now and become mister tap-tap again), modulators, antennas, etc., and even developed a hobby based on my new knowlege: short wave listening. I built a short wave receiver (and bought a better one later) and heard radio broadcasts from all over the world including Radio Havanna Cuba (during the Cuban Missle Crisis!), the BBC, Radio Australia, and Radio Moscow. The photo shows me listening to the store-bought Hammerlund HQ-145X.