Part TWO - Flashback to TSOD

TSOD = The Story of Daniel :)

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            Welcome back, My Dear Readers, to The Other Shoe. I was writing my ‘Special Update’for today. As well, my apologies for how tardy this ‘Part Two’ of my Flashback of ‘The Story of Daniel’. Today has been hectic and I am really trying to get as much accomplished every day as my pain and time allows. I am very happy to announce that, as of the time I wrote this article, that my Indiegogo Campaignhas raised $1,400.00!  As well, my last two contributions came from (Drum Roll… … …) ENGLAND! I am so deeply touched (watch it! I did not mean mentally)… so moved by their generosity. I knew  that I had readers in England, I kept seeing their hits showing up in my traffic reports. Ian and John, if you are reading this? “Thank you very much for your kindness and support.” It is not often that a Texan gets a donation from someone in England.

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Now, where was I? Oh, yes! I was talking about the time I spent in the garage with my Father. This time period started on Thrush Street, in Houston. That was when I first started becoming interested in what my father did every evening in his garage-workshop. I knew that he fixed televisions for friends and neighbors. I knew that he talked to people all over the world on his radios. He proudly displayed the CQ cards that he received on the wall in the garage over his radios. I listened, from inside the house at first, to him call “CQ, CQ CQ… This is WA5NJB calling from Southeast Texas… CQ, CQ, CQ” He would go on for hours. Moving from one frequency to another, often for hours on end with no answer.

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[caption id="attachment_187" align="aligncenter" width="630"] Danny in 1965[/caption]

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When they did answer? They answered from all over the U.S. and when we moved to Pearland and I helped him upgrade his rig? He could talk to; Southeast Asia, the U.S.S.R., CHINA and Vietnam. I kind of glossed over it, last night, but I will never forget how my father connected boys in uniform in Vietnam with their concerned and war weary parents here in America. It was no small feat, either. Dad would receive requests from families. Most of them were other Ham Radio operators, but did not have rigs powerful enough to transmit and receive all the way from Vietnam.

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I know that it did not make the families around us too happy, but my father erected a sixty foot aluminum tower in our back yard. You could see the darn thing as far away as the First Baptist Church by the railroad tracks. I know, because I sued to walk home every day… staring at that tower. It was, like, my beacon guiding me home. You could even see the darn thing at night. At the very top, above the transmission elements was a very bright light bulb in a red glass bubble. Every night, at dusk, the light would kick on and stay on all night long.

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[caption id="attachment_189" align="aligncenter" width="311"] Danny in The Third Grade[/caption]

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Coming home, late from work or rehearsals, I would frequently look up at my father’s beacon. No other kid, I knew had a beacon to guide them home every night.

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As I was saying, I started getting involved in my father’s garage workshop when I was very young and we lived on Thrush street in Houston. We left Houston when I was in the third grade. Once we moved, well, Dad had a whole side  of a two car garage to work in, and got himself a fifteen foot long work bench. It had, previously, been used in one of laboratories at the Herman Professional Building (by Baylor University). Some lab remodeled… and late one evening? Dad brought it home hanging out of the back of our station wagon.

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Once Dad had this new work bench, things got very busy in our families garage workshop/business. Yes, my father ran his own business out of our garage. The name was ‘K&M Electronics’ (For Ken and Margaret). Dad repaired; televisions (first black/white then color), entertainment consoles (the kind with the HUGE TV, and a turntable, and AM/FM Stereo), radios, electronic appliances and even the radios of other ‘Ham Radio Operators’. He also built most of his radio equipment. Either he built it from schematics and parts from the (then about RADIOS) ‘Radio Shack’. He had Heathkit, Hammarlund, and a sideband adapter that was all Hanning Electronics.

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That garage was, also, more than just his workshop and second source of income. It was a school house. Especially in Pearland but starting in Houston. In that garage my father taught me; Morse code, resistance (and how it was measure in Ohms), ‘Ohms Law’, how to read an electronic schematic and how to use all the tools and electronic testing equipment he owned. Learning, in my father’s workshop, was not like learning anywhere else. My father made learning fun! When I did well, and got things right, he beamed with pride. When I made mistakes and got things wrong? He didn’t get mad, and he never called me stupid. See, the things is? In school, science, mathematics and history were just subjects in books. In my father’s garage? They came to life.

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Mathematics and science turned into Phone Patches that connected frightened young American boys in Vietnam to their frightened and older parents here in America. Numbers and little icons turned into a television, or a radio. Geography in school was memorizing states and capitals. In my father’s garage, geography turned into people with different accents talking from; Maine, Massachusetts. Boston wasn’t just a city, it was a person that my father talked to last night. My father is THE reason (I feel) that I did as well as I did in school. He brought the subjects to life.

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Well, it is getting kind of late. I am very tired and my neck is just throbbing in pain… shooting into my hands and (now) my face and jaw. I really want to write more… Oh, I was using Dragon Naturally Speaking speech to text software to write my posts. Until, well, about two weeks ago. Alexander does not like it when I spend hours and hours writing and posting. He really likes his father’s love and attention. He gets jealous.

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He has started… this I simply have to get on video. He will take a running start and jump into my lap. STOP dead stop, look up and smile. He LOVES getting my attention from the computer. I guess, sometime two weeks ago, I did not respond… quickly enough. Get THIS! He chewed through the wire connecting the headset to my computer. ONLY THE MICROPHONE connection. I can still use the headset for listening to music, or the like (like Netflix movies). However, I can no longer use this headset for dictating my articles.  SMART RAT, ALEXANDER! Once I get moved… and all the money is sorted out. I am hoping that I have enough left to purchase a nice headset with mic that will be compatible with the software. It says, in the instructions, it has to be high quality (lower dBS) so that there isn’t any background noise. I simply cannot afford a new headset now… SO everything you see… everything I post… is all back to hand typed. This is much more painful… .and much slower. Anyway, he meant no harm… or did he?

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As always it is a great honor that YOU, My Dear Readers, come here to The Other Shoe to read my work. From the bottom of my heart, “Thank YOU!” \.

I am still quite shy on my campaign (linked below with the picture). I have enough for, most likely, the first month’s rent and a reasonable deposit. I still have to raise enough to; rent a truck to move, pay for insurance( I do NNOT have a car… so they will likely ask for a large deposit to rent to me), some packing materials… a few high quality boxes for the computer and HDTV… and… two or three people to help Glen actually MOVE.

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I am so very sorry to have to keep asking for help. I very much appreciate EVERYTHING people have odne so far. EVERYBODY has been just GREAT!

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Please, if you haven’t? Please consider donating. If you have and know people who might.. and can afford to help? Please… PLEASE share my campaign. Tell them I am worthy of their help.

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“THANK YOU!”

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Please Share and HELP!?!?