He was "Grandad" to me, but in reality was my father in all but biology, for all of who I am and what I have accomplished is directly attributable to his West Virginia sense of ethics and the universal calm that being in his presence brought over me. He and my grandmother raised me from infancy to adulthood through a time span marked by the specter of atomic war, assassination of President John F. Kennedy and our country’s entry into the war in Vietnam, a conflict that would change the face of America forever.

Grandad seldom came home from work empty handed. He almost never brought home anything shiny and new, because money was tight and not to be used frivolously. He derived great joy delivering "surprises" as he called them, to my sister and myself, sometimes a toy, more often a book for me, since I developed into an avid reader almost as quickly as I learned to do so.

Grandad responded to my sudden obsession with radio with a special surprise. One evening, he emerged from Mr. Kaney’s old pickup truck in which he rode to work each day, carrying an unusually large package wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine. He looked tired after his long day of manual work, but there was a spring to his step as he came up the sidewalk, and a suppressed grin that was unmistakable as he caught sight of me inside the screen door. That surprise was for me and I knew it. I let out a scream of joy that scared my grandmother half to death and burst out onto the porch, tackling the old man with a hug that would have staggered someone smaller. He had brought home a radio for me.

That night, long after I should have been asleep, I listened to that radio. I tuned it across the AM band and imagined that I was Tom Swift, listening into the ether for the faint sound of a ship or plane in need of rescue. The squeaks and squawks of colliding stations and the static in between only made it more exciting. Cincinnati, Chicago, Nashville, and some station in Texas, all came booming through. More faintly, Boston, St. Louis and places between, each with music or a program. In a single stroke of parental genius, Grandad had handed me the world.

All these memories came flooding back to me this Saturday, as I sat behind a table at the Milton Hamfest, a gathering of extraordinary gentlemen and ladies, whose interest in amateur radio brought them together for a day of socialization and swapping of tales and things. It would have seemed to the casual observer, that I was there to give away magazines, or to sell flashing computerized superballs to raise money for FOD. And that is true. But I was also there because of a lifelong search for Tom Swift and his Wireless Message.

You see, Grandad’s radio had an extra dial for short wave. I discovered what it was for when I clicked a switch, turned the dial ever so slightly, and having the speaker suddenly erupt into German. German! I recognized the language, because my up the street friend, Jimmy Brogan’s mother was German and sometimes yelled at him in that language. Germans were no friend of Tom Swift’s and were former enemies of America to boot and there they were on my radio.

My mind played back years of short wave listening as I sat there and watched hundreds of ham radio enthusiasts pursuing their hobby. I’d eavesdropped on them many a time over the years, Tom Swifts each and every one, and I envied them. Still do, for they are a fraternity of brothers to which I am but a cousin.