Chewing gum and spit..

                                                            
 Music has always played a big part in my life. Growing up, I heard music everywhere in my house. My sister, Judi, had  a large record collection, my father listened to classical music on our big console record player/FM radio, and my mom always had a radio going in the morning in the kitchen. When I got a bit  older, I built a radio kit so I could listen to music at night in bed. That little crystal set was the beginning of my life long interest in all things electronic.

My grandparents had a small record player in their apartment which eventually made its way into our home. I quickly claimed it for my own, and started looking for ways to improve it. First, I wired my little transistor radio to the the record player's speaker, and had rock and roll blasting out of my bedroom.  That wasn't enough for me. My next step was a connection to the console in our dining room. Now there were two speakers going at once. Even though it wasn't really stereo,
it sounded amazing!

When I caught a bad cold and could stay home from school for a day or two, I would lie on the couch in our living room all day. My my grandmother was home,  so I got away  with watching a lot of television.
When mom would come home from work, she first checked me for fever, then would go over to the t.v. set, put her hand on it and say "You've been watching way too much t.v."
How did she always know?

The next time I stayed home, I noticed that the tubes in the t..v were putting out a fair amount of heat. Craftily, I aimed a fan at the back of the set, and mom never found out.  (This actually increased the life of most of the tubes, as well). A stroke of engineering genius!

Until I turned 13, most of my summers were spent with my mom and brother on the shores of Lake Michigan. By that time, I was totally hooked on rock and roll music and made sure  that mom bring at least one radio with us. One fateful morning, I tuned into WLS to hear the latest tunes and only got static. None of the other stations were working either. Was this the end of the world? Luckily, my trusty transistor radio proved that all was well.

I was determined  to find a way to fix our radio. I unscrewed the back and looked at the tubes. They were all glowing. Next, I checked for loose connections. Aha! The internal antenna wire was dangling. How to connect it without a soldering gun?  The answer was in the Dentyne gum I was chewing. I spit it out into my hand, rolled it into a tight little wad, and stuck the antenna wire back on. When my mom came into the kitchen, the radio was working, but in several pieces. She shook her head and said, "I don't even want to know."