Sunday, September 26, 2004
Breaker, breaker!
By The Erudite Redneck
Breaker. How ’bout it, TECH? You got yer ears on, come on? Breaker-breaker! Frenzied Feline, come back. Pair-A-Dice? Dr. ER? Trixie? Bring it on back, this here’s Erudite Redneck hollerin’ at ya, come on! I am 10-8 and 10-10 and listenin’ in.
CB radio lives! On-line! That’s what we’re doing, y’all. Most of what’s on most people’s blogs in just chatter -- and that’s most of what the CB craze was.
Thirty years or so, we had a base CB at the house. My big brother’s handle was Speed. My handle was Little Speed. We knew just a handful of people with CBs:
Blackbeard, about 40 miles to the south, Sambo, about 10 miles to the northwest, Bull of the Woods, maybe 10 or 12 miles due north, and Love Bandit, in town, a few miles to the west.
The trucker’s channel was Channel 10 then, not 19, and CBs had 23 channels, not 40 -- which, if you remember anything at all about CBs, shows that I go way back with ’em.
When they decided to move the trucker’s channel to 19, it caused havoc for local CB’ers, who all hung out on Channel 18. With Interstate 40 passing by our town, the bleedover was terrible.
Later, when I was old enough to drive, I changed my handle to Sheriff Rosco (for Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane on the "Dukes of Hazzard") and later to Rocky Raccoon (for the Beatles song).
In 1980, at 16, my first set of wheels was a 1970 Dodge Charger with a Confederate battle flag license plate on the front, a 23-channel CB radio with whip antenna and a horn that played "Dixie." That there is called livin’ not-yet-erudite redneck large! I had a CB in my truck as late as 1989.
And now I have a new version: Blogging, which, thanks to the CBS-document flap, news broken by bloggers, is probably on the front end of a craze.
Blogging purists, y’all just hush. Citizen’s-band radios, you’ll recall, had a legitimate existence before the craze took off -- and they are still in use today.
Web pages, which is what blogs are, after all, albeit simple ones, existed long before the emergence of blogging. They will exist after the new wears off of blogging, and the craze passes.
I’m sure the blogging craze will pass. Who among us will be survivors? My guess is the writers among us -- and that’s every single blogger I know personally -- will probably persevere.
Writing is what we do. Blogging provides a ready audience for our creative efforts. We’re all sponges for acknowledgement -- comments -- when it comes down to it. And although the gratification isn’t as immediate as findin’ a CB buddy with his ears on, it’s as real, and more permanent even:
We can go back time and again and reread our own writing, and the comments of our friends. Admit it. We do that -- because it’s part of the ruminative part of the writing-thinking process.
We will survive the blogging craze, we writers. -- just like truckers, ranchers and others still use two-way CB radios. Somebody ought to get C.W. McCall to write a song about us!
10-4?
Later, y'all I'm goin' 10-7.
END
Breaker. How ’bout it, TECH? You got yer ears on, come on? Breaker-breaker! Frenzied Feline, come back. Pair-A-Dice? Dr. ER? Trixie? Bring it on back, this here’s Erudite Redneck hollerin’ at ya, come on! I am 10-8 and 10-10 and listenin’ in.
CB radio lives! On-line! That’s what we’re doing, y’all. Most of what’s on most people’s blogs in just chatter -- and that’s most of what the CB craze was.
Thirty years or so, we had a base CB at the house. My big brother’s handle was Speed. My handle was Little Speed. We knew just a handful of people with CBs:
Blackbeard, about 40 miles to the south, Sambo, about 10 miles to the northwest, Bull of the Woods, maybe 10 or 12 miles due north, and Love Bandit, in town, a few miles to the west.
The trucker’s channel was Channel 10 then, not 19, and CBs had 23 channels, not 40 -- which, if you remember anything at all about CBs, shows that I go way back with ’em.
When they decided to move the trucker’s channel to 19, it caused havoc for local CB’ers, who all hung out on Channel 18. With Interstate 40 passing by our town, the bleedover was terrible.
Later, when I was old enough to drive, I changed my handle to Sheriff Rosco (for Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane on the "Dukes of Hazzard") and later to Rocky Raccoon (for the Beatles song).
In 1980, at 16, my first set of wheels was a 1970 Dodge Charger with a Confederate battle flag license plate on the front, a 23-channel CB radio with whip antenna and a horn that played "Dixie." That there is called livin’ not-yet-erudite redneck large! I had a CB in my truck as late as 1989.
And now I have a new version: Blogging, which, thanks to the CBS-document flap, news broken by bloggers, is probably on the front end of a craze.
Blogging purists, y’all just hush. Citizen’s-band radios, you’ll recall, had a legitimate existence before the craze took off -- and they are still in use today.
Web pages, which is what blogs are, after all, albeit simple ones, existed long before the emergence of blogging. They will exist after the new wears off of blogging, and the craze passes.
I’m sure the blogging craze will pass. Who among us will be survivors? My guess is the writers among us -- and that’s every single blogger I know personally -- will probably persevere.
Writing is what we do. Blogging provides a ready audience for our creative efforts. We’re all sponges for acknowledgement -- comments -- when it comes down to it. And although the gratification isn’t as immediate as findin’ a CB buddy with his ears on, it’s as real, and more permanent even:
We can go back time and again and reread our own writing, and the comments of our friends. Admit it. We do that -- because it’s part of the ruminative part of the writing-thinking process.
We will survive the blogging craze, we writers. -- just like truckers, ranchers and others still use two-way CB radios. Somebody ought to get C.W. McCall to write a song about us!
10-4?
Later, y'all I'm goin' 10-7.
END
Comments:
<< Home
Oh come on now! (Bedbug here from 19somethin'somethin.)
I am not one bit surprised by your 1970 Dodge Charger. Nope. You wouldn't have had anything BUT a 1970 Dodge Charger. And I am betting it was as red as your neck.
What do I remember about CBs, besides a lot of dirty talk? Well, I remember riding with my mother in her 1978 Mazda with nothing but a bunch of static on the CB. I don't know what channel she was on, but it was deader than a doornail. I reached to turn it to a channel that was really being used and she snapped at me:
"Don't you TOUCH that knob! It came from the factory pre-set to that station! You'll mess it up if you change the knob!"
Uh, yeah... OK mom. Mind if I just turn it off then? (I think I'm glad she never had a cell phone.)
Please don't tell me blogging is a temporary fad. I couldn't bear to think that all our wise words will disappear the day someone figures out how to flip the switch on us.
I admit it. I am a blog "ho" as I've told you before. I crave comments and never will have enough to satisfy my ego. I approach blogging much like I did e-mail when I first signed up -- check it every moment possible, just in case someone posts something. Wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom? Check the blog on the way back to bed.
How can something THIS IMPORTANT be a fad?????? ARG! ;^)
I am not one bit surprised by your 1970 Dodge Charger. Nope. You wouldn't have had anything BUT a 1970 Dodge Charger. And I am betting it was as red as your neck.
What do I remember about CBs, besides a lot of dirty talk? Well, I remember riding with my mother in her 1978 Mazda with nothing but a bunch of static on the CB. I don't know what channel she was on, but it was deader than a doornail. I reached to turn it to a channel that was really being used and she snapped at me:
"Don't you TOUCH that knob! It came from the factory pre-set to that station! You'll mess it up if you change the knob!"
Uh, yeah... OK mom. Mind if I just turn it off then? (I think I'm glad she never had a cell phone.)
Please don't tell me blogging is a temporary fad. I couldn't bear to think that all our wise words will disappear the day someone figures out how to flip the switch on us.
I admit it. I am a blog "ho" as I've told you before. I crave comments and never will have enough to satisfy my ego. I approach blogging much like I did e-mail when I first signed up -- check it every moment possible, just in case someone posts something. Wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom? Check the blog on the way back to bed.
How can something THIS IMPORTANT be a fad?????? ARG! ;^)
Whut I said wuz, blogs was here, now there is a fad, and when the fad has passed, blogs will still be here -- and we, with them. :-)
Dang it, I have got to self-edit these here comments as well as I try to edit my posts! "Molly Bloom" woulda made Barbara an erudite redneck CB'er! :-)
I think blogging is on a popularity curve now, but it will wane, leaving a core of dedicated bloggers. I intend to be here. I'm hoping y'all will be, too!
They still make 'em, and I think they're purdy cheap. You ought to get him one for Christmas -- if for nothin' else, when he's out on the road he can talk to the truckers. :-)
I'm too young to remember CBs. ;)
Okay, I'm not, but never got into it that much. However, I think I'll just keep the handle of Frenzied Feline if they ever make a comeback.
The blogging is certainly interesting. I keep wishing it were more of a format of a message board, though. Perhaps I'm just suffering withdrawal since I gave up the one message board I participated in. Like the message boards, though, I think blogging will continue, but lose its place near the top of conversation lists.
We just talked about something like that in Sunday School class today. The teacher asked what things we have today, that we didn't have in our youth, that we take for granted now, but thought they were the greatest thing since sliced bread when we got them. My first thought was microwaves. That's all we talked about when my family first got one, but now I can't think of anyone I know that doesn't have one--and we don't talk about them.
So, I think blogging will always be there, but it will be a given in life.
Okay, I'm not, but never got into it that much. However, I think I'll just keep the handle of Frenzied Feline if they ever make a comeback.
The blogging is certainly interesting. I keep wishing it were more of a format of a message board, though. Perhaps I'm just suffering withdrawal since I gave up the one message board I participated in. Like the message boards, though, I think blogging will continue, but lose its place near the top of conversation lists.
We just talked about something like that in Sunday School class today. The teacher asked what things we have today, that we didn't have in our youth, that we take for granted now, but thought they were the greatest thing since sliced bread when we got them. My first thought was microwaves. That's all we talked about when my family first got one, but now I can't think of anyone I know that doesn't have one--and we don't talk about them.
So, I think blogging will always be there, but it will be a given in life.
# posted by 
: 11:48 PM
: 11:48 PM
Press, I remember CB's well. My Daddy had one in his car and had a base in the house with about a 50ft antenae(is that spelled right?) so he could talk to his friends all over the county. My handle was "country girl", not very original I know, but what can I say. Instead of using the phone, a lot of my friends and I communicated on the CB. That is when Daddy wasn't around to shoo me off. Remember the cars with the long antenae that went from the front bumper to the back bumper, I thought they were hilarious. I know blogs are fads now, and I just caught on myself, but I am hooked. Like Trixie said I can't wait to read them everyday! Well, Catch you on the flip side, susan2
Post a Comment
# posted by : 8:33 AM
: 8:33 AM << Home
