How NOT having skis, taught me life lessons

Continued.....

Once I heard my equipment at work, there was something missing. I began to understand what was driving me was not a need to make a dollar, but a deep seated DESIRE to be the GUY talking into the microphone. I wanted to be on stage, indeed, center stage.

Now the ordinary boy would simply sign up for a part in the local school stage production. There was a problem with this I thought, I wanted to be THE STAR. It was at THAT precise moment, that I realized I preferred to be the Big Fish in a small pond rather than a small fish in a big pond.

My Uncle Fred was a Mason. I kindly thought that meant that in addition to being a plumber, he laid bricks. I discovered, much to my chagrin, that it wasn't as easy as all of that. My cousins, Fred and Bob and John, were all in Demolay. Demolay is like the Junior Masons. You don't simply join up, you have to be invited, and it's a task to get through the initiation, etc.

I put my nose to the grindstone, worked hard, learned the things I needed to know, and became a member. Now the Demolay boys had quite a racket going. First, they had run of the lodge, and they were all open to ideas. I had a LOT of ideas.

The winter I turned 12, the group went on a skiing vacation. The fact that I didn't have any skis, didn't seem to matter in the overall scheme of things. I went anyway. Now the thing was, they sent along adult supervision. This came in the form of a guy by the name of Bill Midkiff. This was tantamount to putting the fox in charge of the henhouse. Bill was a Disc Jockey at the local radio station. He was really just a kid himself. His idea of supervision was to let us do whatever we wanted. This struck me both as odd and fortuitous. I'd never experienced that level of freedom before and I drank it in.

The most important thing that happened that weekend, was that I found myself face to face with a real live celebrity. I had never met one before and did not know what they looked like. After my initial introduction, I asked a million questions about how to you become one, what is it like, how does it pay, etc. I discovered that you could earn the unimaginable sum of $1.60 an hour at this, and you could do it while sitting in a chair and listening to music. Eureka! I had hit the bonus round and I KNEW this is what I wanted to do with my life. It offered the added benefit of being a celebrity, something I thought rather became me. After all, I was already the semi-famous onion boy.

Now this was prior to the internet mind you, Al Gore had not yet invented it. Thus I had some research to do, so off to the stacks I went. I discovered that you had to be in possession of a Third Class Radio-Telephone Operators Permit. A test would have to be taken and passed. 

I enlisted the aid of my father.

I told Dad about my mission. He thought this was ok with him. I believe that he knew he didn't really want me at the Mill, and this was as good a way as any to stop that. So I sent away to Washington DC for the study guide. 

Now Washington DC might just as well have been the moon at this stage in the game. I knew it was there, but the thought that I would ever get to see it ranked up there with going to the moon. It simply would never have occurred to me.

I remember the day the Postal Carrier came to the house with my package. I had been sitting on the front porch for about two weeks waiting for him, and in spite of the fact that I could not yet grow a beard, I believe I was possessed of a five O'clock shadow.

Taking said package in hand, I ripped it from its packaging and sat down on the grass to begin reading. I quit about two days later when it became apparent that my slovenliness and more importantly my hunger pains, were going to win the battle. By this time I could recite the entire manual verbatim and I adjudged myself ready for the task of the test.

To my chagrin, when we called Albany, which was the nearest field office of something called The Federal Communications Commission, I discovered that the test was only administered once a month, and that this month's test had been given, and I had to wait. 

I waited.

to be continued......