Pretty cool day for an ol' radio guy! We'll come back to that in a minute. Today our first stop was the grocery store to replenish the pantry and fridge. We depart Monday morning and we usually restock before moving. We took our time and then came back to the RV for lunch before heading out to the two museums on today's radar. On our way we noticed large numbers of folks at the nearby water adventures business and then down the road there were bunches of folks floating down the French Broad River that runs right by our campground. The water looks about like chocolate milk but that did not deter everyone from apparently enjoying their water time!
So back to the "ol' radio guy" comment. I took an interest in radio/electronics before I was a teenager as did a few of my DeWitt neighborhood buddies. We would tear into old radios and TV's in the basement and I had jars of parts, electron tubes and hardware accumulated. I did not know what all I had, but as time went on I learned, and we went from tearing stuff apart, to actually making it work.
So then there was the "radio" thing. I had several radios but one I remember was an old Zenith and it had a connection for an external antenna. So I strung a "long wire" copper antenna out my bedroom window and when the sun went down at night I could pull in short wave stations from all over the world, and AM radio stations from all over the USA. I would do this for hours, unbeknownst to my folks. This fascinated me and coupled with the fascination in electronics in general, I knew where my career was headed.
The other factor was my interest in serving our Nation in the military. My grandfather served in the Army during World War I, my dad Lefty and his brother (my uncle) Bernard served in the Marine Corps during World War II. I had cousins serving in Vietnam and my future brother-in-law Jim Nantz served in the Navy also in Vietnam. I felt a strong desire to do the same, I was just unsure which branch. I quickly narrowed it down to either the Navy or the Air Force due to their electronics programs. So as I became a teenager I had planned out the start of my career, which commenced with my enlistment in the United States Air Force on 18 Dec 1972, as a senior in high school. My job was "Ground Radio Communications Equipment Repairman"! A dream come true on many levels! 42 years 2 months and 16 days later I retired from the Air Force and hit the road with our RV!
So, needless to say, when Doreen found a radio museum in Asheville, it was a "must see"! Just a short drive from our campground is the Asheville Radio Museum. Three weeks ago, the museum moved from a 350-square-foot oversized closet to a 1050-square-foot classroom on the third floor of the Elm Building on the campus of Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College. It is only open from 1300-1500 on Saturdays, so it was our first stop for today!
The museum is still not huge, but they have a lot of treasures in radio history and have done a wonderful job of displaying them! We were immediately greeted by the museum curator Stuart Smolkin. Stuart spent the next hour giving us a tour and highlighting many of their prized displays.
In addition to radios, they have many other electronics-related items of interest including a few very old black & white televisions that work, a wire audio recorder (used before magnetic tape), a few telephone-related items, etc - ALL of which were very interesting to me!
Years ago before television, radio was the means of getting news, listening to baseball games, and entertainment of all kinds. The radio was one of the "centerpieces" of the family living room. Radio played a huge role in our world history. It was also used during the early wars as a propaganda tool. So there is a lot of beauty and nostalgia with radio.
and many times a status symbol in the home
Liberty had a little friend come over to visit, a woodchuck, who was grazing on the lush grass in the campground. She wanted to go out to play, but instead she watched from the inside!
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