From Short Wave Radio to Facebook ©

From Short Wave Radio to Facebook ©

By Michael Casey

 me and the wife 1999

30 years ago and more I inherited a Short Wave Radio, now what is so special about a short wave radio? Well you can listen to the world over the airwaves, all over the world, from Radio Nederland to Australia to Hungary, Poland and of course radio Albania. I’ve always loved radio and I still do, my love began when I was about 8 years old which means I’ve been listening to radio for 45years now. I can’t believe I’m that old now, I still think I’m 20, when I talk to my students I say “our age” then I have to correct myself as I am 30years old than them, old enough to be their dad, one actually calls me granddad, and when I do the school run the teachers there think I’m the granddad.

So what’s so good about short wave, it’s the notion that you can hear radio from all over the world, it’s actually bounced off the atmosphere, so its kind of like science project. This is 30years ago and more, when computers weren’t invented, the ones we all use I mean, PCs, I was in fact a computer operator all those years ago and computers were as big as washing machines and wardrobes, and people used magnetic tapes and punch cards. So picture the scene, I’d spend my days off playing with this Tandy/ Radio Shack SW radio with a nice speaker, logging the different stations and nations that I could get. I even got a request on Radio Brazil and I managed to get Australia on a hand held radio. To help with reception I had a round room antennae, 30 foot of copper wire in plastic covering, it was a nice hobby when you had days off in the middle of the week.

Time moves on and I enjoyed my SW radio as well as my 20 years of listening  to Radio 4 on the BBC, and now I tell my students to listen to the BBC.   All of us have computers in our homes or down the street at the local library, so the idea of SW is strange, nobody will listen to SW. So nostalgia  leaves a warm glow in my heart, it would be nice to have a small SW radio again, the kids stood on my last one years ago and it bust, I did see one in Aldi but I have lots of radios and a computer so I’ll leave than nice radio in Aldi.

Email arrives and I am a great fan of email, I used to email my friend on the 4th floor while I was on the 3rd, it was fun. Then I met my wife and she was in Shanghai and I was here in Birmingham, our love was kept alive by the blue Sky email machine, I still have it upstairs, an antique in the future no doubt. Computers get better and better, I continue writing and have a site of my own www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com then I’m married so we have a proper simple computer so we can talk to Shanghai. Grandma visits, twice, she can use the computer to talk to her friends back home. I send emails galore probably thousands, trying to get noticed as a writer, its all in Internet Story, its not how good you are, its getting somebody, and I think it’ll be a lady, because ladies help and blokes don’t, getting somebody to read your stuff and then you’re finally a writer. 

Then Facebook arrives, so you leave a message for their leader and a few of his pals, if they have a message facility  then use it I think. Only they say you’re naughty and don’t do that or you cann’t play. So I connect with loads of writers and poets and a few think my stuff is nice and funny, so that’s great, I still have to hope that one of them likes my stuff  enough to look at Amazon Kindle and borrow or even buy one of my 4 “masterpieces” or go to my site www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com and read my 250blogs, and see just how fat am I, and how on earth did I manage to get 3 beautiful girls in my life.  For the answer to the last question its all in Padre Pio and Me, the writing still goes on, 25years nearly. Technology has changed so much, Short Wave to Facebook these are tools of communication, reasons to be cheerful as Ian Drury would sing. So as Christmas is coming the best communication is a kiss, kiss those you love, hold them in your arms, tell them you love them, take them to bed and make love, now that is far better than Facebook.