Things I would have taught you .....

This is my annual Christmas letter to my grandson Ben:

Ben:

You may remember this as the year that Christmas was delayed.  Your Mom and Dad are sick and we are delaying our Christmas celebration with you for a few days until they are better so we don't get sick too.  You are getting to be a big boy now.  If I were allowed, these are some of the things I would have taught you this year.  I can only hope that when you are older, you will find these letters and appreciate them.

You have noticed that your Grandma, your Aunt Gwenda and I often pray over our meals.  You sometimes refuse to hold my hand as we pray.  We pray before the meal because we are thanking God for giving us the food.  Children of your age are usually taught to pray, "God is great.  God is good.  Let us thank Him for our food.  Amen."  This simple little prayer is actually very good theology.  It offers worship by acknowledging the sovereignty of God and His goodness.  And it offers gratitude to God from us for providing good things.  A lot of adults often say a lot less with a lot more words when praying over their meal. 

Your Grandma, your Aunt Gwenda and I usually pray before we go to bed.  A child of your age is usually taught to pray, "Now I lay me down to sleep.  I pray the Lord my soul to keep.  If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.  Amen."  Again, there is a lot of good theology in this simple little prayer.   We are all sometimes afraid when we lie down to sleep.  Fear of the night is part of how we are created.  Sleeping is a little bit like dying.  We are all afraid of dying.  But, the part of us that makes us what we are, the essential us, never dies.  That is your soul.  In this simple little prayer we are taught to ask God to gather that essential us, our soul, to Him in case we don't wake up.  Again, adults could do a lot worse than praying this simple child's prayer before they retire.

By this time, you should have been taught a simple song or two as well.  The most common is," Jesus loves me, this I know.  For the Bible tells me so.  Little ones to Him belong.  They are weak but he is strong.  Yes, Jesus loves me.  Yes, Jesus loves me.  Yes, Jesus loves me.  The Bible tells me so."  Jesus is the Son of God.  He loves children.  He once said "Let the little ones come to me."  And another time, he pronounced a terrible curse on anyone who mistreats a child.  The most important and comforting thing any person, child or adult, can ever know is that Jesus Christ the Son of God loves them.  

Another song goes like this, "Jesus loves the little children.  All the children of the world.  Red and yellow, black and white, we are precious in His sight.  Jesus loves the little children of the world."  Again, there is deep theology here.  God created every Human being different but we are all His creation, created in His image. 

Ben, my heart breaks that I cannot teach you these things as I was taught them by my father and mother.  When you are a child you don't realize how much those thoughts and words mean to you

when you are older and truly understand them.

Sometime this year, I will introduce you to your adopted Uncle Tom.  Tom and I are old and dear friends.  We are prayer buddies.  We pray for each other and each others families on a daily basis.  Along with me, Tom has prayed for you since you were born.  We pray for you to be strong and healthy.  We pray for you to be brave and smart, kind and wise.  We pray that you will be protected from evil both in thought and action.  And, we pray for you to grow up to be a Godly man in all of your ways.  Our prayers are a great gift Ben.  I hope one day you will appreciate them the way that I now appreciate the prayers of my family for me.

Merry Christmas.

Grandpa Bill

Quiet Little Adventures

As you get older your world gets smaller.  I have found a way to open mine up a bit again.

When I was a child, I wanted to be an amateur radio operator so bad I could taste it.  I fiddled with old radios and re-purposed them.  I once had an old RCA Brown Bakelite that could pull in stations from around the world after I jury rigged an antenna and used the tuning capacitor from another old radio to make it resonate.  I loved listening to the BBC, Radio Netherlands and Radio South Africa and dreaming about going there someday.  I would have loved to transmit and read everything I could about it.  But there was no money for fancy equipment when I was younger and later in life there was no time.

I got a limited amateur license in 2012 and didn't do much with it. In the past couple of years I began doing more.  Recently, I decided that radio was a bucket list item and if I was ever going to do it now was the time.  So, last month, I bought a modest long range radio and took the upgraded license exam to operate it last weekend. For you few who may be interested the radio is an ICOM-718.  Just a basic HF rig. 100 watts SSB, AM, RTTY and CW.  Not a lot of bells and whistles.  But, it appears to be a very solid little radio and it is easy to operate.

I am running it through a vintage MFJ-941D antenna tuner.  I bought it used and found out after the fact that some previous owner had fried some of the workings.  A bit of poking around and TLC brought it back to life and it will now get me 1.5 to 1 or better SWR on 40 through 10 meters.

The antenna itself is a 66 foot end fed long wire strung through a fork in branches of a large tree in our backyard.  End fed long wires have been popular in Europe for a long time but I got a bit of skepticism here when I talked about buying one.  So far, the arrangement has worked as well as could be expected.  This morning, I talked to the East Coast from Connecticut to Miami and around lunch time had a nice chat with a fellow located a few miles from the Canadian border in northwest Montana.  This afternoon, I even talked with the actor Alan Wolfe who was transmitting from his home in Miami.

There are a lot of old men in amateur radio.  And, they have old man conversations.  The weather, doctor's appointments, holiday plans, etc.  But, there is more than that.  Early this morning, I was welcomed like a long lost brother to the Navy Amateur Radio Club on 40 meters.  After that, I listened in for a while on a group of RV owners who keep track of each other by ham radio.  They were very professional, handling relays like pros.  This afternoon, I listened to a bunch of ex-Northrup/Grumman employees.  Their net controller was operating the station located in the National Electronics Museum in Baltimore.  He could have been next door.

I would have given anything to do this when I was a kid.  And, I'm glad to say that this is one of those childhood dreams that has come true and I am enjoying it thoroughly.

73's.  (That's ham talk for best wishes.)