[Fists] Most Unusual CW Contact

[Jeff Davis]

I was working 20m late one night when I hooked up with a fellow in New
Mexico. His name was Bill and after exchanging the usual info we got
into a long ragchew.

Bill told me that he was 78 years old and had retired from NASA. He
was a flight engineer from the earliest days at NASA and retired at
the conclusion of the Apollo program.

His XYL had died while he was still working and he had no other
family. After retiring, he moved west to New Mexico where he bought a
40 acre "ranchette" in the middle of nowhere. He was living off the
grid, and was totally energy self-sufficient. He told me that he would
drive into a nearby town once or twice a month to buy food and
supplies, get a haircut, and to pick up his retirement and social
security checks from a PO box that he maintained there.

He had a lot to say about the complexities of life in a technological
age and he had decided to go back to living a much simpler existence.
He claimed that other than his amateur radio gear and a large
generator, there weren't any electronics in his home.

He had lived like this for six years when I worked him, and I asked
him if he had any regrets. In fact, his only regret was his concern
that he might drop dead and his dog would starve since he didn't
expect that anyone would find him for quite some time. He went on to
say that if he ever falls ill, he planned to shoot his dog to prevent
him from starving to death.

After thousands of CW contacts in my life, I think that one is the one
that stands out as the most unusual.

How about you, FISTS, what is the most unusual CW contact that you can
recall?

73 de Jeff, Ke9v
FISTS 6641