[Hammarlund] Remember Halli Sunday Net
Duane Fischer, W8DBF
dfischer at usol.com
Sat Jun 16 19:47:16 EDT 2012
Please join us for the Hallicrafters 20 meter Net on Sunday June 17th. The
growing grass will wait. Turn the sheep loose on it later about dusk!
The HHI Net is from 12:30 - 2:00 PM EST/EDT, or 1630 - 1800 UTC.
The frequency is still 14.293 MHZ USB +/- for adjacent splatter due to
overmodulation and weak drifting solid state finals!
Here is something for all of you fathers - past, present and future. Enjoy.
That f Day In June
Duane B. Fischer
Today is Father's Day. Traditionally this means that
appreciative children honor their father's by doing special
things for, and with, them. Things like having him over for
a porterhouse steak done medium well on the grill, packing a
picnic lunch and going to the drag strip or taking him to see
a real family movie like Maverick. Of course, this means
that the children do have to take some of their high priority
time and devote it to Dad. Simply put, they have to get
their lazy self-serving buns out of bed before noon and do
something physical the day before Father's Day!
If your children are anything like mine, the word
meaningful does not yet exist in their vocabulary. Nor will
it exist until they become a parent and come to comprehend
that sacrifice is something they just might have to do
themselves! Their greatest mental accomplishment may lie in
an incredible aptitude for creative excuse making. Do any of
the following sound familiar?
"I didn't have any money." Which is hard to believe
when one calculates the cost of all the empty beer cans,
cigarette butts and fast food wrappers littering the back
yard! Either they secretly won the lottory or that pink
plastic elephant bank took a serious hit with a hammer! That
stuff doesn't grow in yards naturally, so somebody bought it.
Haven't they heard of financially planning ahead? It isn't
as if Father's Day comes as a sudden surprise, like diarrhea
after a chili dog. It is always the third Sunday in June.
I don't want to hear about gifts being too expensive. I
don't expect a fourteen caret solid gold four way lug wrench
or hand cut lead crystal glasses to drink Metamusil from.
Hey! McDonalds has regular burgers for $.29. One of those,
the pretty blond fox stuffing the french fry bags and a
medium coke would suit me just fine.
How about? "I was just too busy." Too busy? Ha! More
like could give a rat's rump less what dad does on his day.
Funny how they always seem to find the time to borrow your
favorite sweat shirt, your car and every useful object in
your home that isn't nailed down. Does remembering who was
there when they had the urge to mooch take too much of their
time also? Why is it that they can remember what their best
friend was wearing when they loaned them a cd six months ago
and not recall borrowing money from me two minutes before?
Must be something in the water. Just think what would happen
to a child's credit rating if father's reported unpaid debts
to TRW. Do they think of me and appreciate the clean clothes
they have because I sacrificed my Bahama cruise to buy them a
washer and dryer? Or do they just grumble and whine because
automatic doesn't mean that the dirty clothes wash
themselves? I wonder where they would be if I had been too
busy for them? Perhaps gainfully employed, independent and
better adept at social skills!
How about? "I forgot what day it was." A real original
excuse! Just about as believable as not flushing the toilet
after taking a dump because they were saving water. How
could anyone simply forget Father's Day? There are
commercials on tv hawking everything from Fruit Of The Loom
DAD briefs to do it yourself talking cards. Look on the
calendar! It is clearly marked and circled in large purple
letters highlighting the Dad icon! Not even a complete idiot
could miss it. Your calendar has a nude photo of what on it?
Forget? Impossible! I know they are on a first name
basis with that steroid taking muscle bound bagger in the
express lane at Meijers. There are more Father's Day sale
signs around that place than the sum of the pieces of junk
mail the average person receives in six months. They even
have signs in braille! So what if they are on the bathroom
doors. Saying "I forgot" is a learned childhood all purpose
excuse used by adults too explain away being irresponsible.
This also applies to adult children, who typically have ego's
twice the size of Texas. Guess this is what I deserve for
not being more contraception minded.
How about the time worn catch all cop out. "I was going
to, but I was too tired." I learned long ago that being too
tired is analogous to not giving a damn! Reminds me of
something their mother said a lot every time I wanted to have
sex. Perhaps she had a premonition that they would forget
her on Mother's day. All these years I thought it was some
sort of female hormone problem! Just so they would know, I
looked up being "too tired" in Webster's New Collegiate
dictionary. It defines this state as "shitting in bed and
kicking it out with your feet." I'll bet they weren't too
tired last night to wolf down a double cheese pepperoni
pizza, crank up the stereo, drink beer and pass gas with
their friends. I can understand how spending your last few
bucks on a 1:00 A.M. beer run is more important than getting
their Dad a card for Father's Day. Sure I can. Just about
as well as I can understand how President Clinton's economic
recovery plan helps reduce poverty by eliminating jobs and
unemploying Americans!
Finally, there is my daughter's favorite solution.
Her idea of celebrating Father's Day is either a card or
phone call. The former is generally a day or two late with
postage due or delivered in person while she is on her way
somewhere else. The latter means that right after being
wished a happy Father's Day, I have to listen to her
complain about what a miserable day she is having! I had
never considered myself to be a selfish person, but perhaps I
should have looked a little closer in the mirror. Somehow I
managed to create a daughter who has refined this trait to an
art form. She seems to think that a one dollar and twenty-
five cent generic card, or a ten second message on my
answering machine, fulfills her annual Father's Day
obligation.
Perhaps this commonly forgotten minor Hallmark occasion
should be renamed Father's Moment! Well the cards may be
late and the phone calls brief, but that is better than
receiving salt free potato chips and Diet Coke with no fizz!
I guess it is better to be remembered briefly, like an
aromatic baked bean puffer, then to pass through this life
without even being noticed. Did I just compare myself to the
rotten egg smell of a malfunctioning catalytic converter?
See what children can do to your mind? We now have Crayola
crayons with scents. What's next? A Father's Day card that
belches in your face and smells like Bud Light? I can hardly
wait for next year!
Original: June 11, 2000.
Duane Fischer, W8DBF - WPE8CXO
E-Mail: dfischer at usol.com
Hallicrafters web site: www.w9wze.net
HHRP web site: hhrp.w9wze.net
More information about the Hammarlund
mailing list