[PaQSO] PAQP kudos-NARC kudos-flashbacks

[w3hkk at roadrunner.com]

Being born and raised in the Keystone State(Philly), a PA ex-pat all of my  adult life, a PSU alum who has returned for many  football games,  former member of the  W3YA  Radio Club,  and holder of a very similar call to K3HKK,  the PAQP - and NARC   have always  held a special place in my heart. A few years ago I even targeted the Clean Sweep award, which now hangs on my wall, right next to  9BDXCC, a JY1 qsl, and other notable items collected over 62 years as W3HKK.  

Over the years, during regular trips to Happy Valley, simply announcing my call  on a local repeater usually brought a couple of replies/welcomes and comments from "the locals."  And come October I  always find time for the  PAQP with a special goal of  working as many counties as possible. But sometimes I'd just listen for familiar calls, voices, ormy former home counties of Philly, Lancaster, Centre and Allegheny. 

Back during my junior year as an EE student, I  shared a modest basement  apartment with   two guys. One cooked  our daily dinner, one bought groceries ( we each paid 1/3rd) and I did the dishes. It was great and easy on the budget.  Norm owned a beautiful SX-71 receiver and was interested in  becoming a ham. I was envious of and listened on his   fabulous radio in exchange for  helping him study for  his novice, and  for administering it.  The next year we went our separate ways.  

Decades later I had totally forgotten about giving Norm his novice exam.  But not Norm.  Over the years we would hook up in the  PAQP. His call had changed but he remembered mine and would ask, "Is that you, Bob?"  And we'd   reminisce for a minute or two before  moving on with the contest.  It was fun.  The PAQP brought us together.  Norm by that time was living in NJ and then VA (retired) and I in Ohio.

One  day just a few years ago I posted on this board and also mentioned I was going up to the Kent State game.  Norm saw it and replied he too was going.  In fact  he had seasons tickets!  (So for years we were  both in Beaver Stadium  for many of the home games but never knew it.  After 50 some years  we could bump into each other -  tailgating or in the stadium - and not know it! ) 

Norm  proposed  we meet at the game, and did it with a certain sense of urgency.  I was  as usual staying with a friend in Millheim and then  going to the game with  his family for an all-day tailgate. Jim had a permanent parking place  so I gave it to Norm who said he would stop by.   Fast forward a couple of weeks to game day. Shortly after my non-ham friend and I  got to the parking area, and set up  their usual elaborate tail gate/feast, it began to rain.  Then pour.  And temps dropped to the low 50s. So we  took refuge inside his suv as the rain continued - big time. Our windows fogged up on the inside as we sat and talked waiting for the rain to stop. It never did.  Every now and then I saw a tall slender guy  slowly walk by the car, in raincoat and hat, rain pouring off him.  He never saw us  through the foggy window. But I didnt recognize him nor expected that Norm would show up, considering the foul wx. The third time he wandered by ( with loyal wife in tow) I became suspicious, jumped out into the downpour and asked..."Norm?"  His reply was "Bob?"  Thus began a nearly two hour   conversation in the pouring rain! 

Norm: ex-KN3ZGS-WA3BZA-EP2SN; & his then-call AI2C.  I met his wife. They met my PSU  buddy.  All just outside  the suv in the pouring rain.We were soaked, but Norm, a normally quiet guy, just kept talking. We covered 50 years of Life in two hours.  Then at the gentle prompting of his soaking wet xyl, we   agreed to meet at a future game, said goodbye, and went our separate ways. 

In retrospect, that heavy October rain  foretold something else.  I never saw Norm again. Never heard from him.  A year later I found his obit.  Yet something  that started decades earlier, continued off and on via ham radio and the PAQP,  had been  completed, that day in the rain.  Two old college friends reunited and, in a sense, said goodbye, without knowing it.   

So let me offer my thanks to  NARC, and the PAQP, in many different ways, and for  making the PAQP a great contest over the years.  

PS  I love perusing the commentary and all the data points/awards.  It would be a shame to see all that  go away. But I recognize the ageing  of our ham population and have seen its effect  here in  my own local club/s. Hope  another  club steps in to carry on the great legacy left by NARC!