A Citizen's Band Radio

I'd gotten the C.B. Radio for driving back and forth to Mom's right after she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Cell Phones were unheard of back then, and the radio was the safty net when I was out on that 50 mile drive alone, or with my small boys. At first I didn't even bother with a "handle", which is what they call the name you use when you go on air. It was just for emergencies. I did listen to it everytime I was in the car and I got familiar with the lingo. Then I discovered one of the Thursday womens bowling league members also had a C.B. Radio. FLF had a base at home as well as the car unit. It was about that time that I discovered the quicksand and suddenly I had a handle. FLF and Quicksand became fast friends. After I got the vending job, I was also able to get FLF a job with the vending company and our schedules were the same. She worked a local factory that was seperated into several buildings. So we were in and out of our cars during work. (When I went from one hospital building to the other.) We worked 5 hours a day, five days a week and finished at noon. With hours to spare before school was out and we had to be home. Our husbands were both on second shifts, leaving for work around 3 p.m., so even in summer we found ways not to hurry home right after work every day, since they were with our kids.

Who did we talk to? We had that C.B. buzzing. But, we weren't stupid. We didn't meet strangers. My husband had grown up with a friend who now owned a trucking company in town. I already knew him and I'd met most of his drivers. That's how it started. We bounced the teasing back and forth and picked on other drivers going through town. My favorite drivers hauled sand from a quarry east of town to the glass factory in town. So they were around a lot. They started work very early in the morning to have a supply on hand for the first shift at the glass factory. FLF and I started at 7 A.M. Since we all usually got off work around the same time on most days, we would meet at a local diner. Not the same group each day. It would depend on who was able to show up. That's how our contacts expanded.

Then later another friend started letting us into his restaurant before he opened each morning, and before we went to work. We would start to gather about 5 A.M. and if someone wanted to meet any of us, they had to show up then. Our trucking friends would stop for a coffee break with us because the diner was on their route. Our group expanded and I knew who I was talking to on the radio. By then there were quite a few women and men. We would help take the chairs off the tables and get the diner ready to open and then sit at a round table by the kitchen door. The lights were left off in the rest of the diner, so strangers wouldn't come in before he opened. There could be anywhere from 5 to 10 of us at any given time.

As I got to know the drivers better and learned who I could trust, I started accepting invitations to make those short local runs for sand in the semi's with them after I got off work. I knew how it sounded on the C.B. when we made our plans, but I also felt I wasn't doing anything wrong, and I didn't care what strangers thought. The drivers all knew how long a run took and they were all on the road together, so they knew I wasn't doing more than riding along. FLF never did get up enough nerve to ride along. And the other women worked full time, so I was the only one who did that.

One time I was getting out of a semi at the diner where I'd left my car, when the drivers sister saw his truck and pulled in. She told his wife and a few days later the wife showed up at the diner while a group of us were there after work. She read me a riot act and it was embarrassing. But, the husband calmed her down and the group convinced her I wasn't a threat. I don't think she ever really trusted me, but she did get to know me and we did get along ok. She joined us often after that, sometimes even when her husband wasn't there. She seemed to have fun with us, but I always wondered if she was just checking up on us.

Another of the drivers was my favorite. He made sure I met his wife right away. PNT and LTR often came to our house along with FLF and her hubby, BBR, for a game of poker. I'm not sure if LTR ever completely trusted me either, but she was gracious in accepting my friendship with PNT. He was my saviour during that horrid period after my brothers death and my aneurysm. That man kept me sane. He spent time with me and let me talk endlessly about Joe and my own fears of dying and losing my home. His advice kept me going. We spent so much time together, I know there was talk. Sometimes FLF was with us, and sometimes not. I didn't really care what people were saying. I needed that chance to talk to someone who cared.