The Knox, Indiana Wifi lines were being repaired, so my morning email didn’t ‘send’ until 10:21 p.m. I thought about the old days and CBs.
I remembered a 1976 summer drive from Texas to North Carolina. Of course, we were trailing a sailboat. This time an 18-foot Flying Scot, headed for the North-American championships. Daughter Michaela and I were along to drive the van at 3 a.m.–boat’s weigh-in deadline that day–while son Kelson and his crew Jack slept in the back of the van with the bag of sails and suitcases.
‘CBs,’ you may not know my Grandchildren…some Greats, was citizen band radio that carried your voice no farther than three miles. Cost around a hundred dollars.
“Turn your ears on” let you hear a truck driver telling where ‘Smokey’ or ‘the Bear’ were waiting to catch you driving too fast. The law wanted you to drive slower and save fuel because we imported more oil than we produced in those days.
Nobody used their real name. You invented your own ‘handle.’
We had a boat trailing and I had spent nearly a decade in TV. I thought my ‘Anchorman’ was a good moniker. When Kelson was driving, he called himself ‘Foredeck Man.’ The truck drivers answered, but made a naughty change in foredeck.
Mickey was driving on the border of Tennessee and North Carolina when the Smokey Mountains started fogging up. Headlight visibility was poor. I saw a trucker’s tail lights. Maybe he knew where we were. Anchorman called, “Got your ears on?” I called again. Nobody answered.
Mickey took her right hand off the steering wheel, signaled for the microphone. In a voice dripping with honey she purred, “This is Carolina Coed calling. Crossing the Smokies. Trailing a sailboat. Carolina Coed calling.”
“Hear you, Carolina Coed. I’m behind you. Been tailing you and the boat.”
“And I hear you, Carolina Coed, I’m in front of you. Make this trip four times a week. Follow my tail lights, I’ll get you off this mountain.”
Carolina Coed followed. The sun rose on Carolina. The trucker ‘came back.’ “Carolina Coed, I turn off here. Good sailing, Carolina Coed.”
Photo by Komkrich Marom at Shutterstock
