We're all in a club of connecting

In the old days - before the 1990s - if you wanted to talk with someone else in the world, shortwave radio was the way to go. "Hams" would sit in basement cubbyholes or dark attic corners and with the turn of a dial and its accompanying whir connect with someone across town or on the opposite side of the world.

Some used Morse code, which required learning a series of slashes and dots then tapping them out over the airwaves.

There still are ham radio operators all over the world and clubs even here in Iowa City. But there are fewer hams. The Internet now connects everyone to 4.8 billion Web sites, and cell phones place a pocketsize personal radio transmitter/receiver in all of our hands.

I remember how people laughed in the early 1970s at the "Star Trek" notion that computers positioned on desks might be linked so we could communicate with another. "Why would anyone want to do that?" one third-grade classmate with her new, popular Toni Tennille haircut asked. "Besides," my teacher chimed, "if you ever want information, there's always a library!"

Today, chat rooms, instant messaging and e-mails abound. I guess more of us are inherently lonely than the popular realize.

•••

During junior high, one of my science teachers was an amateur radio operator.

Wanting to spread the joy of his hobby, he formed a club. I joined. The exoticness of escaping the isolation of all those cornfields surrounding the family farmhouse certainly was a lure for this 13-year-old. It all seemed simple - just learn Morse code so we could pass the operator's license test. Then I'd be off connecting with people all over the world and helping to provide emergency information to regions devastated by hurricanes and tornadoes.

So after school Mr. Purvis brought the club to a school auditorium backroom where the cement walls kept out all of the noise. I'm certain the low cast of light as we sat around a rickety table reminded Mr. Purvis of his own basement ham shack.

I myself liked all of the fuse boxes, piping and wiring lining the walls; it reminded me of a spaceship from science fiction. Besides, the backroom was a place most other students weren't allowed.

And with all of those fuse boxes, piping and wiring lining the walls, there was good reason - the principal soon told Mr. Purvis it was too dangerous of a place for students to be and we'd have to relocate.

•••

Morse code is a learned skill. It's easy enough to memorize by looking at a book, but hearing it is a whole different matter.

I simply couldn't keep up with all of the slashes and dots that Mr. Purvis tapped out. Besides, my parents probably couldn't afford a ham radio anyway, so I sort of dropped out.

Which was easy enough to do because Mr. Purvis just couldn't find the right place to relocate our listening and sending training.

•••

Not that he didn't try to keep us interested in amateur radio. All through high school he'd recruit and rerecruit us into ham radio clubs.

So between ninth and tenth grades I spent time as a hired hand helping our elderly neighbor with haying just to save up money for a shortwave radio.

Mr. Sumner couldn't figure out why I was willing to work so frequently at his farm on top of all those chores there were to do on my father's. Besides, we argued a lot about politics - he was right of Sioux City, but for some reason I kept thinking he'd listen to reason. I suppose he figured the same of me.

I'd discover years later that somehow he whittled out of my father about my saving money to buy a shortwave radio. That impressed Mr. Sumner. In a forerunner to today's National Teach a Child to Save Day, he starting hiring me regularly and even paid a little better.

But he never asked about the shortwave radio I wanted and would buy that Aug-ust. Mr. Purvis never in-quired about us getting our operator's license, either.

Both just were content with providing an opportunity to work hard for a goal.

•••

I didn't listen to ham radio operators on my short wave. Instead, I discovered the BBC, the CBC, Swiss Radio International and Deutsche Welle. Radio Kiev appeared next to the Voice of America on the dial, and there was something intriguing about hearing two entirely opposite versions of the same news event.

It was sort of like listening to Mr. Sumner and my-self argue in the haymow about the intricacies of supporting Iran or Iraq during their war of attrition.

•••

In the end, neither Mr. Sumner nor I were right about either Iran or Iraq. Radio Kiev proved less popular than Voice of America. And computers positioned on desks are more widely used than libraries. It's a far different world that most of us imagined (minus "Star Trek"'s creators, of course).

But constants remain. Most of us long for communication with others like us. We seek connections, which the Internet has made easy to achieve as we trade learning Morse code for Windows.

And we form clubs - sometimes to keep alive an old hobby that kept such dreams of connections going.

(originally published April 25, 2004)