OVER AND OUT

I will date myself now. Just to be clear, I didn’t mean that in the way you might think, as in I will go out on a date with myself. Though, these days, I can’t say that I’d turn down such an offer from Self. Actually, I meant that you are about to find out something of my age by what I’m about to tell you.

One childhood Christmas I received a pair of Sears walkie talkies. At a time when cell phones have taken over the planet and mobile communication is taken for granted, I realize this gift seems quite insignificant. But in the early 1970’s this was high-tech at its finest. And I was happier than a pig in shit to have them. Though I grew up on a farm, our family did NOT have pigs. So I can only assume pigs are happy in shit. It seems like a fair assumption to me. Where was I? Oh, the walkie talkies. These things were really cool. They were made of smooth, streamline, hard, white plastic. In my mind I could easily picture them on the set of Star Trek. I also easily pictured myself on the set of Star Trek, the original Star Trek. See, that’s how old I am. I watched the original Star Trek faithfully.

I was Captain James T. Kirk. And, yes, I was nerdy enough to know that the T in my name stood for Tiberius. I was never Mr. Spock, concerned about the logic of our situation. I was never Commander Scott. The ship would fly by damn. I don’t care how you do it, just make it happen. I was never Dr. McCoy. People will die. That’s just the nature of space travel. I was the man making the decisions. I was the man with the ultimate power. Walkie talkie in hand, I pretended I was in constant communication with my first officer Mr. Spock, otherwise known as Eric, my best friend who lived across the pasture.

I can’t say exactly why I had to be Captain Kirk. My years of therapy would probably suggest that I needed to feel in control to feel safe, or something like that. In the second grade, 1972, I decided NOT to be the President of the United States, even though I REALLY wanted to be the one deciding whether a button was pushed that would start nuclear war. In elementary school I was the umpire at recess baseball games. When my siblings and neighbors and I created a “mock” city on our dairy farm, I was the mayor, and the judge in its court. When our football teams were uneven due to an odd number of players, I was the quarterback for both teams. I was class president twice. I was the National Honor Society president. And blah, blah, blah. Control. It seems like the facts point to a strong willingness in me to create a false sense of control to ease my mind. Or maybe I just liked that Kirk always ended up with his clothes ripped by the end of each episode. Regardless of the reason, at a young age I was giving orders over a sleek communicator.

Like I said before, compared to technology in the new millennium my precious walkie talkies were not all that advanced. They had several disadvantages that I happily overlooked. The first was simply the operation of the things. Unlike cell phones, both parties using a walkie talkie can not speak at the same time. I had to push a button to speak to my first officer. While my button was pushed I could hear nothing from his end. If he happened to be trying to speak while I was speaking, neither of us heard anything from the other. The second disadvantage was, ironically, space. My walkie talkies had only a very short range. I could not be far from my first officer and remain in contact. Actually, I would have been able to yell from the edges of this range and be heard without their assistance. Though, where’s the fun in that? The third disadvantage was dependability. Sometimes reception was awesome, sometimes nonexistent. I’m not even sure how many factors determined the quality. Batteries? Weather? Humidity?

I remember one very clear springtime night when conditions must have been at their peak. Two groups of us were at two different locations on the farm. Our mission away from the Enterprise onto the uncharted planet had encountered a life-threatening setback. On our communicator we sent a mayday, “Mayday, mayday, we’re in serious trouble down here.” Within minutes a helicopter was hovering over our farm with spotlights shining down onto the barn roof that was our life-threatening planet surface. The helicopter had been sent from the local airport in response to our mayday! We had no idea others could hear us, much less the local airport.

My walkie talkies were pretty props. Pretty, PRETTY props. But in all honesty, I would probably have been better off using the empty shells. It’s funny what you think you hear when you fill in the blanks in communication that’s lacking some of the pieces. It’s amazing what you don’t say when you know you’re not going to be heard clearly. And it’s startling what is interpreted by people you had no idea were listening. My life would have been much easier if it hadn’t taken until now to truly appreciate the lessons my walkie talkies offered up so freely. No amount of control has ever gotten me the thing I most crave. And a pretty package that can’t produce clear, honest communication is just a toy.