Friday, January 19, 2007

Randy Revealed?

Well, Jasia at http://creativegene.blogspot.com/2007/01/jasia-revealed.html (in a post called "Jasia Revealed") just responded to Susan Kitchens' "tagged for a meme" challenge to reveal five things about herself. In her post, Jasia challenged me and four others to reveal five things that people online probably don't know about us. Hmmm.

This is difficult after more than 500 posts - and I really don't want to reveal certain family things for privacy reasons. But I'll give it a try:

1) I am an avid San Diego Padres and San Diego Chargers fan - I live and die with them. We have Padres season tickets and had Chargers tickets for years. I have attended Padres games in all their San Diego venues - Lane Field, Westgate Park, Qualcomm Stadium and Petco Park. I worked for the Chargers in 1963 at their training camp - slopping toilets and making beds at a dude ranch.

2) I have amblyopia. My right eye turns in and is essentially useless. My vision is uni-ocular unless my left eye is blanked off, and I can't read anything with my right eye. We didn't figure it out until I was age 11 and it was too late to correct without an operation, which wasn't done. This really affected me in baseball - I never could hit well.

3) I'm left-handed. The whole world is born right-handed - it's just that some of us overcome it. I have, but it was a struggle. Thank God for ballpoint pens and LH scissors. This also affected my hitting in baseball, since my right eye was "out front" because I was left-handed.

4) One of my major hobbies was DXing. What in the world is that, you ask? It sounds, well, almost perverted, right? Nope - it means "distant reception" and is basically "listening to the radio, trying to hear the weak stations in between the stronger stations." My specialty was the AM band, and I heard many Asian, Oz/NZ, Pacific Island, Caribbean and South America stations, and a few European/African AM stations from San Diego, most in the middle of the night. I used to wake up at 1 AM and listen until 4 AM then go back to bed before going to school or work. I have 40 year old cassette tapes of some of my catches. I edited DX columns in hobby bulletins and wrote articles about AM radio wave propagation and signal strengths. I essentially gave this up for genealogy (which can be pursued in normal waking hours).

5) I love '50s and '60s pop/rock/R&B/country music. I have about 600 of them on my iPod, and know the lyrics to most of them. I'm a terrible singer, though - my key is J-sharp I'm told. Check my April 2005 archives for my favorites from this time period. While a teenager, I collected radio station surveys and made my own Top 40 music charts. A friend and I operated XELNT - "Excellent music" - a pirate AM radio station in San Diego for a few months.

That's it - it wasn't so hard after all! And there's a number of facts for each item! Now - no laughing or blackmailing, OK? I'm sensitive about these things.

OK, to Craig Manson, Lisa Alzo, Joe Beine, Janice Brown and Sharon Elliott - YOU'RE IT. Please tell us 5 things about yourselves that we probably don't know and then pass it on. Will everyone come out and play? I hope so.

UPDATE 20 January, 1:30 PM: Felicia commented that my #1 above wasn't a real revelation - since most people knew that I was a Padres and Chargers fan because of my lamentations after their playoff losses. OK, I'll give you another revelation:

6) I may have a half-sibling in central Massachusetts that nobody knows the name of, or if s/he was even born or lived into adulthood. According to family lore (and we all know how reliable that is), my father left Leominster MA in December 1940 and drove across the country to San Diego in order to escape a failed romance, and that the girl was pregnant when he left. All of his sisters claim it is true but are short on details. His brother scoffs at the claim, saying that he would have known about it, and it didn't happen. We know the girl's name - Mary Foley, a Catholic girl whose father forbade a marriage.

How's that for a bombshell? Maybe someone is Googling right now to find information about their biological father under these circumstances. They can email me at rjseaver (at) cox.net.

5 comments:

Jasia said...

So you're a lefty, eh? No wonder I like you so much! My sweetie is a left too.

I like a lot of the same music you do. My brothers are 10 & 11 years older than me so I grew up with '50s and '60s music instead of nursery rhymes :-) Bobby Vinton is one of my favorites. I love Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons too!

Anonymous said...

hmm how come I KNEW that overcome comment was coming? You sound just like my left handed father LOL. If you think being Left handed in a right handed world is hard...be right handed with 2 left handed parents in a right handed world... I still do everything BACKWARDS! from the bread tie to shoe tying. I get kids asking me "how in the world did you tie my shoe?" " that was no bunny loop!"LOL but enough about me...I liked all the things about you...and I think we already KNEW #1 you are going to have to think of another something to tell us...like if you like apple pie or cherry pie better?

Just wanted to add a quick note that I am enjoying Ms. Della's Journal...it sure is fun to see how people did thinks before Radio, TV and computers. of course I would not know what to do with a fruit tree if it came up and introduced itself and offered instructions.

Hope your Grandbabies are doing well and your girls and the ANGEL. yes I guess I better ask about the son in laws too...oh and YOU? how are you? Hope you have now recovered from the Football fiasco and are getting ready for next season. Amazing how a few days rest changes your mood.

Here is to NEXT SUPER BOWL!
GOOD LUCK!

Anonymous said...

An AM DXer! I do both MW and SW DXing. we have lots of radios at home. Here are some radio pictures for you:

http://dumes.net/cgi-bin/radiopics.cgi

My favorite radio for AM DXing is our 1942 Zenith 10S690, a beautiful floor model. It has good shortwave sensitivity too.

Oddly enough I have time for both radio and genealogy but spend much more time on the latter these days (since we're at the bottom of a sunspot cycle).

Regards,
Debra

Janice said...

Randy,

Hey you rascal, tagging me like that! My revealing article will be posted on my blog on January 23rd.

J

Anonymous said...

tsWDuY The best blog you have!