Magnets, magnifying lenses, and winter

Okay. I admit it. I’m a technology geek. I love any and all technologies: large and small, portable and stationary, efficient and horribly designed, electronic or mechanical, it really doesn’t matter. If there are lights that flash, buttons that push, icons to click, or mechanisms that clatter, I’m there.

I recall a cold, wintery day growing up in northeastern Iowa. I was all of eight years old and looking for something to do.  It was then that I spied an old tube-type radio housed in a chest-high wooden console (you Boomers know what I’m referring to). The radio worked great. There were large dials for volume and frequency, push buttons for stations, and shortwave bands for listening to broadcasts from around the world. My curiosity pushed me to take this magnificent example of cutting edge technology (for the 1940’s anyway) and remove virtually every moving part to see what made it tick. Out came the vacuum tubes, dials, and push buttons. There went the string attached to the tuner for station changing (I never knew how a tuner worked until then). And finally, out came the huge, heavy speaker that made the wires and tubes come to life. By the way, to a kid, a speaker magnet can be just as much fun as a magnifying lens on a sunny day, but that's another post. When finished, I sat back and gazed at this pile of wires, metal, tubes, and wood fragments. My curiosity had been satisfied and I now had a working knowledge of radio guts. But there was no way this pile of junk was ever going back together again. 

Oops.

I don’t recall my parents ever questioning the reasons for dissecting a perfectly good radio. Maybe they understood the curiosity of the young mind. Or maybe they simply chalked it up to keeping me occupied for a couple of hours. Either way, this kinesthetic learning experience was the beginning of a lifetime fascination with technology. Although I no longer take apart TVs or iPods, my home computer does get the internals tweaked on occasion in the name of “preventive maintenance.” And I’m sure my son was surprised when, years ago, after disassembling the lawn mower to get at the wheels for a homemade go-kart project, I simply smiled and nodded my head. Well done, son. Chip off the old block.