February 29, 2008
Early Geekhood
I was fascinated by my grandparents' garages. On Dad's side, Paw had the biggest freaking junkyard of a garage, littered with bits and pieces of electronics, doo-dads, colourful wires as well as the gutted hulks of appliances, radios and even an old television. There were metal shelves of what Mom referred to as crap. On Mom's side of the family, the garage was much more neat, but still held a plethora of old radios, a bullwhip (grandpa, I insisted, was a cowboy - my interpretation of "cattle buyer"), some bamboo canes, an ancient baseball bat, old tennis rackets and even a very early skateboard.
I could get lost in either garage for days.
But what I remember most is setting up my rocket ships in Grandma and Grandpa's garage. I would pull out an old, decrepit card table and begin pulling down every one of the old radios. Grandpa fussed about it sometimes, but most of them were already broken. Then I'd go begging for all the batteries I needed to find out which ones could at least produce some noise even if they couldn't still pull in a station clearly. What I really wanted was lights and static.
I'd stack them all up on top of each other, building my configuration of controls. I'd tune one or two of them to static. Any others that I had working, would be turned on so I could play with any lights. At least one broken radio would be opened up, guts all over the card table. I adored poking at the resistors and switches and lights.
It might have been a dusty, hot garage to all the adults around me. But it was my workshop, my rocketship and my ticket to everything I wanted to be. I could forget that I was a scrawny asthmatic girl and become totally immersed in the military world I thought I wanted. And when Grandma took me to a local children's clothing store ... I found the last piece I needed to finish my pseudo-military plane/ rocketship/ submarine - a set of pajamas that looked like a light blue jumpsuit.
The entire scenario appalled my mother, of course, who thought I should be docile in the house, learning to embroider. Which, of course, was why my electronic cave in the garage was so very enticing. It was "dangerous" since it used electricity ... it was dirty because it was in the garage ... and worst of all, it was a "boy" thing to do. Grandma didn't care. She could see how happy I was, lost in my own world.
Or maybe it was that she was relieved I wasn't running through her house being boreded and tearing things up. Heh.
My mother always said "You can be be anything you want to be" ... but the subtext was more as long it was ... acceptable.
Posted by Red Monkey at February 29, 2008 9:59 PM | | 
Stumble
My dad's Dad DID own a junkyard (in Indiana, no less)--talk about all-day fun that NEVER gets old!
March 3, 2008 5:48 PMTara R. said:
Such a fabulous place for a young imagination to flourish... they are called "Grand" parents for a reason, sounds like yours were wonderful.
March 3, 2008 5:48 PM
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PandoraWilde said: