This morning I saw something that thrilled my heart. It thrilled me in that special way that only a fond remembrance of days gone by, of days once filled with possibility and potential, can elicit happiness from a career government employee. It was a little Ford Ranger with five, yes five, CB antennas. The cab window was stickered with reflective letters (like the ones you normally see on a mailbox) that said, “CB BOLLY-FOR-BARREL.”

While observing that mobile masterpiece of radio telemetry, a rush of nostalgia came over me and soon words of poetry surfaced from the nether regions of my mind (this is an annoying habit and why I don’t recommend memorizing poetry–there’s a lot better stuff you can store in your mind’s nether regions). 

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,” I thought, and obviously BOLLY-FOR-BARREL took the road less traveled. In fact, I bet that little Ford Ranger has been down backroads no normal, self-respecting truck would dare travel, just to test the range of the radio. And I bet that little Ford Ranger is all the happier for it. 

There was a time in my life when I could have taken the less-traveled path of BOLLY-FOR-BARREL. It was third grade and my best friend, Garrett, and I were walkie-talkie enthusiasts. My walkie handle was TOP-TREE-CLIMBER, and he was RAILROAD-RED-ROOSTER.  Back then, the most expensive walkie-talkies weren’t nearly as powerful as the cheap ones today, so mostly I just pretended to talk to Garrett who lived out of short-range distance. He did the same, and at school we’d discuss our imaginary conversations at lunch. It was a great way to communicate. 

Eventually, however, both Garrett and I decided we wanted to upgrade from imaginary conversations to actual conversations, so we asked our parents for CB radios for Christmas. You would have thought we just asked our parents if we could run with scissors or stick a fork in an electrical socket. For some strange reason, our parents thought third-graders being able to communicate with long-haul truckers was a terribly dangerous idea. 

So for Christmas, our parents bought us scanners instead–a total waste of a major Christmas gift. The intrinsic problem with a scanner is you can hear others talking but can’t talk to them. So Garrett and I couldn’t communicate with the policemen or firemen to ask what all their different codes meant. And guess what: most truckers were rather taciturn; certainly, they weren’t nearly as talkative and entertaining as those in Smokey and the Bandit. In short, listening to scanner chatter wasn’t nearly as exciting as it sounds. Garrett and I soon took up other pursuits, like launching bottle rockets, fishing with crank baits with five treble hooks, and catching black widows in a jar–or, stuff a lot safer than CB radios. 

So, this morning, when I saw that little Ford Ranger with five CB antennas, I couldn’t help but imagine what my life would have been like had my parents had the good sense to buy me a CB. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for what I do have–a nice little farm, a stable government job, a beautiful wife and a son (whose sleep pattern is improving)–but is it too much to ask for one, just one, CB antenna wagging from the back bumper of our Camry?