In June of 1950 we moved from Dorchester, Massachusetts to what would become a dairy farm in Canton, Maine. The house was a typical New England 1-1/2 story cape with an attached 80 foot long shed. The barn was a separate building. I turned 9 years old that June. My only source of income as I grew older was picking up roadside bottles and cans and redeeming them at the grocery store in town for 2 cents each. Later, my father attempted to pay me a $0.25 cents a month allowance but he was too poor to continue that for long. I used the first $.25 in October of 1954 to buy what turned out to be the first issue of Popular Electronics. I liked it so much I got a subscription and so had every issue from the first until I left home in 1958.

I had purchased, mail order, a wired “walkie-talkie” toy that actually worked. Two Fahnstock clips provided an external connection to a twisted pair cable. The active device was a dynamic microphone that would also act as a speaker so no external power was required. It had no practical use until one day, someone visiting from Massachusetts brought me a spool of telephone 4-conductor wire which I strung between the house and the barn so we could communicate.

In 1950 there was no electricity, no telephone, although there were iron telephone wires on poles beside the road. Eventually we got a telephone. A hand crank box mounted on the wall with 21 parties on the line.

We did homework by kerosene lamp (two for the entire household), and a hand carried lantern provided light for barn chores after dark. I was allowed to use a lighted candle to find my way to my room upstairs. I would leave it burning and my mother would come up and extinguish it after I was asleep.

Although the milk cooler was an electric model, it was necessary to purchase block ice to cool the milk and keep it cool until it could be deposited at the end of the driveway for the truck from the dairy in Jay to pick up. There was an ice house in Jay from where we would haul the ice in an old truck every week. We had brought the ice box from Dorchester but couldn't afford ice for both the milk cooler and the ice box so food that needed refrigeration was kept in a bucket on the end of a rope that was lowered into the well out back.

By 1953 we had made the decision to electrify both the house and the barn. It wasn't easy. My father and the neighbor next door dug the post holes by hand for the power poles for one mile to help reduce the expense. A considerate electrician wired overhead lights upstairs where none were ordered so my sister and I could have a light in our bedrooms. He was never paid for that. One light in the hay barn, one in the grain room, one in the milk room and three in the cow stalls. The milk cooler was connected up and that ended the weekly trek to the ice house for ice. In the house every room had an overhead light and the living room had two outlets, the master bedroom had two, the bathroom had one. Our bedrooms had no outlets but we made do with an adapter in the ceiling fixture that provided two female outlets along with the bulb. A pull chain controlled the light. I accompanied the electrician almost every day and watched and learned the art of wiring a house.

Having electricity in my bedroom allowed me to operate the only electrical device I had; an erector set motor to run my creations. I converted my walk-in closet into a study/work area with a homemade desk and shelf and wired my own light into the sloping ceiling. This allowed me to power a soldering iron so that by the time I was 12 I was fixing radios and doing electrical experiments. Some folks in town would give me a radio if it was beyond repair so I'd take it home, fix it, and then I'd have a radio. One in particular that I remember was a “floor model” that covered both the AM broadcast band and the “short wave” bands. I strung a long wire antenna and from then on would listen to the radio at night using headphones. I remember WLS in Chicago as one of my favorites. I still remember the joy of being able to listen to voices from so far away. The radio sat with no cabinet on a chair by my bed with it's tubes casting a warm glow in the darkened room. Sometimes I'd listen to Radio Free Europe on the short-wave band. I remember listening to a Soviet radio station once, and sent them a letter asking for a “QSL” card which I received.

The box telephone on the wall was a mystery. The face, when unscrewed, swung open on four butt hinges. Wires to the bottom two hinges went to the mouth piece and to the top two hinges wires connected the bell. By accident, I discovered that the bell hinges were always “live” so by connecting one of my “walkie talkies” to those hinges I could “listen in” on party conversations. Our phone number was 2 ring 4 so if the bell rang 4 short rings it was someone calling us.   We didn't know, at first, that the receiver had to be on the hook before cranking the ringer so the first few attempts at dialing out didn't work. (With the phone “off hook” of course, the load on the generator would prevent it from generating enough power to ring the bells). By 1956 we had a dial phone, tethered to the wall with a cloth covered cord which presented yet another mystery. By experimentation, I discovered the make/break sequence that operated the dial switches at the central office so that by pulsing the receiver hook the number of times representing the desired digit I was able to dial out without using the actual dial on the phone. This led to my home brew extension phone with a pair of wires concealed in the wall leading to my closet. A wooden board on which was mounted a switch made from erector set parts for my dialer and an old desk phone purchased mail order for $5.00 provided the ear piece and microphone.

Our telephone number then was Lynwood-7 3446 and the ring code was two short and one long ring. There were only 6 parties on the line now but I discovered that the remaining numbers 3447, 3448, and 3449 also worked and had their own ring codes. The drug store in town had a pay phone. The protocol was to dial first, then if the party answered you had to deposit coins before you were allowed to talk. Local calls were a nickel. Because I had no money, I invented a scheme to allow me to call home. I would dial the 3447 number and when my mother heard that ring code she knew it was me calling from town and would then call the pay phone. I'd answer the phone and we would talk for free.

I purchased mail-order a code practice machine which was nothing more than a set of contacts mounted on a Bakelite base and enclosed in a wooden box.  The mechanism was powered by an old Victrola wind up spring motor which drove a paper tape spool holding yellow paper tape with holes punched in it. I connected a transistor code practice oscillator which I had built as a kit to provide the tones. Many a night I fell asleep with the headphones on and listening to Morse code. I remember that in the winter, the transistor wouldn't operate because of the low temperature.

When I was 13 I took and passed the exam for a HAM radio “Conditional” Class license. A Conditional class was the same as a General class except the exam was administered by another licensed HAM operator instead of an FCC office. My code speed was 30 wpm. Any HAM radio equipment was financially beyond my reach but I was glad to have the license. My call was K1HHF.