Who listened to big band music?

Teen doing homework & listening to Dorsey

 It's easy to think of adults being the prime listeners to big band music during its heyday, roughly 1938 to 1942, give or take, maybe because we have a memory of grandparents listening to it.  It's reasonably easy to imagine them as middle-aged people, but not so easy to imagine them as high-schoolers, but that's who was listening the most to Tommy Dorsey, Glen Miller, Benny Goodman, et al.  Sometimes they were called subdebs, sometimes bobby soxers (although that phrase belongs more to the late 1940s early 1950s) and sometimes the now-standard teenager.

The radio was a common way to listen to the tunes of the day, but so was hanging out at a juke joint, feeding nickels to the record machine and dancing the Lindy Hop or jitterbugging.  

But juke joints had an unsavory reputation and were often infested with lowlifes. And, of course, bars had juke boxes, but teens didn't go to bars. Record stores, however, allowed you to listen to records before deciding to buy or not and you could hang out with your friends all evening if you wanted to.  It was safe to walk home after dark in the America of that era, but should trouble arise there was always a cop walking his beat nearby.

Of course, you could always invite your friends over for a platter party, playing your collection of 78s and dancing with each other to "Chatanooga Choo-Choo" or "Stardust."

Aftermath of War

 When the Japanese surrendered, the peoples who had been colonized by the European empires naively believed that the old order was gone forever and they tried to establish their own nations again.  

Fools.

 The Europeans  would not  let go of their cash cows so easily.  Even the Japanese were planning ways to stay part of the robber syndicate.  And their erstwhile enemies welcomed them.

And make no mistake, those colonized hated their colonizers.  They looked to America, as a traditionally anti-imperialist power, to help them.

We should have.  Imagine a world in which we did. 

Stories are from postwar 1945. Click image to enlarge.

 

 

 

 

When did the world become modern?

By that I mean when was the point, if you were to go back in time, that you would still feel in familiar circumstances but if you went back only somewhat further you would feel you were in an alien world?  

I've thought about this a lot over the years because I have an abiding interest and curiosity about the past.  I want to know what it was like to be alive in those far gone times, how was daily life lived, not merely in general terms but in the most minor details.

So, anyway, I've decided that today's world, at least today's American world, came into existence, picking a somewhat arbitrary year, in 1940, but probably a few years earlier, but by 1940 for sure.  And a lot of things we think of as happening post-1945, after World War II, would have happened sooner, television, for example, without the war, which seems to have set back civilian developments about a decade.

Okay, okay, I know that nobody would want to have a root canal done by a 1940 dentist, or have TB or polio treated by 1940 medicine and et cetera.  But that's not what I'm talking about.  Look at the kitchen in the Hotpoint ad.  It's from 1942.  It's got a refrigerator and electric stove and oven, but also a sink disposal and a dishwasher.  It's basically the same as a kitchen today.  The ad copy says postwar appliances will be better, but the important thing is that all those appliances already existed.  So did small kitchen appliances such as electric mixers and a variety of coffee makers -- drip, siphon, percolator.
Frozen foods also existed.  The Bird's Eye ad is from 1940.  Of course, all variety of canned goods were available, lots of the same brands as today.  Breakfast cereals the same as you can buy at Safeway today were also well established, as were candy bars, the same ones as we enjoy today.  You could buy Parkay margarine and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (cooks in seven minutes!) at the A&P or Jewel supermarket.  And speaking of Jewel, there was the then-famous Jewel Tea Man, who took orders over the phone from the Jewel catalog and delivered right to your door -- and not just food but all sorts of household items.  The milkman also delivered to your door not only milk and cream, but butter, eggs and ice cream.  The bread man brought fresh bread to your door, too, as well as pies and donuts, cakes and other goodies.  The local grocery store delivered:  call in your order in the morning and a local boy would bicycle it to your home after school and even help put away your purchases.  Mail was delivered twice a day, morning and evening, and the postman famously always rang twice to let you know you had mail.

Bathrooms were essentially modern, too, with hot and cold running water, flush toilets with the same Scott toilet paper as well as Kleenex we can buy today, not to mention Modess sanitary napkins.  They had sinks and showers and bathtubs, nice towels and bathmats, vanities and medicine cabinets, just like today.

But more important than all of this, important as it is, at least to me because I would want to enjoy a pleasant and

Happy suburban neighborhood c.1940. Safe and sane!

comfortable life, is the fact that, with whatever skills and education you have now, you could function in the world of c.1940, even in small details, and almost certainly find employment.

Let's take handwriting, for example.  I can write cursive because my mother taught me as a child.  Lots of people nowadays can't write cursive, it was not taught in school, and aside from a scrawled signature, they have no particular use for it.  Well, okay, if you can't write cursive and you found yourself in 1940, guess what, you could use a typewriter.  Maybe you've never even seen a typewriter, but you would recognize the same qwerty keyboard you use with your computer and you could easily figure out how to use a typewriter, maybe the return carriage lever being the only really odd thing you'd need to get the hang of.  So you could carry out correspondence in an adult, professional manner.  And that would mean you could get an office job.

And back to cursive -- If you can write it, you write it Palmer style, the method taught in the US from the mid-1920s until cursive faded away.  Before that, people were taught to write cursive in the Spencerian style.  That style survives in the Ford and Coca-Cola logos. It's much fancier than Palmer.  Imagine having to write cursive in a Spencerian hand -- legibly.  Everybody educated before 1925 could do it.  If you wanted an office job, you'd have to be able to write it.  But by 1940 or so it was fuddy-duddy stuff and you wouldn't need to worry about it.

 Also by 1940 there were dial telephones and telephone directories.  Yes, you'd have to dial "0" to get the operator to make a long-distance call, but otherwise making a call would be very much like today.  So you wouldn't be isolated, unable to contact others.

And also by c.1940 cars were not that much different from those of today.  Yes, yes, I know cars of today are vastly superior and all that. But what I mean is that, for example, you could climb into a four-door sedan, scan the controls and instruments and see they were pretty much like today's -- speedometer, gas gauge, horn, headlight switch, windshield wipers, ignition key and starter, even a radio.  The big difference would be a manual transmission, if you don't know how to use one.  But you could learn that.  And if you couldn't,

Notice the caption says these 16-year-olds drive!

Oldsmobile introduced the automatic transmission in 1939, so buy an Olds. Oh, and even high-school kids drove and had their own cars, at least the guys had their own, usually old cars -- jalopies -- that they fixed up.  Or they borrowed their parents' car.

And while their weren't any interstates the roads were paved and signed just as today, there were traffic cops, parking lots, drive-ins, motels and campgrounds, full-service gas stations everywhere that offered free roadmaps, roadside diners, even travel trailers you could tow behind your car as you saw the USA in your Chevrolet, visiting the national parks.

Anyway, you could drive to work, drive to shopping, drive on vacation, or just take a spin on a Sunday afternoon.

There were local and transcontinental bus lines if you didn't want to drive, public transportation in the cities (safe and clean!), and of course those wonderful passenger trains with dining and club cars, Pullman sleepers and observation cars.  There were commuter trains between city and suburbs (yes, they already existed), but there were also inter city and even inter-small town passenger trains. 

And, believe it or not, there were plenty of scheduled airlines operating planes like the DC-3 and DC-4 or the Boeing 247 and 307, or Lockheed Electras.  I've flown in a DC-3 and in the later version of the DC-4, the DC-6.  They were pleasant, comfortable passenger liners.  Some airlines flew sleeper versions of these planes, so you could take a night flight and arrive at your destination in the morning after a good night's sleep. Pan American's flying boats that  spanned the Pacific not only offered sleeping accommodations but also dining and lounge facilities.  At the exotic island stopovers, first-class hotel and meals were included in the air fare.  Taking a few days to leisurely travel from San Francisco to Macao via Honolulu, Wake, Guam and Manila in an airplane flying only a few thousand feet above the sea, so you could wave at ships and see whales, get up and walk around, dine at a table served by a waiter, sleep in a bed, take breaks at exotic locales.... 

Back to finding a job, there were plenty that you could probably do.  If you are a book keeper or accountant, you could do those jobs with the same skills you have today.  No Quickbooks or Turbotax, but you could use an electric adding machine and the type of accounting and tax preparation you would do would be the same as today.

You would have no problem figuring out how a cash register worked and so be a cashier.  A job as a waitress or waiter would be the same.  As would that of a bartender or short-order cook -- people ordered the same drinks and the same foods, more or less.  Ham and eggs or bacon and eggs, pancakes, waffles, cold cereals or oatmeal were standard breakfast fare. Hamburgers were popular lunch fare, as were ham sandwiches and BLTs, road beef and club sandwiches as well as fried chicken, chicken-fried steak,  hot dogs, potato chips, cole slaw, potato salad, etc. Steak for dinner or maybe a roast chicken or spaghetti. Desert would be apple pie with ice cream or maybe chocolate cake with coconut icing and a cherry.  Coffee after. Typical American fare then as now. No pizza, though, except maybe in a big eastern city like New York.  

You could drive a truck or a taxicab.  If you are mechanically inclined or like to noodle around with your lawn mower or dirt bike or fool with an old car, you could get a job as an auto mechanic and find the job much simpler and easier than it would be today, needing only basic tools.  And you could work on any engines, from chain saws (yes, they had them) to airplane engines (no turbines yet!).  All internal combustion engines, either simple side-valve or pushrod-activated overhead valve.  Rarely would you encounter an overhead cam engine.  All had manually adjusted ignition points and timing.  Simple, simple, simple.  You could open your own shop, work at a service station or a car dealership.  Lots of job openings.

Rules and regulations were much simpler and imposed far fewer costs -- no OSHA, no EPA, no race and gender quotas, no this, no that.  So opening your own business would be a lot simpler and require much less in start-up capital.

When it came to clothing, everyday wear was not so much different from that of today.  Women's casual dresses were a bit dowdy, and the patterns were a bit much, to my eye, but they were comfortable.  No corsets and bustles and wasp waists. No bloomers!  

Women's business attire was quite chic and, if I tossed away the hat, I could probably walk down a street in a city business hub today wearing a 1940 woman's suit and not get a second glance.  I particularly like the shoes women wore in those days, as stylish as those of today and not looking somehow odd, as those of only a few years before do to me.

The plane is an Aeronca, still lots flying.

Women wore slacks and shorts and loafers and tennis shoes, even blue jeans, although they favored those in baggy styles with the cuffs rolled up.  Hairstyles were a bit fussy, even complicated, but if you didn't choose to get too fancy, nobody seemed to mind.

I think you guys would be okay with 1940.

Women also dressed to be sexy; after all, this was the era of the pin-up, the Petty Girl and the Varga Girl, copies of which would soon earn immortality as the nose art on Army Air Force combat planes in the coming war.  Silk stockings were giving way to less expensive nylons and bust-enhancing bras were becoming popular, especially when worn under a tight-fitting sweater.  This combination was so popular, in fact, that it caused the coining of the phrase "sweater girl" to denote a sexy college co-ed.  

Oh, and, um, they did have condoms back in those days.  Latex condoms were mass produced and inexpensive, regulated by the Food and Drug administration. The makers of Trojans used automatic testing equipment to ensure each one was defect-free. The Roosevelt administration's surgeon general urged their use and figuring that boys and girls will do what comes naturally no matter what, opened hundreds of outlets that gave away condoms for free.

To my eye, men's fashions seem even less dated.  I suppose things like tie width and pattern, as well as lapel width, have changed, such things do, but I think a man today could wear a 1940-era suit and take the same city walk as above and attract no attention.  Aside from the shoes, the dress style of a late 1930s Princeton man, looks quite contemporary to me.  A guy from today could show up in in 1940 and hit a men's clothing store, glance around, and know what to buy to look well dressed.  But in 1910?  How about 1870?  Oh, and about those white shoes the Princeton boy wears, we still speak of white-shoe law firms, don't we? 

By 1940, ordinary middle-class people had enough leisure time and income to enjoy recreation that cost money to do.  You had to go someplace like a bowling alley, tennis court, ski resort or golf course, pay to do it, even pay for special training, buy or rent equipment, maybe even pay for overnight lodgings.  All of those things are as we do them today and we could enjoy them then, just as today.  Of course, gear is better now, but still, if, for example, you're a skier and were to find yourself in Sun Valley in 1940 you would recognize what the equipment was and be able to use it to hit the slopes.

Aside from movies, many of which you can still watch and enjoy  today, the radio provided the most popular form of personal entertainment, offering the same sorts of programs as we enjoy today -- detective dramas, cop shows, situation comedies, variety shows, murder mysteries, costume dramas, soaps, cooking and home-improvement shows, news and commentary, etc.  Live broadcasts from famous ball rooms featuring the latest singers and bands were popular.  And television was just ready to go when the war stopped everything for some years. Of course, you could buy your own records and listen to whatever you liked in your own home.  Books were popular and everyone read the latest novels, much as today they watch the latest cable series, and there were book-of-the-month clubs that would mail you inexpensive editions of all the latest titles.  There were tons of magazines, many still with us today.  Many homes had pianos and sheet music sales were still considerable, so if you can play, you would find the era most congenial to your talents.

Interior of a TWA Boeing 307 Stratoliner.

Look, I know all of this is subjective, based on my own tastes and views of what's historically important, but I've thought about this a lot over the years and often wondered how far back in time I realistically could go and hope to have a life I would enjoy, based on my abilities and proclivities.  How about you?  Do you know how to handle a team of horses?  Would you like to sit on a stool and add and subtract figures by hand, writing them down in a careful Spencerian hand, at an accounting firm?  Do you want to cook meals over a hot wood stove that needs constant careful attention?  If you have to go to the bathroom at night do you want to pull a chamber pot out from under the bed and do your business in it, then have to carry it outside to the outhouse to dump it, then clean it, the next morning? Do you like the smell of kerosene, refilling lamp reservoirs, carefully cleaning the delicate glass chimneys of soot, replacing wicks?  Oh, and how about accidentally brushing past a kerosene lamp some night and knocking it over and having it shatter, showering you with flaming fuel, not only brutally burning you but burning your house down as well, and maybe the whole block?  Do you...?  Can you...?  Would you...?  Not me!  My time machine's wayback dial enters the red no-go zone at about 1935 and stops dead at 1930.

Why do I imagine moving back to the past, and think about it in such detail?  Do you like the present?  Are you okay with all the...the...the...you know-- you do know -- ?  Haven't you thought of escape, maybe emigrating?  But to where?  It's all everywhere.  So, in reverie at least, I turn to the past.  Sure, I know that those years were full of their own problems but compared to today, I'll take theirs. I'm speaking as an American, of course, and traveling back to an earlier America.  I don't care about Europe or Asia, then or now.  I'm just your typical parochial Doofus americanus and I'm quite happy to be one.  Now excuse me while I climb into my time machine, shaped like a 1935 Auburn Boattail Speedster, and skeedaddle. 

B'bye!

 

C'mon, hop in! Let's all go for a drive back to 1940!

 

Keep in Touch

 People can live in so much emotional pain that it expresses itself in physical pain, often unbearably so.  But merely caring, merely listening -- no, not merely...sincerely -- touching a shoulder or forearm, holding hands, can take the pain away.  Very much of my off-duty professional life involves this.  It may seem trivial, but it's not.  It's the most important thing.  I take their pain upon myself.  Sometimes it takes its toll on me.  Sometimes it's very hard. 

In Touch, first broadcast October 29, 1981, over the CBS Radio Mystery Theater.

 

 

 

Musings

 Not to make light of a grim situation, but I do get some satisfaction from the less than impressive Russian armed forces performance in the Ukraine, considering all the crap I've read on-line about how American armed forces may be able to handle a bunch of Iraqi camel jockeys and Afghan goat fuckers, but just wait till they have to deal with a serious military like Russia's.  Uh huh.

Oh, for the record, I'm a non-interventionist and don't consider it any of our business what Russia and Ukraine do to each other.  Or China and Taiwan.  If I did go back in my time machine to c.1940, one thing I would do for sure is join the America First movement.  And if I went back to 1917 I would be singing, "I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier."  And if I just went back to 1975 I would be a strong supporter of Jimmy Carter.  Yes, that much-ridiculed Jimmy Carter.  He made it one of his campaign promises to withdraw American troops from South Korea and was skeptical about all our overseas commitments.  After he was elected and tried to carry out the troop withdrawal and wasn't able to do it, thanks to what today we would call the deep state, Carter, in response to an inquiry about the origin of his views, replied that they arose from his "basic inclination to question the stationing of American troops overseas." He said that keeping troops abroad "is something you need a good reason to do" and that he "has yet to see a convincing argument keeping those troops in Korea in perpetuity." 
He also wanted to withdraw the Marines from Okinawa and reduce our military presence in Japan.  I imagine Carter's views were formed by his Naval Academy education and his career as a naval officer. The stationing of ground forces in exposed and static positions abroad is counter to traditional naval thinking. Air and sea power operating from offshore, augmented by mobile landing forces if needed, are the preferred solutions of naval doctrine.  Seems pretty sensible to me.  I've often wondered if the enmity of the powers that be that Carter incurred by trying to draw down our military footprint overseas is one of the reasons he is so ridiculed to this day.  Looking at his presidency, and the world situation as he inherited it, it doesn't seem all that bad.

 The men I know are always giving each other the razz, calling each other names like duck butt and pencil dick not in a hostile way, but in a friendly, comradely way.  They all have I guess what could be called seriously masculine jobs, although these days, saying that out loud would get you defenestrated from the top of the World Trade Center's ghost. But the males whose comments I read on-line take great offense at being referred to by a name that they consider belittling.  They seem to have a great deal of respect and admiration for themselves and are also very thin-skinned.  I guess that's why they are always getting into purse fights with each other and hurling Wikipedia quotes and YouTube videos at each other like Molotov cocktails and hand grenades.  I think they're funny.

Another difference between the men I know and the males who spend a lot of time posting comments on-line is that the on-liners are really hostile to women and never miss an opportunity to attack them.  But the men I know really like women and seek them out relentlessly.  Yes, of course, a lot of that is raw sex drive, but there is much more to it than that.  They seek female companionship. They need to have a haven away from the brutal competitiveness of the macho-man world.  They need someone who cares about them, someone waiting for them at home, someone they can write or Skype to, message and call.  And also someone to protect and defend.  And, of course, someone to give them children so that they can have a son to teach how to throw a fast ball and pass on the lessons they've learned about life and a daughter to be daddy's little angel and intimidate her high school dates.

One time back in the States I went off-base with some marines wearing my cammies -- combat utility uniform, to give it its formal name, basically desert camouflage overalls.  As we were passing through an outdoor food court I accidentally bumped into a table where some guys were having beers.  One of them looked up at me as I said, "Sorry!" and said in a loud voice, "Well, well, a girl marine ( I was navy).  I feel really safe knowing you're out there fighting for me.  I bet you terrify the enemy!"
At this, one of the marines grabbed the guy by his shirt, lifted him out of his chair and slammed him against a wall and asked him to repeat what he had just said. When he didn't, but just stared in stunned fear, the marine threw him against a trash can, where he just lay.  Then we continued on our way, me thinking oh, Lord, we're going to get arrested and....  But as we walked away, another guy at the same table  said in a loud voice, "Guess who's going to get his dick sucked!"  All the marines stopped and headed back toward the table.  The guy got up so fast he knocked over the table and scattered chairs as he rocketed out of there. But he was not necessarily wrong.

I've only known four Jews that I associated with and knew were Jews in my whole life.  I suppose I have associated with some more, especially at university, but I didn't know they were Jews.  The subject never came up.  Why would it? 
One of the Jews, who I mentioned briefly in another post, was my good friend.  We had similar service brat backgrounds, she Air Force, me Navy. We were both stationed on Guam at the same time and had lots of fun together.  She was a natural blonde, quite attractive, with a gregarious personality, and had lots of boyfriends buzzing about her.  I only found out that she was Jewish when we were invited to a Christmas dinner and she off-handedly mentioned it while accepting the invitation. 
Another of the Jews was a woman a few years older than me that I met while working a temp job in college.  She sort of glommed on to me and was always inviting me to lunch, dinner, concerts, exhibitions and whatnot.  She made no secret of being Jewish but didn't make a big deal of it. It was more like she would bring some Jewish dish, or maybe just Eastern European, I don't know (I was totally ignorant of ethnic white lifestyles) to work and urge me to try it, saying it was her mother's special recipe or whatever.  Thinking back, she looked sort of Jewish or maybe Greek or southern Italian, dark hair and eyes, olive skin, although at the time I never really gave that much thought to it.  She kept asking me to call her Bambi, which was not going to happen. 
We kept in touch after she moved back to her home town of New York City, or rather she kept in touch with me, and when I mentioned I had an opportunity to visit that city, she offered to be my guide and a splendid one she proved to be, giving me a Cook's tour of all sorts of things I'd never have known about on my own and taking me to fabulous little restaurants only a local would know about.  She loved New York and wanted me to love it, too.  I considered the fact that she was Jewish the same way I would have an Irishman showing me around Dublin. 
The only odd part of the experience was the last night of my visit at a night club where Tierney Sutton was singing she asked me to dance and while we were she stroked my rump and kissed me, then invited me back to her apartment.  I declined, saying I had an early flight the next morning (true) and all my stuff was at my hotel and I had to pack....  She didn't push it. I'd noticed she was slamming Johnny Walker Black Label in amounts that would have put me in a coma and was slurring her words a little bit.  So I put down her action to being drunk, and considered it yet another lesson in why you shouldn't drink in public unless your goal is to make an ass of yourself. Go ahead, ask me how I know this.  I won't tell you.

The third Jew I knew was a JAP I made a post about earlier. The less said about her the better.  Ugh.  Make that ugh squared.
And the final Jew I knew was a guy I met at college.  I don't know why I knew he was Jewish, maybe he took off a Jewish holiday or something.  He didn't look in any way "ethnic" to me, just a regular person.  I dated him a few times but I found him rather dull and totally not my type at all.  During the third date he put the moves on me, assuming apparently that was the established protocol.  I told him to rein in Trigger to his baffled disappointment.  To his credit...I suppose...he did so. The guys I usually dated would have brushed aside my objection and I would have had to knee them in the nuts to get them to settle down.  Every date would end in a wrestling match.  It was kind of fun.

For the record, I only have known one Seventh Day Adventist. She was a spectacularly beautiful, sloe-eyed Spanishesque Guatemalan-American who married a Japanese national and moved to Japan.  They have the most gorgeous children.  She tried to convert me to Adventism but I declined, saying that I was a confirmed Zen Holy Roller.  I don't know what a Holy Roller is, but I like the name.  I should know what Zen is.  I even spent some time studying at the Zen temple 永平寺 (Eihei-ji) in Fukui, but I really couldn't get into it.  It was just too alien.  Intellectually, I grasped it...I think.  But emotionally, spiritually?  No.
I have also only been friends with one Catholic, although,  doubtless, I have known more than that but the subject of their religion never came up.  Anyway, this guy was a Mexican (from Monterrey) who I liked a lot and he liked me a lot, too.  But he was the least ambitious person I ever knew.  He dropped out of college before completing even one semester, got a customer service job with some internet/cable company and that was it. He spent all of his paycheck every week, not saving even a penny.  When he got an unsolicited credit card in the mail, he maxed it out and never made even one payment.  As a result, his credit is ruined.   Although he always said he was a proud Catholic, he admitted he'd never been to church, not even once. 
He always had lots of girlfriends.  I know for a fact that at one time he was was having sex with four different women at the same time.  Uh...not simultaneously.  As far as I know.  I could go on.... 
Oh, right. One time he asked me to have sex with his friend, whom he said was between girlfriends.  I got the feeling that he had gotten some kind of favor from his friend and in return his friend wanted the favor of having sex with me. That tells you a lot about the way women are treated in Mexico.  I told him to take a long walk off a short pier, as my aunt used to say.  Adios, Pancho. 
So why did I like a character like that?  I dunno.  I just did.
The last I heard from him, he had gotten married to a woman "of the blood" -- his phrase -- so I assume a fellow Mexican.  Hey, señor gringo, you better not say you have married a woman of your blood.  You just better not!

We finally got the auxiliary generator for our cattle well, delivered by a big tractor-trailer rig (we had some other equipment delivered, too) whose driver demonstrated phenomenal maneuvering and backing-up skills.  Those watching actually broke out into applause it was so amazing.  When he dismounted, a middle-aged white guy, he said to the nearest man, "Now, you try it!"  Everyone laughed and cheered.  

One of the unsung casualties of the Covid craziness was the almost total collapse of restaurant demand for beef.  Business has picked up since the darkest days but, still, this year if we clear $70 per cowbrute after expenses, but before taxes, we'll be lucky.  If the government offers us some kind of greenhouse gas abatement subsidy or tax credit for not raising cattle, we'll take it and get out of the business.  And you muttering in the peanut gallery can just shut up and eat your soyburger, the soy, of course, coming from Brazilian farmlands created by clear-cutting rainforests and burning the slash.  Petrochemical fertilizers will keep the land productive for a while until the soil becomes salinized and hard-panned; what hasn't been eroded and washed away, that is.

I read that the Ukrainians are firing a lot of Javelins at Russian armor.  I also read people referring to them as "cheap."  I guess cheap is relative.  In Afghanistan, the joke was that the Javelin, which was said to cost $70,000 each, was fired by a marine who didn't make that much in a year to kill a haji who wouldn't make that much in his entire life if he lived to be a hundred.

 

 

 

Speaking of Afghanistan, this was copied from a handwritten notice at a patrol base in Helmand's Gereshk Valley.  I thought it was funny.  Now it's kind of nostalgic.  Ya know?

1. No smoking at night.
2. Red lens -- You were doing this in boot camp, so why are you fucking this up in combat?
3. Clean your area. If trash is full take it to the burn pit nasty.
4. Stop peeing on post! Honestly, what the fuck!
5. Pass all word to the next sentry. It's part of your general orders, stop fucking it up.
6. No horse play over the radio. If you wanted to tell jokes you should have been a comedian.
7. Keep area organized and wear your fucking PPE, what the fuck Marine.
8. If any stupid shit or graffiti ends up on this sign or post, the marine currently standing it will clean that shit up. Police yourselves!
9. No sleeping on watch. I don't even know why you have to be told this.
10. Stop jerking off. I don't care if you are thinking about your mom.

 When I was in AFG sometimes I would find myself humming and singing the Mickey Mouse song.  It's from the old 1950s-era Mickey Mouse Club television program, which I've never seen.  It was apparently a variety show, with cartoons, skits, continuing serials, songs and so forth, with a cast of child actors.  My mother says she never watched it because it came on at the same time as American Bandstand, which she never missed.  My dad liked it and still remembers his favorite serial, Spin and Marty.  I thought maybe my humming its theme song came from remembering him doing so, but try as I might, I could not recall that.

Then one time I saw the movie Full Metal Jacket in the company of a couple of crayon eaters. We all thought it was kind of lame, although there are a few good scenes.  This was the best one, we all agreed, as we sang along and got the tune stuck in our heads.

 To study the Buddha Way is to study the self.
To study the self is to forget the self.
To forget the self is to be actualized by all things.
To be actualized by all things is
to let the body and mind of the self
and the body and mind of others
drop off.

~ Shōbōgenzō, Genjō-Kōan

Dedicated to all the guys who look for and find that special girl that they need in their lives --

Who needs electricity?

 I often dream of going back in time to some favorite imagined time period far from the appalling and incomprehensible present, back to somewhen pleasant and understandable.  It's a common enough revierie -- Willoughby! Willoughby!  Next stop Willoughby!  But I've never contemplated going back farther than about, say, the beginning of the Big Band era.  Eighty-odd years ago I could still have a flush toilet, hot and cold running water, shower and bath,  central heating, refrigerator, electric stove and oven, canned and frozen foods, a nice car, a telephone, radio and record player, go to the movies, book flights on an airline or luxurious Pullman train car.

But others have said phooey to all that.  They don't want all that complication.  They want to go back to an even simpler life, one before the days of electricity and all the muddles of the modern world. The real horse-and-buggy days.  

Fredric Brown wrote an interesting story, now out of copyright, about how that era might come again.  Born in 1906, he was old enough to have heard stories from his parents, or at least his grandparents and other old-timers, about what the world was like in the days before electricity.  It sounds attractive, although I am not entirely convinced that I would enjoy or fit in to such a world.  Things people used to hate with a passion as curses of the then-modern world I like too much to give up.  But maybe those folks were right.  This story almost convinces me that they were.

Anyway, here's the yarn.  What do you think?  Would you like what happens in it?

 Originally published in the January, 1945, issue of Astounding Science Fiction.

THE WAVERIES By Fredric Brown

Definitions from the school-abridged Webster-Hamlin Dictionary 1998 edition: wavery (WA-ver-i) n. a vader-slang vader (VA-der) n. inorgan of the class Radio inorgan (in-OR-gan) n. noncorporeal ens, vader radio(RA-di-o) n. 1. class of inorgans 2. etheric frequency between light and electricity 3. (obsolete) method of communication used up to 1977.

The opening guns of invasion were not at all loud, although they were heard by millions of people. George Bailey was one of the millions. I choose George Bailey because he was the only one who came within a googol of light-years of guessing what they were. George Bailey was drunk and under the circumstances one can’t blame him for being so. He was listening to radio advertisements of the most nauseous kind. Not because he wanted to listen to them, I hardly need say, but because he’d been told to listen to them by his boss, J. R. McGee of the MID network. George Bailey wrote advertising for the radio. The only thing he hated worse than advertising was radio. And here on his own time he was listening to fulsome and disgusting commercials on a rival network. 

“Bailey,” J. R. McGee had said, “you should be more familiar with what others are doing. Particularly, you should be informed about those of our own accounts who use several networks. I strongly suggest . . ."

One doesn’t quarrel with an employer’s strong suggestions and keep a five hundred dollar a week job. But one can drink whisky sours while listening. George Bailey did. Also, between commercials, he was playing gin rummy with Maisie Hetterman, a cute little redheaded typist from the studio. It was Maisie’s apartment and Maisie’s radio (George himself, on principle, owned neither a radio nor a TV set) but George had brought the liquor. “--only the very finest tobaccos,” said the radio, “go dit-dit-dit nation’s favorite cigarette--“ 

George glanced at the radio. “Marconi,” he said. 

He meant Morse, naturally, but the whisky sours had muddled him a bit so his first guess was more nearly right than anyone else’s. It was Marconi, in a way. In a very peculiar way. 

“Marconi?” asked Maisie. 

George, who hated to talk against a radio, leaned over and switched it off. “I meant Morse,” he said. “Morse, as in Boy Scouts or the Signal Corps. I used to be a Boy Scout once.” 

“You’ve sure changed,” Maisie said. 

George sighed. “Somebody’s going to catch hell, broadcasting code on that wave length.” 

“What did it mean?” 

“Mean? Oh, you mean what did it mean. Uh-- S, the letter S. Dit-dit-dit is S. SOS is did-dit-dit dah-dah-dah dit--dit-dit.” 

“O is dah-dah-dah?” 

George grinned. “Say that again, Maisie. I like it. And I think you are dah-dah-dah too.” 

“George, maybe it’s really an SOS message. Turn it back on.” 

George turned it back on. The tobacco ad was still going. “-- gentlemen of the most dit-dit-dit-ing taste prefer the finer taste of dit-dit-dit-arettes. In the new package that keeps them dit-dit-dit and ultra fresh--“ 

“It’s not SOS. It’s just S’s.” 

“Like a teakettle or--say, George, maybe it’s just some advertising gag.” 

George shook his head. “Not when it can blank out the name of the product. Just a minute till I--“ He reached over and turned the dial of the radio a bit to the right and then a bit to the left, and an incredulous look came into his face. He turned the dial to the extreme left, as far as it would go. There wasn’t any station there, not even the hum of a carrier wave. 

But:“Dit-dit-dit,” said the radio, “dit-dit-dit.” He turned the dial to the extreme right. “Dit-dit-dit.” George switched it off and stared at Maisie without seeing her, which was hard to do. 

“Something wrong, George?” 

“I hope so,” said George Bailey. “I certainly hope so.” He started to reach for another drink and changed his mind. He had a sudden hunch that something big was happening and he wanted to sober up to appreciate it. He didn’t have the faintest idea how big it was. 

“George, what do you mean?” 

“I don’t know what I mean. But Maisie, let’s take a run down the studio, huh? There ought to be some excitement.” 

April 5, 1977; that was the night the waveries came. 

It had started like an ordinary evening. It wasn’t one, now. George and Maisie waited for a cab but none came so they took the subway instead. Oh yes, the subways were still running in those days. It took them within a block of the MID Network Building. The building was a madhouse. George, grinning, strolled through the lobby with Maisie on his arm, took the elevator to the fifth floor and for no reason at all gave the elevator boy a dollar. He’d never before in his life tipped an elevator operator. The boy thanked him. 

“Better stay away from the big shots, Mr. Bailey,” he said. “They’re ready to chew the ears off anybody who even looks at ‘em.” 

“Wonderful,” said George. From the elevator he headed straight for the office of J. R. McGee himself. There were strident voices behind the glass door. George reached for the knob and Maisie tried to stop him. 

“But George,” she whispered, “you’ll be fired!” 

“There comes a time,” said George. “Stand back away from the door, honey.” Gently but firmly he moved her to a safe position. 

“But George, what are you--?” 

“Watch,” he said. The frantic voices stopped as he opened the door a foot. All eyes turned toward him as he stuck his head around the corner of the doorway into the room. “Dit-dit-dit,” he said. “Dit-dit-dit.” He ducked back and to the side just in time to escape the flying glass as a paperweight and an inkwell came through the pane of the door. He grabbed Maisie and ran for the stairs. “Now we get a drink,” he told her. 

The bar across the street from the network building was crowded but it was a strangely silent crowd. In deference to the fact that most of its customers were radio people it didn’t have a TV set but there was a big cabinet radio and most of the people were bunched around it. 

“Dit,” said the radio. “Dit-dah-d’dah-dit-da-dit-dah-dit--“ 

“Isn’t it beautiful?” George whispered to Maisie. Somebody fiddled with the dial. Somebody asked, “What band is that?” and somebody said, “Police.” Somebody said, “Try the foreign band,” and somebody did. “This ought to be Buenos Aires,” somebody said. “Dit-d’dah-dit--“ said the radio. Somebody ran fingers through his hair and said, “Shut that damn thing off.” Somebody else turned it back on. George grinned and led the way to a back booth where he’d spotted Pete Mulvaney sitting alone with a bottle in front of him. 

He and Maisie sat across from Pete. “Hello,” he said gravely. 

“Hell,” said Pete, who was head of the technical research staff of MID. 

“A beautiful night, Mulvaney,” George said. “Did you see the moon riding the fleecy clouds like a golden galleon tossed upon silver-crested whitecaps in a stormy--“ 

“Shut up,” said Pete. “I’m thinking.” 

“Whisky sours,” George told the waiter. He turned back to the man across the table. “Think out loud, so we can hear. But first, how did you escape the booby hatch across the street?” 

“I’m bounced, fired, discharged.” 

“Shake hands. And then explain. Did you say dit-dit-dit to them?” 

Pete looked at him with sudden admiration. “Did you?” 

“I’ve a witness. What did you do?” 

“Told ‘em what I thought it was and they think I’m crazy.” 

“Are you?”

“Yes.” 

“Good,” said George. “Then we want to hear--“ He snapped his fingers. “What about TV?” 

“Same thing. Same sound on audio and the pictures flicker and dim with every dot or dash. Just a blur by now.” 

“Wonderful. And now tell me what’s wrong. I don’t care what it is, as long as it’s nothing trivial, but I want to know.” 

“I think it’s space. Space is warped.” 

“Good old space,” George Bailey said. 

“George,” said Maisie, “please shut up. I want to hear this.” 

“Space,” said Pete, “is also finite.” He poured himself another drink. “You go far enough in any direction and get back where you started. Like an ant crawling around an apple.” 

“Make it an orange,” George said. 

“All right, an orange. Now suppose the first radio waves ever sent out have just made the round trip. In seventy-six years.” 

“Seventy-six years? But I thought radio waves traveled at the same speed as light. If that’s right, then in seventy-six years they could go only seventy-six light-years, and that can’t be around the universe because there are galaxies known to be millions or maybe billions of light-years away. I don’t remember the figures, Pete, but our own galaxy alone is a hell of a lot bigger than seventy-six light-years.” 

Pete Mulvaney sighed. “That’s why I say space must be warped. There’s a short cut somewhere.” 

“That short a short cut? Couldn’t be.” 

“But George, listen to that stuff that’s coming in. Can you read code?” 

“Not any more. Not that fast, anyway.” 

“Well, I can,” Pete said. “That’s early American ham. Lingo and all. That’s the kind of stuff the air was full of before regular broadcasting. It’s the lingo, the abbreviations, the barnyard to attic chitchat of amateurs with keys, with Marconi coherers or Fessenden barreters--and you can listen for a violin solo pretty soon now. I’ll tell you what it’ll be.” 

“What?” 

“Handel’s Largo. The first phonograph record ever broadcast. Sent out by Fessenden from Brant Rock in late 1906. You’ll hear his CQ-CQ any minute now. Bet you a drink.” 

“Okay, but what was the dit-dit-dit that started this?” 

Mulvaney grinned. “Marconi, George. What was the most powerful signal ever broadcast and by whom and when?” 

“Marconi? Dit-dit-dit? Seventy-six years ago?” 

“Head of the class. The first transatlantic signal on December 12, 1901. For three hours Marconi’s big station at Poldhu, with two-hundred-foot masts, sent out an intermittent S, dit-dit-dit, while Marconi and two assistants at St. Johns in Newfoundland got a kite-born aerial four hundred feet in the air and finally got the signal. Across the Atlantic, George, with sparks jumping from the big Leyden jars at Poldhu and 20,000-volt juice jumping off the tremendous aerials--"

“Wait a minute, Pete, you’re off the beam. If that was in 1901 and the first broadcast was about 1906 it’ll be five years before the Fessenden stuff gets here on the same route. Even if there’s a seventy-six light-year short cut across space and even if those signals didn’t get so weak en route that we couldn’t hear them-it’s crazy.” 

“I told you it was,” Pete said gloomily. “Why, those signals after traveling that far would be so infinitesimal that for practical purposes they wouldn’t exist. Furthermore they’re all over the band on everything from microwave on up and equally strong on each. And, as you point out, we’ve already come almost five years in two hours, which isn’t possible. I told you it was crazy.” 

“But--“ 

“Ssshh. Listen,” said Pete. A blurred, but unmistakably human voice was coming from the radio, mingling with the cracklings of code. And then music, faint and scratchy, but unmistakably a violin. Playing Handel’s Largo. Only suddenly it climbed in pitch as though modulating from key to key until it became so horribly shrill that it hurt the ear. And kept on going past the high limit of audibility until they could hear it no more. 

Somebody said, “Shut that God damn thing off.” Somebody did, and this time nobody turned it back on. 

Pete said, “I didn’t really believe it myself. And there’s another thing against it, George. Those signals affect TV too, and radio waves are the wrong length to do that.” He shook his head slowly. “There must be some other explanation, George. The more I think about it now the more I think I’m wrong.” He was right: he was wrong. 

“Preposterous,” said Mr. Ogilvie. He took off his glasses, frowned fiercely, and put them back on again. He looked through them at the several sheets of copy paper in his hand and tossed them contemptuously to the top of his desk. They slid to rest against the triangular name plate that read: B. R. Ogilvie Editor-in-Chief. “Preposterous,” he said again. 

Casey Blair, his best reporter, blew a smoke ring and poked his index finger through it. “Why?” he asked. 

“Because—why, it’s utterly preposterous.” 

Casey Blair said, “It is now three o’clock in the morning. The interference has gone on for five hours and not a single program is getting through on either TV or radio. Every major broadcasting and telecasting station in the world has gone off the air.

“For two reasons. One, they were just wasting current. Two, the communications bureaus of their respective governments requested them to get off to aid their campaigns with the direction finders. For five hours now, since the start of the interference, they’ve been working with everything they’ve got. And what have they found out?” 

“It’s preposterous!” said the editor. 

“Perfectly, but it’s true. Greenwich at 11 P.M. New York time; I'm translating all these times into New York time—got a bearing in about the direction of Miami. It shifted northward until at two o’clock the direction was approximately that of Richmond, Virginia. San Francisco at eleven got a bearing in about the direction of Denver; three hours later it shifted southward toward Tucson. Southern hemisphere: bearings from Capetown, South Africa, shifted from direction of Buenos Aires to that of Montevideo, a thousand miles north. “New York at eleven had weak indications toward Madrid; but by two o’clock they could get no bearings at all.” He blew another smoke ring. “Maybe because the loop antennae they use turn only on a horizontal plane.” 

“Absurd.” 

Casey said, “I like ‘preposterous’ better, Mr. Ogilvie. Preposterous it is, but it’s not absurd. I’m scared stiff. Those lines-and all other bearings I’ve heard about run in the same direction if you take them as straight lines running as tangents off the Earth instead of curving them around the surface. I did it with a little globe and a star map. They converge on the constellation Leo.” 

He leaned forward and tapped a forefinger on the top page of the story he’d just turned in. “Stations that are directly under Leo in the sky get no bearings at all. Stations on what would be the perimeter of Earth relative to that point get the strongest bearings. Listen, have an astronomer check those figures if you want before you run the story, but get it done damn quick--unless you want to read about it in the other newspapers first.” 

“But the heavy-side layer, Casey--isn’t that supposed to stop all radio waves and bounce them back.” 

“Sure, it does. But maybe it leaks. Or maybe signals can get through it from the outside even though they can’t get out from the inside. It isn’t a solid wall.” 

“But--“ 

“I know, it’s preposterous. But there it is. And there’s only an hour before press time. You’d better send this story through fast and, have it set up while you’re having somebody check my facts and directions. Besides, there’s something else you’ll want to check.” 

“What?” 

“I didn’t have the data for checking the positions of the planets. Leo’s on the ecliptic; a planet could be in line between here and there. Mars, maybe.” 

Mr. Ogilvie’s eyes brightened, then clouded again. He said, “We’ll be the laughingstock of the world, Blair, if you’re wrong.”

“And if I’m right?” 

The editor picked up the phone and snapped an order. 

April 6th headline of the New York Morning Messenger, final (6 A.M.) edition: RADIO INTERFERENCE COMES FROM SPACE, ORIGINATES IN LEO May Be Attempt at Communication by Beings Outside Solar System. 

All television and radio broadcasting was suspended. Radio and television stocks opened several points off the previous day and then dropped sharply until noon when a moderate buying rally brought them a few points back. Public reaction was mixed; people who had no radios rushed out to buy them and there was a boom, especially in portable and tabletop receivers. 

On the other hand, no TV sets were sold at all. With telecasting suspended there were no pictures on their screens, even blurred ones. Their audio circuits, when turned on, brought in the same jumble as radio receivers. Which, as Pete Mulvaney had pointed out to George Bailey, was impossible; radio waves cannot activate the audio circuits of TV sets. But these did, if they were radio waves. 

In radio sets they seemed to be radio waves, but horribly hashed. No one could listen to them very long. Oh, there were flashes--times when, for several consecutive seconds, one could recognize the voice of Will Rogers or Geraldine Farrar or catch flashes of the Dempsey-Carpentier fight or the Pearl Harbor excitement. (Remember Pearl Harbor?) 

But things even remotely worth hearing were rare. Mostly it was a meaningless mixture of soap opera, advertising and off-key snatches of what had once been music. It was utterly indiscriminate, and utterly unbearable for any length of time. But curiosity is a powerful motive. There was a brief boom in radio sets for a few days. There were other booms, less explicable, less capable of analysis. Reminiscent of the Welles Martian scare of 1938 was a sudden upswing in the sale of shotguns and sidearms. Bibles sold as fast as books on astronomy-and books on astronomy sold like hotcakes. 

One section of the country showed a sudden interest in lightning rods; builders were flooded with orders for immediate installation. For some reason which has never been clearly ascertained there was a run on fishhooks in Mobile, Alabama; every hardware and sporting goods store sold out of them within hours. The public libraries and bookstores had a run on books on astrology and books on Mars. Yes, on Mars—despite the fact that Mars was at that moment on the other side of the sun and that every newspaper article on the subject stressed the fact that no planet was between Earth and the constellation Leo. 

Something strange was happening-and no news of developments available except through the newspapers. People waited in mobs outside newspaper buildings for each new edition to appear. Circulation managers went quietly mad. People also gathered in curious little knots around the silent broadcasting studios and stations, talking in hushed voices as though at a wake. MID network doors were locked, although there was a doorman on duty to admit technicians who were trying to find an answer to the problem. Some of the technicians who had been on duty the previous day had now spent over twenty-four hours without sleep. 

George Bailey woke at noon, with only a slight headache. He shaved and showered, went out and drank a light breakfast and was himself again. He bought early editions of the afternoon papers, read them, grinned. His hunch had been right; whatever was wrong, it was nothing trivial. But what was wrong? The later editions of the afternoon papers had it.

EARTH INVADED, SAYS SCIENTIST. Thirty-six line type was the biggest they had; they used it. 

Not a home-edition copy of a newspaper was delivered that evening. Newsboys starting on their routes were practically mobbed. They sold papers instead of delivering them; the smart ones got a dollar apiece for them. The foolish and honest ones who didn’t want to sell because they thought the papers should go to the regular customers on their routes lost them anyway. People grabbed them. The final editions changed the heading only slightly--only slightly, that is, from a typographical viewpoint. Nevertheless, it was a tremendous change in meaning. It read: EARTH INVADED, SAY SCIENTISTS. Funny what moving an S from the ending of a verb to the ending of a noun can do. 

Carnegie Hall shattered precedent that evening with a lecture given at midnight. An unscheduled and unadvertised lecture. Professor Helmetz had stepped off the train at eleven-thirty and a mob of reporters had been waiting for him. Helmetz, of Harvard, had been the scientist, singular, who had made that first headline. Harvey Ambers, director of the board of Carnegie Hall, had pushed his way through the mob. He arrived minus glasses, hat and breath, but got hold of Helmetz’s arm and hung on until he could talk again. “We want you to talk at Carnegie, Professor,” he shouted into Helmetz’s ear. “Five thousand dollars for a lecture on the ‘vaders.’"

“Certainly. Tomorrow afternoon?” 

“Now! I’ve a cab waiting. Come on.” 

“But--“ 

“We’ll get you an audience. Hurry!” 

He turned to the mob. “Let us through. All of you can’t hear the professor here. Come to Carnegie Hall and he’ll talk to you. And spread the word on your way there.” 

The word spread so well that Carnegie Hall was jammed by the time the professor began to speak. Shortly after, they’d rigged a loud-speaker system so the people outside could hear. By one o’clock in the morning the streets were jammed for blocks around. There wasn’t a sponsor on Earth with a million dollars to his name who wouldn’t have given a million dollars gladly for the privilege of sponsoring that lecture on TV or radio, but it was not telecast or broadcast. Both lines were busy. 

“Questions?” asked Professor Helmetz. 

A reporter in the front row made it first. “Professor,” he asked, “Have all direction finding stations on Earth confirmed what you told us about the change this afternoon?” 

“Yes, absolutely. At about noon all directional indications began to grow weaker. At 2:45 o’clock, Eastern Standard Time, they ceased completely. Until then the radio waves emanated from the sky, constantly changing direction with reference to the Earth’s surface, but constant with reference to a point in the constellation Leo.” 

“What star in Leo?” 

“No star visible on our charts. Either they came from a point in space or from a star too faint for our telescopes. 

“But at 2:45 P.M. today--yesterday rather, since it is now past midnight--all direction finders went dead. But the signals persisted, now coming from all sides equally. The invaders had all arrived. 

“There is no other conclusion to be drawn. Earth is now surrounded, completely blanketed, by radio-type waves which have no point of origin, which travel ceaselessly around the Earth in all directions, changing shape at their will--which currently is still in imitation of the Earth origin radio signals which attracted their attention and brought them here.” 

“Do you think it was from a star we can’t see, or could it have really been just a point in space?” 

“Probably from a point in space. And why not? They are not creatures of matter. If they came from a star, it must be a very dark star for it to be invisible to us, since it would be relatively near to us--only twenty-eight light-years away, which is quite close as stellar distances go.” 

“How can you know the distance?” 

"By assuming--and it is a quite reasonable assumption--that they started our way when they first discovered our radio signals--Marconi’s S-S-S code broadcast of fifty-six years ago. Since that was the form taken by the first arrivals, we assume they started toward us when they encountered those signals. Marconi’s signals, traveling at the speed of light, would have reached a point twenty-eight light-years away twenty-eight years ago; the invaders, also traveling at light speed would require an equal of time to reach us. 

“As might be expected only the first arrivals took Morse code form. Later arrivals were in the form of other waves that they met and passed on--or perhaps absorbed--on their way to Earth. There are now wandering around the Earth, as it were, fragments of programs broadcast as recently as a few days ago. Undoubtedly there are fragments of the very last programs to be broadcast, but they have not yet been identified.” 

“Professor, can you describe one of these invaders?” 

“As well as and no better than I can describe a radio wave. In effect, they are radio waves, although they emanate from no broadcasting station. They are a form of life dependent on wave motion, as our form of life is dependent on the vibration of matter.” 

“They are different sizes?” 

“Yes, in two senses of the word size. Radio waves are measured from crest to crest, which measurement is known as wave length. Since the invaders cover the entire dials of our radio sets and television sets it is obvious that either one of two things is true: Either they come in all crest-to-crest sizes or each one can change his crest-to-crest measurement to adapt himself to the tuning of any receiver. 

"But that is only the crest-to-crest length. In a sense it may be said that a radio wave has an over-all length determined by its duration. If a broadcasting station sends out a program that has a second’s duration, a wave carrying that program is one light-second long, roughly 186,000 miles. A continuous half-hour program is, as it were, on a continuous wave one-half light-hour long, and so on. 

"Taking that form of length, the individual invaders vary in length from a few thousand miles--a duration of only a small fraction of a second--to well over half a million miles long--a duration of several seconds. The longest continuous excerpt from any one program that has been observed has been about seven seconds.” 

“But, Professor Helmetz, why do you assume that these waves are living things, a life form. Why not just waves?” 

“Because ‘just waves’ as you call them would follow certain laws, just as inanimate matter follows certain laws. An animal can climb uphill, for instance; a stone cannot unless impelled by some outside force. These invaders are life-forms because they show volition, because they can change their direction of travel, and most especially because they retain their identity; two signals never conflict on the same radio receiver. They follow one another but do not come simultaneously. They do not mix as signals on the same wave length would ordinarily do. They are not ‘just waves.’“ 

“Would you say they are intelligent?” 

Professor Helmetz took off his glasses and polished them thoughtfully. He said, “I doubt if we shall ever know. The intelligence of such beings, if any, would be on such a completely different plane from ours that there would be no common point from which we could start intercourse. We are material; they are immaterial. There is no common ground between us.” 

“But if they are intelligent at all--“ 

“Ants are intelligent, after a fashion. Call it instinct if you will, but instinct is a form of intelligence; at least it enables them to accomplish some of the same things intelligence would enable them to accomplish. Yet we cannot establish communication with ants and it is far less likely that we shall be able to establish communication with these invaders. The difference in type between ant intelligence and our own would be nothing to the difference in type between the intelligence, if any, of the invaders and our own. No, I doubt if we shall ever communicate.” 

The professor had something there. Communication with the vaders--a clipped form, of course, of invaders-was never established. Radio stocks stabilized on the exchange the next day. But the day following that someone asked Dr. Helmets a sixty-four dollar question and the newspapers published his answer:

“Resume broadcasting? I don’t know if we ever shall. Certainly we cannot until the invaders go away, and why should they? Unless radio communication is perfected on some other planet far away and they’re attracted there. 

“But at least some of them would be right back the moment we started to broadcast again.” 

Radio and TV stocks dropped to practically zero in an hour. There weren’t, however, any frenzied scenes on the stock exchanges; there was no frenzied selling because there was no buying, frenzied or otherwise. No radio stocks changed hands. 

Radio and television employees and entertainers began to look for other jobs. The entertainers had no trouble finding them. Every other form of entertainment suddenly boomed like mad. 

“Two down,” said George Bailey. The bartender asked what he meant. “I dunno, Hank. It’s just a hunch I’ve got.” 

“What kind of hunch?” 

“I don’t even know that. Shake me up one more of those and then I’ll go home.” The electric shaker wouldn’t work and Hank had to shake the drink by hand. 

“Good exercise; that’s just what you need,” George said. “It’ll take some of that fat off you.” Hank grunted, and the ice tinkled merrily as he tilted the shaker to pour out the drink. 

George Bailey took his time drinking it and then strolled out into an April thundershower. He stood under the awning and watched for a taxi. An old man was standing there too. 

“Some weather,” George said. 

The old man grinned at him. “You noticed it, eh?”

 “Huh? Noticed what?” 

“Just watch a while, mister. Just watch a while.” The old man moved on. No empty cab came by and George stood there quite a while before he got it. His jaw dropped a little and then he closed his mouth and went back into the tavern. He went into a phone booth and called Pete Mulvaney. He got three wrong numbers before he got Pete. 

Pete’s voice said, “Yeah?” 

“George Bailey, Pete. Listen, have you noticed the weather?” 

“Damn right. No lightning, and there should be with a thunderstorm like this.” 

“What’s it mean, Pete? The vaders?” 

“Sure. And that’s just going to be the start if--“ A crackling sound on the wire blurred his voice out.

“Hey, Pete, you still there?” The sound of a violin. Pete Mulvaney didn’t play violin. “Hey, Pete, what the hell--?” 

Pete’s voice again. “Come on over, George. Phone won’t last long. Bring--“ There was a buzzing noise and then a voice said, “--come to Carnegie Hall. The best tunes of all come--“ 

George slammed down the receiver. He walked through the rain to Pete’s place. On the way he bought a bottle of Scotch. Pete had started to tell him to bring something and maybe that’s what he’d started to say. It was. They made a drink apiece and lifted them. The lights flickered briefly, went out, and then came on again but dimly. 

“No lightning,” said George. “No lightning and pretty soon no lighting. They’re taking over the telephone. What do they do with the lightning?” 

“Eat it, I guess. They must eat electricity.” 

“No lightning,” said George. “Damn. I can get by without a telephone, and candles and oil lamps aren’t bad for lights--but I’m going to miss lightning. I like lightning. Damn.” 

The lights went out completely. Pete Mulvaney sipped his drink in the dark. He said, “Electric lights, refrigerators, electric toasters, vacuum cleaners--“ 

“Juke boxes,” George said. “Think of it, no more God damn juke boxes. No public address systems, no--hey, how about movies?” 

“No movies, not even silent ones. You can’t work a projector with an oil lamp. But listen, George, no automobiles--no gasoline engine can work without electricity.” “Why not, if you crank it by hand instead of using a starter?” 

“The spark, George. What do you think makes the spark.” 

“Right. No airplanes either, then. Or how about jet planes?” 

“Well--I guess some types of jets could be rigged not to need electricity, but you couldn’t do much with them. Jet plane’s got more instruments than motor, and all those instruments are electrical. And you can’t fly or land a jet by the seat of your pants.” 

“No radar. But what would we need it for? There won’t be any more wars, not for a long time.” 

“A damned long time.” 

George sat up straight suddenly. “Hey, Pete, what about atomic fission? Atomic energy? Will it still work?” 

“I doubt it. Subatomic phenomena are basically electrical. Bet you a dime they eat loose neutrons too.” (He’d have won his bet; the government had not announced that an A-bomb tested that day in Nevada had fizzled like a wet firecracker and that atomic piles were ceasing to function.) 

George shook his head slowly, in wonder. He said, “Streetcars and buses, ocean liners--Pete, this means we’re going back to the original source of horsepower. Horses. If you want to invest, buy horses. Particularly mares. A brood mare is going to be worth a thousand times her weight in platinum.” 

“Right. But don’t forget steam. We’ll still have steam engines, stationary and locomotive.” 

“Sure, that’s right. The iron horse again, for the long hauls. But Dobbin for the short ones. Can you ride, Peter?” 

“Used to, but I think I’m getting too old. I’ll settle for a bicycle. Say, better buy a bike first thing tomorrow before the run on them starts. I know I’m going to.” 

“Good tip. And I used to be a good bike rider. It’ll be swell with no autos around to louse you up. And say--“ 

“What?” 

“I’m going to get a cornet too. Used to play one when I as a kid and I can pick it up again. And then maybe I’ll hole in somewhere and write that nov--. Say, what about printing?” 

“They printed books long before electricity, George. It’ll take a while to readjust the printing industry, but there’ll be books all right. Thank God for that.” 

George Bailey grinned and got up. He walked over to the window and looked out into the night. The rain had stopped and the sky was clear. A streetcar was stalled, without lights, in the middle of the block outside. An automobile stopped, then started more slowly, stopped again; its headlights were dimming rapidly. George looked up at the sky and took a sip of his drink. “No lightning,” he said sadly. “I’m going to miss the lightning.” 

The changeover went more smoothly than anyone would have thought possible. The government, in emergency session, made the wise decision of creating one board with absolutely unlimited authority and under it only three subsidiary boards. The main board, called the Economic Readjustment Bureau, had only seven members and its job was to co-ordinate the efforts of the three subsidiary boards and to decide, quickly and without appeal, any jurisdictional disputes among them. 

First of the three subsidiary boards was the Transportation Bureau. It immediately took over, temporarily, the railroads. It ordered Diesel engines run onto sidings and left there, organized use of the steam locomotives and solved the problems of railroading sans telegraphy and electric signals. It dictated, then, what should be transported; food coming first, coal and fuel oil second, and essential manufactured articles in the order of their relative importance. Carload after carload of new radios, electric stoves, refrigerators and such useless articles were dumped unceremoniously alongside the tracks, to be salvaged for scrap metal later. 

All horses were declared wards of the government, graded according to capabilities, and put to work or to stud. Draft horses were used for only the most essential kinds of hauling. The breeding program was given the fullest possible emphasis; the bureau estimated that the equine population would double in two years, quadruple in three, and that within six or seven years there would be a horse in every garage in the country. Farmers, deprived temporarily of their horses, and with their tractors rusting in the fields, were instructed how to use cattle for plowing and other work about the farm, including light hauling. 

The second board, the Manpower Relocation Bureau, functioned just as one would deduce from its title. It handled unemployment benefits for the millions thrown temporarily out of work and helped relocate them--not too difficult a task considering the tremendously increased demand for hand labor in many fields. In May of 1977 thirty-five million employables were out of work; in October, fifteen million; by May of 1978, five million. By 1979 the situation was completely in hand and competitive demand was already beginning to raise wages. 

The third board had the most difficult job of the three. It was called the Factory Readjustment Bureau. It coped with the stupendous task of converting factories filled with electrically operated machinery and, for the most part, tooled for the production of other electrically operated machinery, over for the production, without electricity, of essential nonelectrical articles. 

The few available stationary steam engines worked twenty-four hour shifts in those early days, and the first thing they were given to do was the running of lathes and stompers and planers and millers working on turning out more stationary steam engines, of all sizes. These, in turn, were first put to work making still more steam engines. The number of steam engines grew by squares and cubes, as did the number of horses put to stud. The principle was the same. One might, and many did, refer to those early steam engines as stud horses. At any rate, there was no lack of metal for them. 

The factories were filled with nonconvertible machinery waiting to be melted down. Only when steam engines-the basis of the new factory economy-were in full production, were they assigned to running machinery for the manufacture of other articles. Oil lamps, clothing, coal stoves, oil stoves, bathtubs and bedsteads. Not quite all of the big factories were converted. For while the conversion period went on, individual handicrafts sprang up in thousands of places. Little one- and two-man shops making and repairing furniture, shoes, candles, all sorts of things that could be made without complex machinery. 

At first these small shops made small fortunes because they had no competition from heavy industry. Later, they bought small steam engines to run small machines and held their own, growing with the boom that came with a return to normal employment and buying power, increasing gradually in size until many of them rivaled the bigger factories in output and beat them in quality. 

There was suffering, during the period of economic readjustment, but less than there had been during the great depression of the early thirties. And the recovery was quicker. The reason was obvious: In combating the depression, the legislators were working in the dark. They didn’t know its cause--rather, they knew a thousand conflicting theories of its cause--and they didn’t know the cure. They were hampered by the idea that the thing was temporary and would cure itself if left alone.

Briefly and frankly, they didn’t know what it was all about and while they experimented, it snowballed. But the situation that faced the country--and all other countries--in 1977 was clear-cut and obvious. No more electricity. Readjust for steam and horsepower. As simple and clear as that, and no ifs or ands or buts. And the whole people--except for the usual scattering of cranks--back of them. 

By 1981--  

It was a rainy day in April and George Bailey was waiting under the sheltering roof of the little railroad station at Blakestown, Connecticut, to see who might come in on the 3:14. It chugged in at 3:25 and came to a panting stop, three coaches and a baggage car. The baggage car door opened and a sack of mail was handed out and the door closed again. No luggage, so probably no passengers would--. Then at the sight of a tall dark man swinging down from the platform of the rear coach, George Bailey let out a yip of delight. 

“Pete! Pete Mulvaney! What the devil--“ 

“Bailey, by all that’s holy! What are you doing here?” George wrung Pete’s hand. 

“Me? I live here. Two years now. I bought the Blakestown Weekly in ‘79, for a song, and I run it-editor, reporter, and janitor. Got one printer to help me out with that end, and Maisie does the social items. She’s--“ 

“Maisie? Maisie Hetterman?” 

“Maisie Bailey now. We got married same time I bought the paper and moved here. What are you doing here, Pete?” 

“Business. Just here overnight. See a man named Wilcox.” 

“Oh, Wilcox. Our local screwball-but don’t get me wrong; he’s a smart guy all right. Well, you can see him tomorrow. You’re coming home with me now, for dinner and to stay overnight. Maisie’ll be glad to see you. Come on, my buggy’s over here.” 

“Sure. Finished whatever you were here for?” 

“Yep, just to pick up the news on who came in on the train. And you came in, so here we go.” They got in the buggy, and George picked up the reins and said, “Giddup, Bessie,” to the mare. Then, “What are you doing now, Pete?” 

“Research. For a gas supply company. Been working on a more efficient mantle, one that’ll give more light and be less destructible. This fellow Wilcox wrote us he had something along that line; the company sent me up to look it over. If it’s what he claims, I’ll take him back to New York with me, and let the company lawyers dicker with him.” 

“How’s business, otherwise?”

“Great, George. Gas: that’s the coming thing. Every new home’s being piped for it, and plenty of the old ones. How about you?” 

“We got it. Luckily we had one of the old Linotypes that ran the metal pot off a gas burner, so it was already piped in. And our home is right over the office and print shop, so all we had to do was pipe it up a flight. Great stuff, gas. How’s New York?” 

“Fine, George. Down to its last million people, and stabilizing there. No crowding and plenty of room for everybody. The air--why, it’s better than Atlantic City, without gasoline fumes.” 

“Enough horses to go around yet?” 

“Almost. But bicycling’s the craze; the factories can’t turn out enough to meet the demand. There’s a cycling club in almost every block and all the able-bodied cycle to and from work. Doing ‘em good, too; a few more years and the doctors will go on short rations.” 

“You got a bike?” 

“Sure, a pre-vader one. Average fifteen miles a day on it, and I eat like a horse.” 

George Bailey chuckled. “I’ll have Maisie include some hay in the dinner. Well, here we are. Whoa, Bessie.” 

An upstairs window went up, and Maisie looked out and down. She called out, “Hi, Pete!”

“Extra plate, Maisie,” George called. “We’ll be up soon as I put the horse away and show Pete around downstairs.” He led Pete from the barn into the back door of the newspaper shop. “Our Linotype!” he announced proudly, pointing. 

“How’s it work? Where’s your steam engine?” 

George grinned. “Doesn’t work yet; we still hand set the type. I could get only one steamer and had to use that on the press. But I’ve got one on order for the Lino, and coming up in a month or so. When we get it, Pop Jenkins, my printer, is going to put himself out of a job teaching me to run it. With the Linotype going, I can handle the whole thing myself.” 

“Kind of rough on Pop?” 

George shook his head. “Pop eagerly awaits the day. He’s sixty-nine and wants to retire. He’s just staying on until I can do without him. Here’s the press—a honey of a little Miehle; we do some job work on it, too. And this is the office, in front. Messy, but efficient.” 

Mulvaney looked around him and grinned. “George, I believe you’ve found your niche. You were cut out for a small-town editor.” 

“Cut out for it? I’m crazy about it. I have more fun than everybody. Believe it or not, I work like a dog, and like it. Come on upstairs.” 

On the stairs, Pete asked, “And the novel you were going to write?”

“Half done, and it isn’t bad. But it isn’t the novel I was going to write; I was a cynic then. Now--“ 

“George, I think the waveries were your best friends.” 

“Waveries?” “Lord, how long does it take slang to get from New York out to the sticks? The vaders. of course. Some professor who specializes in studying them described one as a wavery place in the ether, and ‘wavery’ stuck--Hello there, Maisie, my girl. You look like a million.” 

They ate leisurely. Almost apologetically, George brought out beer, in cold bottles. “Sorry, Pete, haven’t anything stronger to offer you. But I haven’t been drinking lately. Guess--“ 

“You on the wagon, George?” 

“Not on the wagon, exactly. Didn’t swear off or anything, but haven’t had a drink of strong liquor in almost a year. I don’t know why, but--“ 

“I do,” said Pete Mulvaney. “I know exactly why you don’t--because I don’t drink much either, for the same reason. We don’t drink because we don’t have to--say, isn’t that a radio over there?” 

George chuckled. “A souvenir. Wouldn’t sell it for a fortune. Once in a while I like to look at it and think of the awful guff I used to sweat out for it. And then I go over and click the switch and nothing happens. Just silence. Silence is the most wonderful thing in the world, sometimes, Pete. Of course I couldn’t do that if there was any juice, because I’d get vaders then. I suppose they’re still doing business at the same old stand?” 

“Yep, the Research Bureau checks daily. Try to get up current with a little generator run by a steam turbine. But no dice; the vaders suck it up as fast as it’s generated.” 

“Suppose they’ll ever go away?” 

Mulvaney shrugged. “Helmetz thinks not. He thinks they propagate in proportion to the available electricity. Even if the development of radio broadcasting somewhere else in the Universe would attract them there, some would stay here--and multiply like flies the minute we tried to use electricity again. And meanwhile, they’ll live on the static electricity in the air. What do you do evenings up here?” 

“Do? Read, write, visit with one another, go to the amateur groups--Maisie’s chairman of the Blakestown Players, and I play bit parts in it. With the movies out everybody goes in for theatricals and we’ve found some real talent. And there’s the chess-and-checker club, and cycle trips and picnics--there isn’t time enough. Not to mention music. Everybody plays an instrument, or is trying to.” 

“You?” 

“Sure, cornet. First cornet in the Silver Concert Band, with solo parts. And--Good Heavens! Tonight’s rehearsal, and we’re giving a concert Sunday afternoon. I hate to desert you, but--“ 

“Can’t I come around and sit in? I’ve got my flute in the brief case here, and--“ 

“Flute? We’re short on flutes. Bring that around and Si Perkins, our director, will practically shanghai you into staying over for the concert Sunday and it’s only three days, so why not? And get it out now; we’ll play a few old timers to warm up. Hey, Maisie, skip those dishes and come on in to the piano!” 

While Pete Mulvaney went to the guest room to get his flute from the brief case, George Bailey picked up his cornet from the top of the piano and blew a soft, plaintive little minor run on it. Clear as a bell; his lip was in good shape tonight. And with the shining silver thing in his hand he wandered over to the window and stood looking out into the night. 

It was dusk out and the rain had stopped. A high-stepping horse clop-clopped by and the bell of a bicycle jangled. Somebody across the street was strumming a guitar and singing. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The scent of spring was soft and wet in the moist air. Peace and dusk. Distant rolling thunder. God damn it, he thought, if only there was a bit of lightning. He missed the lightning.