Dark summer evening years
ago at 2 Merrall Drive, Lawrence, I remember hearing for the very first time interlineated squeals, yawns,
buzzing and squawks of short wave
radio. I was about 6 or 7 and spending time on the high roof terrace of my grandfather’s house in
the company of my uncle Stephen. He was
still in
college then at Brown and I can’t
remember whether
the radio was his or my grandfather
Martin’s. Stephen
was actually my step-uncle, my mother’s
step-brother, although the significance of this wasn’t apparent to me then.
The radio bursts – quickly, loudly, softly, slowly, often dramatically spoken words in Russian, German, English, French, perhaps Chinese – spun
like a web and were unforgettably exciting. When Stephen explained what I was
hearing and let me adjust the dial myself,
I felt connected to the universe for the first time & also a personage.
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Around then I
began
to hear murmurs – from my parents’ bedroom
at night, at cousins' house visits, during seen-but-not-heard restaurant family gatherings – why we hated Stephen and his mother. These
conversations meant nothing to me at
the time -- they were only slightly confusing white noise -- and 50 years later still
don’t. Nothing ever was explained in
subject-predicate detail and I have been forced on several very awkward occasions to inform people really wanting to know and understand me, including my wife and daughter, that I really didn’t
know my relatives well.
