Pirate Radio

I noted last week that amongst my lost posts was the movie review for Pirate Radio, the short of it: skip this work of fiction - reality was far more exciting and a whole lot less Haute Culture-ish.  But, that is not what this post is about, even though it is entitled as such.

It was fall 1964, a lanky 5'6" German was removed from his life with his Danish great-uncle on a dairy to a small town on the French, Lux, Flemish borders.  My father had worked his way out of weapons design to implementation, hence our relocation.  For me it was death.  I was 10, on the eve of my teen years, many would say I had already been there for months, if not a year.  I did not speak French, I spoke Yiddish, German and English.  I had nothing in common with anyone in my new village.  Most were laborers for the national train network; anyone with an artist bent or dairy background was not going to fit in - and my parents could not understand my "problems".

My first job was to crawl into the third floor rafters of our 1700's home and string 1.5 miles of copper wire (liberated from the the local NATO base trash) then attach this to my radio.  It kept me from my family, it hid me, it gave me safety in the darkness of the roof.  No fights up there, but once back out, everyone was in my face, no one understood.

But on my shortwave radio, there were those whom did, the disc jockeys of 199, on the medium wave band.  Faceless, but they understood teenagers, they understood music, they understood who and where I was.  They became my family, since I had been forcibly removed my mine to even be here.  They gave comfort, they gave advice, they were transparent adults - talking about life, love and the universe.  It made sense.  It was all I had.

Radio Caroline was a fishing trawler anchored off the Manx coast.  Outfitted with a127' antenna array, it primarily broadcast to southern England but by spill over, those of us with a good radio and antenna matrix, could get it as well.  I listened to them loyally from start up through the wave-length wars with the British Government, numerous winter storms, their relocation to off the Dutch coast and initial shutdown by Dutch bankers for non-payment for their equipment.  Unfortunately, their restart would come after I was now relocated to utter death as a human in the swamps of South Carolina in 1969.  But my shortwave continued to keep me occupied.  And, Caroline was never the same.

As I watched the film last week, I saw that the movie had nothing to offer me - I had lived that history, I knew it by heart.  I had loved Radio Caroline, I knew their ship names, the DJ's, their history, every one of the jingles - including those they did not include in the movie.  Things which I can never lose as long as my brain still functions.  So, the film goes away, the memories stay...

And as I remembered those years, I continued even further back in my mind and considered my nature.  Was I ever normal?  Had I been broken by something but once was normal?  Was I healing now or was this truly a gift of God?  Could I remember, now as an adult, and review my early years?  And the answer surprised me.