Chapter 7: The Weekend

We ate supper. It was another great meal of a hearty beef stew. Over dinner, Gail said, “I am preparing a big batch of homemade soup for lunch and supper tomorrow. Do you have any items on your ‘to do’ list for tomorrow?”

“Nothing, really, until Sunday morning for Sunday school and church. After that, I might watch the Falcons but there’s no guarantee. I am open to other possibilities.”

“I will have to think about that. What about tomorrow?”

“I have plans to do nothing. I do that really well.” I grinned.

She grinned back. “Could we play on the radio?”

“Sure, I avoid getting on when there’s a storm with thunder and lightning but that’s the only thing that gives me pause. My antennas are in trees and I haven’t drawn a strike yet but I try not to tempt fate.”

“I don’t think you ever do, Todd.”

I didn’t respond. We sat quietly through the evening and watched the late news and weather. The forecast fit mine. We went to our beds to sleep.

Saturday morning, I woke to bright sunshine. Everything outside glistened. I pulled on shorts and went into the kitchen to start coffee. On the way, I went into the radio room to look at local conditions from my weather station. I thought we might be in the clear through today and some of tomorrow. It looked like this first storm had blown through the area. After that, I worried. It would remain cold.

I went into my bedroom and cleaned up. In the kitchen was Gail just starting to cook. She said, “Sausage biscuits for breakfast. Do you want mustard on them.”

I grinned. “That sounds better than getting the squeeze bottle out of the fridge for each bite.”

“Smart aleck.”

I grinned some more. “Better a smart aleck than a dumb aleck.”

We sat down to eat after I blessed the meal.

Gail said, “Todd, what’s the plan for today?”

“My plan is to do as little as possible. I thought I would get on the radio a while including two meters. That’s more local and we can determine if there is anything useful for us to do. I see no reason for us to go out and add to the confusion unnecessarily.”

“That sounds good. Is there any football today?”

“I don’t think so. Nothing local on the college front. The Falcons play tomorrow after church.”

“Todd, you’ve said that a couple of times like hinting at me. Obviously, you go to church.”

“And Sunday school. I enjoy the opportunity to worship.”

“I would like to go with you if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. Gail, I hoped you would be interested. I don’t think you went while in your old living situation.”

“Actually, I hadn’t attended since just before marrying Carl. I had been irregular before that but, after the divorce, well, divorced women are not welcome in some Baptist churches. At least, that’s true at the one where I grew up. I never tried around here. I just didn’t go at all. None of my roommates did either.”

“The Methodists will welcome you. The biggest issue will be explaining our current living situation. People will want to draw the wrong conclusions. Even then, you would still be welcomed. My Sunday school class’s name is ‘People without Partners.’ All are divorced or in the midst of one. There are a few genuine singles there because they don’t fit anywhere else in their minds.”

“It sounds good, Todd. What time do we leave tomorrow morning?”

“About nine thirty. We might catch lunch with some of the others in the class. It happens on a regular basis.”

She nodded. She had finished eating and began cleaning plates off and loading the dishwasher. I helped, refilled my coffee, and led off to the radio room. Once in there, I flipped switches to turn everything on.

I kept a two meter radio and had included it when turning things on. While the HF had static, the two meter was sounding with a local emergency net. I said, “Let’s listen. I think it’s in full emergency mode so it isn’t taking check-ins or providing for rag chewing.”

We listened to hear that my assumption was correct. The net control was only taking damage reports from mobiles. It appeared that there was a lot of damage. It also appeared that there were a number of people out reporting. I continued to listen while I said, “Gail, that is an emergency net. Since we don’t have anything to report, we have nothing to say. We’ll continue to listen while I check out the Georgia frequencies on eighty meters.”

There was a Georgia ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Services) net operating. In listening to it, there didn’t seem to be much going on. Most services had connections and had their internet connections to GEMA. Most of the activity seemed to be local.

I shifted bands to forty meters and tuned to the Treasure Coasters which was just beginning. Mark was asking for check-ins and I said, “Gail, why don’t you check us in and talk today?”

She nodded eagerly. At the appropriate spot, she said, “This is Gail with KA4D as control operator.”

Mark greeted her warmly adding my call to the list. At eight, he went through his preamble and then started the rotation. Just as he started, I said, “Note the outside temp. Mark really likes that. You could describe the weather, too.” She nodded.

I watched her face and her body’s movements as we waited. I sipped my coffee, too. Neither of us were over-dressed. The house was warm and we had shorts and tee shirts though I noticed that her tee shirt looked better than mine. I liked the way she filled it out.

I was feeling reflective at the moment thinking that you couldn’t live in close proximity to someone for days without getting to know them and either developing a dislike or a like for them. I decided that Gail was easy to like. After all, we were already friends before she moved in. I enjoyed listening to her speak. She had a pleasant voice directed by an intelligent mind.

“Todd, Todd, are you awake?”

“Yes. I was just thinking. Why?”

“Did I report in well to Mark?”

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t listening. What did Mark say?”

“He said that I sounded better than you did on sunny days even when I was giving a report of bad weather.”

I chuckled. “Mark’s right. I’m sure you did fine. I wouldn’t have drifted if I didn’t think you would do well.”

“What were you thinking about?”

I stopped for a moment but then decided to stick with the truth. “I was thinking that I really like having you around. I was thinking that you had a pleasant voice directed by an intelligent mind.”

She grinned. “Even for a four foot tall engineer with buck teeth and heavy glasses?”

“Uh, I’m not going to go there.” Mark called for her. “You’re up.”

She handled the transmission well with some humor and thoughtfulness.

When the net ended, I tuned back to eighty meters and the Geritol net frequency. There was an emergency net going on on that frequency for some reason. Usually, thirty-nine ninety-five only had rag chews and rag chew nets. I listened a moment and realized that it was an alternate group for extreme north Georgia where there were more serious communication problems for the local governments to reach anywhere.

“Gail, we won’t have much to do today on the radio. There are some problems for other communications creating a need for hams to operate. We don’t have anything to report and aren’t tightly connected to emergency services. We can listen but it’s doubtful that we’ll be needed to do anything.”