Weekday
The weekly feature page of the University Daily Kansan November 10,1978
The good buddies are 10-8, in service, on the air, right here in River City, the CB handle for Lawrence.
They've got antennas in their yards and on their homes that scatter their CB slang from big base units with chromed mikes.
They want to get out, sounding bodacious, and keeping out of the mud. The CBers will be heard, 10-4?
New! "Bluegrass" jerome was the first president of the River City CBers club. He's retired from that position and from his job as a piano tuner, but he still tunes in on the CB.
"They call me 'ootin' tootin' Newton" sometimes, and I'm on the air four to five hours every day. After 7 a.m. I’m one of the sick, the lame and the lazy just talking on my CB." — Bluegrass.
--it's the "silver lippop," the best of the base microphones. Just by pressing the bar, called "keying down," a CBer is instanty in touch with someone on one of 40 CB channels.
--it's the "silver lippop," the best of the base microphones. Just by pressing the bar, called "keying down," a CBer is instanty in touch with someone on one of 40 CB channels.
"I don't know that much about radios, I just key down and talk. I don't mess with my radio, it'll knock you or your bautt and don't think it won't." — High Roller
Next Jerome, whose CB radio handle is Bluegrass, says he chose that moniker because he used to play lots of bluegrass.
Now he plays with his radios, all $3,000 worth. His equipment includes an entry desk and a set of headphones in a radio shack. When he bought his new radio, he had to have one room for his
More than 1,000 "QSL" cards—postcards acknowledging a radio conversation—paper the walls of Bluegrass's radio shack
Besides CB contacts, Bluegrass says he also talks on a ham radio, and he's made contact with fellow radio enthusiasts in all 50 states and 28 foreign countries.
"It's a hobby," he says, "in which I get to talk to complete strangers."
But Bluegrass still gets up early every
marning, he says, to talk to his good buddies in River City, other Lawrence Clerks. He chats with them over coffee, while many of them are on their way is work in the city.
"I razz them about going to work," he says, "because I don't go to work any more."
But it's not all play. Bluegrass said he has relayed a lot of 10-35s, emergencies, to authorities. And he's given people directions, sometimes driving out to the highway to show a lost trucker the way to his delivery terminal.
All in a day's work for a good buddy
Gilbert Tolbert, alias Soul Brother, is another good buddy.
Soul Brother, who weighs 300 pounds,
even has a CB unit on his garden tractor.
"I cut a lot of grass for older people," he
says, "and I wanted my wife to be able to get hold of me when she had to.
"Usually, I'm just cutting the grass and living up to my other bundle—bucket mouth—a guy who talks a lot."
Thelma Bower, whose handle is High Roller, says she used to sit out in the cold in her car until she got her base unit.
Now it's in her kitchen, where she presumes most of her time. Her husband told her there wouldn't be enough room for both him and a CB base, but today he has
"I like to talk to all the guys," she says,
"and play the fool with them.
"But when you can help somebody in trouble, it makes you feel really good. That's what those radios are for, helping people."
Ruby "Speedy McGreedy" Jackson, a shut-in confined to a wheelchair, uses a CB for companionship. Jackson calls CBers 'grand people' and says she has never met one she did not like.
"Some nights I can't sleep, you know, the pain. So I get on the CB and jabber and that helps."
—Speedy McGreedy
Taking a break from yard work, Gilbert "Soul Brother" Tolbert relaxes next to his CB-equipped garden tractor. He also has radios in his home, garage, track and car
trained to "Hay Rake," a farmer who has a CB on his big tractor once. I was cutting grass on my tractor in town while he was cutting hay out in the valley. — Soul Brother
Photos by Alan Zlotky and Trish Lewis Story by John P. Tharp