OUT OF THIN AIR

block, except for one thing. Around the back on the second floor was a small verandah of the type housewives used to shake their mops and mats from. Perched precariously on this was a strange contraption in a large black iron frame about five feet high by about three feet across. This was what Dad called the “spark transformer”. The door to the back porch was always locked so that we children would not have the unhappy fate of being electrocuted.

At the back of the house Dad had a room called his “wireless shack” and early in the morning and far into the night the clack—clickity—clack- clack of that spark coil transmitter shattered the air, while a brilliant blue spark arced and sputtered from one contact to another. In the dark it could be seen from a mile away. People were frightened of it, and there were ominous murmurings about it being the work of the devil.

On the average of once a week somebody would call the fire station. With bells ringing, children scattering and dogs barking, the fire engine with its leaping firemen would screech to the house. But the only fire there ever was, was in the heated words that would ensue between Dad and the Chief. Then off the engine would go again, careening into the night just as noisily as it had come. After a while the firemen refused to answer any calls to our home. “Just that nut Rogers and his damn blue spark”, they’d say. I’m sure if we’d ever had a real fire, the house would have burned to the ground without the benefit of city water or the Charlottetown Volunteer Fire Brigade.

Through all of this my mother remained undismayed. Her worries

were concentrated on whatever church she happened to be playing the organ in on Sunday, or on choir practice, funerals or weddings. the idea that the house might be consumed in flames never entered her mind. She diligently banked her small earnings from her work as an organist as survival money. It was her answer to the steady drain on our finances as Dad got more and more into radio.

Our house hummed. It vibrated, it clattered. It was full of excite— ment, music and strange noises. It abounded with Dad’s radio apparatus—we grew up with microphones, control boards, wires, trans— formers and bits of this and that as naturally as with our toys. At night, after a day of selling insurance, Dad would be building wireless sets for sale. Eventually the living room of that house evolved into what became known as “our Bayfield Street Studio”. It was from here that regular radio broadcasts were transmitted between the years 1926-1928. But before he could accomplish this, he had been experimenting for

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