Young Wizards of the Airwaves I have a striking photograph of Grandfather taken about this time. He is dark-haired with a full mustache, its ends waxed and curling upwards. His firm and determined face is softened by a gentleness in his bright, dark-brown eyes. " W.K ." was vital, energetic and fun-loving. He was always trying new ideas and business ventures; so much so he became a legend in his own lifetime. In the early days of fox-ranching when PEI was known as the "Silver Fox Capital of the World", he made and lost a million dollars in fox-breeding. He also spearheaded the drive to build the new Prince Edward Island Hospital. He was among those who pioneered the advent of the motor car on the Island, earning himself the nickname "Good Roads Rogers", when he organized gangs of fellow enthusiasts to work to improve the Island's clay roads. The locals said "if there's any sort of pie around, you can bet W.K . has his finger in it." I write at length about Grandfather because in many ways Dad was so much like him. Dad inherited his father's tenacity and idealism. But it was an idealism tempered with a strong streak of practicality which always stood him in good stead. Dad was a quiet, reflective child with a head full of bright ideas. Grandmother said when he was a little boy he was as quiet as a little Methodist minister. Grandfather's preoccupations with his many businesses allowed my father enough elbow room to develop his own individuality. My father's interest in the new "wireless" technology of radio was not shared by my grandfather. It was preposterous to Grandfather that electrical signals could be transmitted from point "A" to point "B" through thin air. After all, as a frontier telegrapher, he had witnessed, first hand, the backbreaking work of stringing thousands of miles of telegraph lines from one end of the country to the other. And now, there was this young scallywag wasting time trying to pull in and transmit through thin air, not only Morse code, but also the human voice and even music. For Grandfather, it was steel rail for trains and steel wire for telegraph. "Nothing good will ever come from this wireless nonsense, Keith. Wireless? Ha! We're simply tangled up in wires. Look at them," he would say. It was true. The house and family seemed to be tangled up in miles