It was 48 years ago today I made my first contact as a novice.  I was at the 
school for the blind when my mom called from home on a Monday afternoon and 
told me my ticket came.  I had her repeat the call sign a dozen times to be 
sure.  I had been walking to our regular Monday after school student council 
meeting.  I was representing the 9th grade, and the office secretary called 
out the office door as I passed by going to the library for the meeting. 
She said, "Phil.  You have a phone call."  The only person who called me at 
school was generally my uncle in Kansas but this time it was my mom with the 
good news.  I hunt up the phone, and spun around and took a step to the open 
office door.  Our superintendent was a nice guy and although he was not a 
ham, he made sure we always had good equipment, unless one of our radios was 
down for repair, but he called out and said, "Hey, Phil.  You got your 
license."  It wasn't a question.  I was so out of it, I just grunted a yes, 
and ran down the hall to the radio room.  A couple of friends were already 
in the ham shack and one was a novice of about 3 months.  I told him to move 
over, I was getting on the air.  It took them a few seconds to believe me 
but when I threatened to dump him off the king's chair in front of the 
radio, he got the picture.  At this time, our DX60 was off the air so I used 
an A T 1 on 80 meters to make my first contact.  I was WN0ORO and my first 
countact with another guy in Nebraska and his call was WN0OHO.  We kept in 
touch for years after that.  After supper that night, I was back in the ham 
shack pounding out CQ again and having the time of my life.  To this day, 
although I only had my novice license 6 months before I took the general 
class, it was still the most fun I had as a ham.  The guy I almost dump out 
of the chair lived at home where the school for the blind was so we worked 
each other, building up our code speed, in the evenings and then when school 
was out for the summer.  We had a lot of the same crystals so we ended up 
working each other hundreds of times that summer.  We even started a 
midnight schedule which we carried on for years after getting our generals 
and could work side band.

Phil.
K0NX