Ok, I was going to wait until my fiftieth anniversary, but now I'm inspired.

I had been interested in ham radio since I was little.  My uncle, K9MYQ took 
me down to his shack and demonstrated ham radio when I was in kindergarten 
or first grade, I remember he had a Viking Valiant working AM.

At the Michigan School for the Blind we had a radio club.  Guys from the 
Oldsmobile Ham Club used to come and teach us.  At about the time I wrote my 
Novice test, I fractured my ankle and at the hospital, an x-ray tech was a 
new Novice.  He loaned me a GR-91 Heathkit receiver, and I had gotten a 
DX-35 transmitter with cathode keying.  When I got my wn8nhw call on July 9, 
1964, I was pretty much ready to get on the air.  I remember waking my 
parents up at 1 or 2 in the morning because I got up early to be able to 
work California on 40 meters.  The other thing I remember so much was that 
damned cathode keying circuit; if you put your hand on the straight key and 
missed, you could get a decent 75-volt poke.

I met several local hams by working them on 7161 or 7169, those were my two 
main crystals on 40.  One of them had an old 1951 MG that my older sister 
ended up buying.  He also had a cool National NC-303 receiver.  On November 
13, 1964, I got a re-conditioned NC-300 receiver from World Radio Labs, and 
I had that until the late 70's.

I didn't pass my Conditional in the first year, so my call expired.  I 
finally got my Conditional in 1966 at age 11.  I was excited to work voice 
for a short while.  I got a Viking Invader that ran around 200 watts PEP and 
25 watts on AM.  I worked my uncle a few times on AM and I remember working 
a guy in Pittsburgh.  We had talked for an hour or so and as we were 
exchanging our 73's, he said "you know, this is the best QSO I've ever had 
with a YL."  He obviously thought my handle was Eve instead of Steve.  For 
several years after that, until puberty took over, I ran almost exclusively 
CW, except when talking to friends.

I well remember those days, the battle between SSB which was taking over but 
there were still a lot of AM-ers left.  I also remember in 1970 or 71, 
running across some new novices that were my age or a bit younger.  They 
were sending so fast, I couldn't copy them and I thought I was a good CW op. 
No damn Novice was going to be sending CW faster than I could copy.  So, I 
built my speed up to theirs, and we used to get on 80 meters for several 
years at around 45 WPM.  One member of that group of Novices is a pretty 
famous contester now, formerly WA2ICU, he is now N2IC.

Funny story about Steve.  I met some hams from Kalamazoo before I went to 
University of Michigan Law School.  I was talking with Dave and Tim one 
night and telling the story of these Novices.  He said "Hey, don't you know 
who Steve WA2ICU is?  He's N2IC."  I had been talking to him quite a bit on 
the Ann Arbor repeater, as he was getting a Master's in Electrical 
Engineering partially paid for by his employer.  I had also gotten rid of my 
old Conditional call, having since upgraded to Extra with my now-current 
K8SP call, so he didn't know who I was. So, the next time I heard him on the 
air, I said "WA2ICU...I mean N2IC."  He said "how did you know my old call?" 
So, I told him and we met at a bar to have an eyeball over a couple beers.

I guess the only other funny story I'll tell is I bought an IC-751 when I 
was living in Spokane.  I met my wife out there who is also blind.  She had 
an old Drake 2B as a teenager and had been a bit interested in ham radio 
from knowing some of the blind hams in Seattle.  She went down to the 
Handi-Hams camp and went from nothing to her General in a week.  So for her 
birthday the following year, I gave her a narrow CW filter for the IC-751, 
which is something I really wanted myself.

She is one of the hundreds of thousands of inactive hams now.  I think she 
is worried about how people will react to the fact that she is so 
inexperienced as an operator yet has a General license.  One day, she had a 
CW QSO on 20 meters when we still lived in Spokane.  She talked with a guy 
for about fifteen minutes and was glad when she exchanged 73's.  A guy from 
Yugoslavia called her back, and she wouldn't respond, she'd had enough of 
hamming except for using the OIC2AT on two meters.  Yes, Kevin, that was a 
nice HT for its time.  I still have one although I'm not sure what condition 
the batteries are in now.

Steve, K8SP
Lansing, Pure Michigan