1959 Oceanic Pirate 2

I had been dating this woman Christine, on and off, for a couple of years, and while she was generally good natured and of pleasant temperament, she had, of late, increased the amount of jokes and barbs referencing the fact that most of the Uber Eats drivers knew me by name and that I had only filled my gas tank once in three months.

Her point was well taken - I was, to be sure, a bit of a homebody and frankly, did not like to leave my radios alone for extended periods of time. I wasn't worried, like with Lewberg’s dog, that left too long they might defecate on the carpet, but they could be temperamental nonetheless. So you can only imagine her joy and unbridled excitement which, to be fair only appeared after hours of hardcore scepticism, when I told her we were taking a vacation to Europe. In hindsight, I can see how the choice of the word ‘vacation’ might have been misconstrued. Also, and this one is on me, I probably should not have offered the hint that we were going to see one of the most famous towers in Europe.

Like I said, that one is on me.

My brother was late to his support of my radio collecting. While he too thought I was out of my mind, he decided, unlike the rest of my friends and family, not to humor me. He thought my time might be better spent running my business, in which he is a partner, rather than buying ring lights and filming thirty second clips of Frank Sinatra belting out songs from a 1952 Zenith. But seeing that he was going to be virtually alone in opposition and also realizing that his daughters were jumping in with both feet - gratefully and gracefully accepting first and then second radios, he decided to join the party. A radio, he proffered, might look good in the office.

I knew exactly what I was going to get him. He had long admired the Oceanic Surcouf that graced my living room in Florida. It was a stunning 1957 art deco piece which had been upgraded into a Bluetooth speaker. My brother, to his credit, wanted to use it as both decoration and as an everyday speaker. The sound quality was surprisingly good. I had acquired the piece from a shop in Venice which specialized in these retrofits. I spent hours on their website and finally narrowed it down to an Oceanic Pirate 2 and a very rare Pathe 450. Both French from the 1950’s, and both absolutely stunning. Unable to choose, I decided to buy them both with the thought that I would take the one he liked the least.

Spoiler alert. He kept both.

Sharing my love of radios gives me immense pleasure, and so when they arrived, I asked him to take some pictures and also a few videos so I could post them on my website and YouTube. I asked for a close-up of the dial because I had, of late, developed a keen interest in the names of towns and cities displayed on these European radios. He very kindly obliged me. I then spent some time pouring over the pictures and comparing them to my very own Surcouf, and also to those of the Czechoslovakian made Tesla I owned.

I make no apologies. I like geography and I like history. I was the same when I collected stamps.

From time to time, my friend Steve will drive up and play golf with me and my friend Florida Phil. As Steve is a very slow driver and anticipates a certain amount of traffic, he generally arrives long before our appointed time. He will sometimes swim some laps, make some calls, answer emails, and then quietly and unobtrusively eat his daily lunch of a peanut butter sandwich and Greek yoghurt. This will leave him still with about 45 minutes to spare so this is when he says “any new radios?”

There is a good chance he will have left himself a note reminding himself to ask me about radios, and also a decent chance that his wife, Fern, might have called out as he left the house reminding him too. I think he was genuinely interested but I didn’t really care because the number of people wanting to talk to me about radios was decreasing, so I took any opportunity I could.

Although a number of radios had arrived since he was last here I especially wanted to share the pics and radios which depicted cities and towns because Steve was also passionate about history and geography. Since he already had his nose in his phone, I texted him the close-up pics Dov, my brother, had sent me of the Oceanic and the Pathe.

“Have you even heard of all of these places?” His face was scrunched up a little, and if our friend Jeff were to walk in the room he would have said “it looks like Sof just missed a two-foot putt.”

It was true. He looked like he had just missed a two-foot putt.

Because, when he said “have you even heard of all of these places,” what he really meant was ‘I haven't even heard of all of these places.’

Which was, as Wallace Shawn so delicately emoted in the Princess Bride, well, to him, it was inconceivable.

I opened my phone to look at the same photo he was looking at.

Here it is:

For about half a second, I harbored a sense of superiority because, as a French speaker, I suspected the French-made Oceanic would have localized French-language versions of some towns and cities, and this was perhaps what was confusing Steve. But no, even less well travelled folks than Steve would deduce that Bruxelles was Brussels. No, these were places I had never heard of.

So we looked them up.

Hilversum was a town in the Netherlands.

Beromunster was a town in a small canton in Switzerland.

And Sottens, there on the first row wedged in between Rome, Tunis and Paris, was also a town in Switzerland.

So now, I know what you are thinking. Because I would be thinking the same thing. ‘Look at these narrow minded, sanctimonious, full-of-themselves, American-centric jerks .’ Maybe not all of you are thinking that. But I would be.

Those towns to Europeans are very likely what Akron is to an American, or what St. Catharines is to a Canadian.

But we weren't convinced. We were, we thought smugly, too smart. So we dug a little deeper.

That is to say, we checked out Wikipedia.

Now I understand that Wikipedia is considered the low hanging fruit of the ‘things you can make fun of’ category. But oh, what delicious, aromatic, sweet and juicy fruit it is.

The last entry for Sottens was done in 2008. I guess there has been no need for an update in 15 years.

According to Wikipedia, the name was first mentioned in 1147 as Sotens. It has since added a T.

The population in 2008 was 257.

It was a fairly long entry for a town with only 257 people.  Whoever wrote it was very precise about the population. Apparently, in that year, there had been 4 births of Swiss citizens and two deaths of Swiss citizens. So the population of Swiss citizens in Sottens increased by 2. ‘At the same time, there was a non-Swiss man who emigrated to another country.’ Ungrateful foreigner! It went on for five or six paragraphs outlining , in detail, other aspects of the demographics. In truth, the entry only required one line.

Because Sottens you see, in addition to having acquired an extra T to its name in the last 1000 years, also acquired what is the largest radio transmitter in all of Europe. Which is why its name appears on all these radios.

And then Steve said “ You should go. It would make a good story. And I said “yeah, I should.”

This is when Christine  walked into the room and I turned to her and said “ Hey, do you want to go to Europe and see a very famous tower?”

Now of course you all know that I did not go to Sottens. But I did, one afternoon, to the Boca Mall to get my iPhone fixed.

Turns out  people, least of all Christine, don’t want to go to Sottens no matter how many t’s it has. 

After that, we dated more off than on.

Then only off.

I don’t show Steve any more radios.

The End.