K8KDR belonged to Lawrence Bowman of Toledo, Ohio. I don't even know what class of license he held but it had to be a General or better. Larry was a projectionist by trade - it seems that any movie theater that wanted to spin a movie had to have a projectionist in the booth (some kind of union thing I think), I always thought that was kind of funny. I don't even know if they have projectionists anymore. Larry is now a silent key.

I met Larry when I was kid. I used to climb the fence in his backyard and then climb onto his garage roof. He really didn't like that very much, and he'd always come out to explain it to us (ha, ha). One thing led to another and we kind of hit it off. Although he tried to get me to become a ham, back when Generals and better could license a Novice (remember that?), my heart just wasn't in it. It took 20 years till I got my ticket, I was too interested in CB radios and stuff. Now that I have my ticket I sure wish I'd have spent more time talking to him about amateur radio - I think he had probably forgotten more than I know. He was from the 'old school' - not the current crop of appliance operators (myself included). Most of his shack was commercial gear, but he knew what made things tick and how to keep them ticking. I want to say he had a set of Drake twins but I'm not sure.

Larry had this strange way of putting his tongue between his teeth and lip, this would make his lower lip stick out, kind of like he was chewing tobacco. Whenever you saw this, you knew something profound was about to come out of his mouth. He drove around town in this big green chevy, it looked like an old folks car. He would pull up next to some kid in a souped up thing and look over and rev the engine; of course, the kid would take the challenge and Larry would just leave him like he was standing still. He had the biggest 4-barrel V8 in that car that was ever made. This car had a hood like a football field and underneath was nothin' but engine, he had a lot of fun doing that to the 'young pups' as he called them.

So, when I got my ticket and found out that the FCC would give me just about any call sign I wanted, it only seemed fitting to put K8KDR back on the air.