Sorry Bozo good buddy: CB radio is still relevant

Sorry Bozo good buddy: CB radio is still relevant

Posted on Sep 8, 2007 in News & Views by PMC 2 Comments

Leonard Martinez / El Paso Times

Every once in a while it’s good to do things old-school style.

Talking in Internet chat rooms can be so cold, but talking on a CB radio — arguably one of the first social chat rooms — lets you hear the emotions in conversation that you can’t see chat rooms.

You can really hear if somebody is LOL.

I bought a CB radio last year for a road trip, and the day before the trip I realized all the work it required for hook up and never did it. So, I sold it to a friend, who installed it in his Jeep Cherokee.

Truck drivers, the main people who use CB radio, help each other out.

You can hear them warn others to stay out of certain lanes while driving through El Paso because of an accident. One driver was talking about the long haul he was making from Albuquerque to South Texas, delivering supplies to help rebuild from an expected hurricane hit.

The CB can also be used for business. Several times a day, you can hear a guy shilling a special tour of Juárez.

He sounds like an old-time carnival barker, telling the drivers to go to the bridge to meet for the tour.

You also hear their conversations, which have nothing to do with driving.

A few weeks ago, one of the national lotteries was more than $200 million, and the truck drivers were talking about what they would do with that kind of money. One said he’d get a divorce; another said he’d only take care of his brother and screw the rest of his family.

Then he added that the only thing he would do for the rest of his family is buy them burial plots. I’d like to think that didn’t mean he would kill them, but you never know.In another conversation, they talked about how close the homes are in Mexico, just across from Paisano near UTEP.

One joked the homes are so close a person that can lean out of his house window and turn out his neighbor’s light.

During a recent road trip to Los Angeles, I decided to try to help my new pals, the truckers, by giving them an update on why traffic was backed up both ways between Phoenix and Tucson.

The CB crackled with truck drivers talking smack about the traffic slowing for rubberneckers gawking at a run-of-the-mill accident. Clearly these truckers had not come upon it. Law enforcement and emergency personnel were tending to the crash.

I saw two bodies covered by blankets. I also saw a child seat. I got on the CB and relayed the seriousness of the accident. The next day, I found out on the Internet that the victims were a 50-year-old man and his 5-year-old daughter.

Not everything you hear on CB is so serious. While in Los Angeles, we used the CB to make sure we found our restaurant. My pals used the CB to spout their favorite lines from movies about the Vietnam war.

Putting a CB radio in my car still seems like a lot of work, so maybe I’ll get one in the home like Kevin Smith in the “Live Free or Die Hard” movie.

When society collapses, I’ll have some nice conversations with my new pals. Just don’t tell them that I’m not a truck driver and that I really don’t have a gruff voice.