I just came across this illustration from a 1950's kid book.

I thought this is just the sort of digs I'd like to live in or regularly visit.

It reminded me of the play cabin my grand Aunt Josey built for all us kids behind her place.

It was our Wendy House.

I was blessed in having her and Uncle 'Louie'.

He was a Merchant Marine. Sailed Convoys in WW2. Torpedoed yet went out again.

After the war he worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Built aircraft carriers with his bare hands.

Wadda a guy.

We were so blessed to have him Aunt Josey, and the play cabin. I'm just remembering she had some rabbits and a lamb out back too. She lived way out in the country, so she let them roam about. Then there was that 1940's rubber wading pool she's drag out for us. Any family out there remember that? She also gave us little boats made of twigs and leaves to play with.

Uncle was who I came out to when I was 16. He told me to tell him if I had a problem. 'Said, there's nothing I could do he ain't heard of or done himself. So one afternoon I went over.

He sat me down, "...It's okay just tell me" He had a way of looking stern yet loving at the same time. I said I might 'like' some of the boys at school. ...pause... He blew his top.

But for the reasons you'd think.

He said ...said my dear Uncle Louie. Said he: "...What?!!!

Is that all?!! I thought you got a girl pregnant!"

Turns our he my ma, and all my aunts knew since I was born.

They always called me, ...sensitive. Code for, ...well 'sensitive'.

Mind you my teen years like everyone's was a speeding dumpster full of flaming shit. However my family cut me slack on the Gay thing. Most seriously didn't. ...especially back then.

If they make a movie of my life, and times that scene with Uncle goes in.

That and when we saw a UFO.

I wandered outside today. Hot but not humid...much. A mild summer predicted. Fine with me. "The sun and moon chase each other through the seasons." From a script I wrote 20 years ago. I like it because it's true. We watch as eternity drifts by carrying us and our shoes laces with it. Time is so strange. Sometimes a day is a year, and a year a day. Thank gawd for iced tea.

A FB friend mentioned she may soon be using a cane to get about. I'm now using one sometimes. Folks were already holding doors for me giving me seats on the bus, and subway. Offering to help me carry things up the stairs. Before I'd politely refuse but these days the help is welcome. My dear sister Sylvia a few years ago. She held me by the arm as she took me about for a haircut, and Easter suit make over. This thoughtful attention by those around me started in increments. The first time, a decade ago was at the movies. I'd turned 60 and they didn't ask for my ID for the Senior discount. Age is slow so are the signs. I don't mind. I find it fascinating, and sweet.

It's Memorial Day. It’s the start of the summer season. Also it’s the day we remember all of our war dead. All from every war we’ve been in. I’ve been thinking about my father, and other relations lately. Particularly about my father and uncles. This in regard to they being Negro and fighting for the racially segregated U.S. armed forces during World War Two.

There's my Dad. Sargent Alfred B. Smith United States Army Air Corps 1944. He and my Uncles were Americans defending their country. Despite everything they had suffered this was their country. As they saw it, no one, not the Klan not Hitler was gonna say it wasn’t. I’m thinking back to the 1950’s when I was a little boy, and my Dad, and my Uncles, combat vets all, towered over me like redwoods.

There was a strength even in their softest words. I felt very safe in that forest of elders. They’d come back. They were home, and were setting about to make their country, their rightful home better. They had just fought and helped to defeat the most evil powers to appear in centuries. If those forces had won I would not be here nor would many of you.

My elders never spoke openly about what they’d seen, and done. However we could see the road map of battles cut into their body’s. When at the beach I saw war scars on my Dads legs burns on an Uncle, and shrapnel wounds on another. They didn’t have to tell us we saw, and understood.

They're gone now, and I miss them all. So I say God Bless you Dad, Uncle Lee, Uncle George, Uncle Clyde, Uncle Owen. Thank you for giving us our lives, our hopes, and the World.

FB just delivered this Memory. I decided to post it as nothing has changed. It saves me the trauma of writing another. Do we even know how many police killings or the ones we do to ourselves this year? So...Once upon a time.

May 20th, 2020. Forgive me If I'm not being pulled into the latest police killing of an unarmed Black person. I've seen this before. Many many times. It always ends the same.

Hand wringing pleas that it must change sorry for the dead.

In a few days we'll move on, and forget any of this happened.

Remember when you couldn't go online without seeing a phone video of an unarmed Black being beaten or shot point blank dead. If you're my age you remember when Niggers like me were actually lynched to no mention or caring.

As I said on another comment.

I remember our cities burning, and tanks in the streets.

Like now 60 years ago or 100 years ago. The routine murder of dark skinned people by white skinned people is okay.

Age gender or infirmity isn't or ever was a sanctuary.

In recent years an 86 year old Black man in Florida,...an 11 year old Black boy in Detroit.

All unarmed all shot dead by white cops.

This is not my problem to ponder.

It's white people's crimes to repent, and make good on.

Which they never will because,...they don't have to.

I was 68 in 2018 the last time policemen roughed me up.

I was shoved about, and had a gun held on me.

This for leaving the library one winter's evening while Black.

The first time I was grabbed by white cops was 60 years earlier in 1958. My Ma sent me to the corner store for bread...Wonder bread I think I remember,...and milk for my then baby sister.

I was eight.

There was a purse snatching.

I was Colored I was there,...so I must have done it.

How were most of you doing at eight?

So please be outraged it seems to make you feel better.

Me I'm just waiting for my turn to come again.

Meantime I dream of other realities,...ones with gentle loving beings,...especially Faeries.

There there was a fast-moving storm yesterday...or was it the day before.

Flash lightning wind rain the whole works in Brooklyn.

Bob da Bunny was outside in the down pour.

On his way to the Bodega for smokes.

Bob's a Luckies man.

Sez Bob:

"Hey, I'm a mostly immortal fictional character so can smoke anything.

However, the rest of you folks.

If ya must puff, smoke Ganja. It's legal and you'll live longer."

 

Sometimes like this morning. I got up at 4am ...it's like that.

One has to put the world out of mind. Then just read or play with your toys.

My model of a British European Airways DC-3.

1/72nd Corgi scale for you diecast scale modeling fans.

 

"...Eat the Poor"

This much on my mind to the sentiment common in government now to basically abolish most of the social safety net. In particular feeding the hungry. They have a thing about the poor eating. I'm reminded of a parable told by Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.

He said his grandmother stopped him from feeding stray animals. "...they'll just reproduce". She told him to let nature take its "natural course". In other words, let the hungry stay that way. Leave them to their fate. This sums up the republican life view.

I'm on SNAP, a nice acronym for food stamps. This being newly retired, and poor. I use it to get essentials. However. there are many things you can't get. Medications transportation soap toilet paper household goods generally cooked foods cold cuts. In some states fruit bottled drinks including milk, and canned meats. Such is contempt for the poor from the right.

From the left items that offend the politically correct are wished to be added. As I've read soda candy,...Hershey products in particular, also chips, and such. Granted these things aren't healthy, but neither is not allowing medications. Not even aspirin. Being poor doesn't not exempt you from national personhood. This as the oblivious rich, and some of the more secure middle class believe. That is they decide what you will personally consume if anything.

Must I remind them the funds that keep Snap or "Food Stamps" going were paid for by the people that are using the that federal agency. It's not a charity. I worked since I was 14. I was forcibly retired at 64 paying out of proportion taxes the whole time. So yes I know the score as do tens of millions of others.

I have gone hungry since. For six months my SNAP case was closed for no reason...as a judge later said. I had to sell most of my belongings during that time just to eat. I actually stood outside of train stations selling things that were dear to me for survival. A traumatic humiliation for someone formally somewhat middle class. ...and of course I never told my family or friends. I think my meds were behind that.

I am now off that toxic hell.

Some progressive lawyers took my case, and got it restored. I paid into the federal government through all those years of taxes. In a slightly better world no one well meaning or the hateful right which means no good to anyone. None would have the right to dictate the lives/choices of others. Working for half a century, and paying taxes into what now feeds me should be without question or blame.

After all that noise I've maybe earned a Hershey bar.

Hi!

Remember me?

 

My home subway station.

I used the train to get to the post office last week.

I was stunned as to how they cleaned the system up.

It had gone to literal hell for months.

Bless the transit folks.

During the height of COVID they lost hundreds in service to us.

 

My digs smell like paint, and plaster...glue too I'm working on some model kits as well.

I figure I'll let the place settle down, and air out before I get at again.

Both the digs, and I are bleeping exhausted.

Sometimes my age catches up with me.

Still been meaning to do all this for a few years.

Only took the end of the bleeping world to get me off my damned butt!

 

 

I just came across this old illustration...from a 1950's kid book?

Anyway, looking at it. I imagined that this is just the sort of digs I'd like to either live in...or regularly visit. My grand Aunt Josey had a small play cabin for all her grand nieces, and nephews behind her house. I was blessed not only did I have her, but an amazing Uncle "Louie".

A Merchant Marine,...sailed Convoys in WW2 was torpedoed, and went out again,...he later worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Building aircraft carriers with his bare hands, Wadda a guy. Him, and Aunt Josey, and the play house she had made for us. Not like the illustration, but the same love put into it.

Speaking of family Uncle Louie is who I came out to when I was 16. I remember he told me to come to him if I had a problem. He said there's nothing I could tell him he ain't heard of or done.

So one Saturday afternoon I went over.

He could see I was in a state so he sat me down, and just said, "...had bad is it?" He had a way of looking stern, and serious yet loving all at the same time. I told him I thought I might like some of the other boys. He blew his top. ...but in an unexpected way.

He said,...said my dear Uncle Louie. He said, "...What?!!!

"Is that all?!!!,..."

"I thought you got a girl pregnant!"

Turns our he my grandma my ma, and all my aunts knew since I was born. They always called me,...sensitive. Code for,...well "sensitive".

Mind you my teen years like everyone's was hell in a speeding burning dumpster. However my family cut me slack on the Queer thing. Most I later found don't.

If I make a movie of my life, and times that scene with Uncle goes in...that, and when we all saw a UFO.

I was just reading entries from my very first blog. How much, and how little I've changed in 16 years. I was younger healthier but mostly much the same otherwise. Cranky depressed pissed off humorous wondering.

I was and am so full of fucking shit...but I mean well. That, and I somehow keep surviving. I think of how everyone sez they want to live forever. This without thinking that through.

One day it will be 50,000 years from now on a crappy Tuesday, and they'll still be here staring blankly trying to get laid. I have an actual hostility to or at least in patients with fear, and death.

Not sure why I never feared my own death, but it's consistent. I've been brutally assaulted in my youth by bullies, and cops had very serious injuries illnesses, and tried to off myself several times. Sure I was freaked out, but no fear. That was the last thing on my mind. I might have been a good cop or soldier,...maybe not. I can't hurt anyone.

I gots no wise stuff to end this. I'm just some fed up weird old guy sitting alone in da middle of the night thinking things over. The weather for example. It was fucking 90's for days. Now it's a cold wet night in May. This towards the end of a plague that's so far killed we now hear 900,000 people in this Republic. That, and it caused a Second Great Depression in fact if not name.

This ain't the 21st Century I was shown at that Worlds Fair.

We're a nation divided in half between those that believe in demented conspiracies, and Neo-Nazi politics, and those that just want to get da fuck home alive. Common place violent acts against Blacks Jews Asians Queers, and all the other usual suspects...toss in the mass shootings for laffs.

Did I mention there are now new versions of the plague loose in the world? They say the Vaccines will stop them too,...mostly. ...Life goes on. You watch ya back, and get home safe. Loves ya.

I’ve been writing about my father, and other relations lately on other pages, and boards. Mostly in regard to their being Negro and fighting for the segregated U.S. armed forces during World War Two. There he is,...Sargent Alfred Smith United States Army Air Corps 1944.

I was going to write something next week for Memorial day. It’s the start of the summer season. Also it’s the day we remember all of our war dead. All from every war we’ve been in. *This is a first draft, but I decided to post it today. I’ll post another version on the day.

*They were Americans defending their country. Despite everything they, and theirs had suffered this was their country, and no one, not the Klan, not Tojo, not Hitler was gonna say it wasn’t. I’m thinking back to the 1950’s when I was a little boy, and my Dad, and my Uncles, combat vets all, towered over me like redwoods.

There was a strength even in their softest words. I felt very safe in that forest of elders. They’d come back. They were home, and were setting about to make their country, their rightful home better. They had just fought, and helped to defeat two of the most evil powers to appear in centuries. If those forces had won I would not be here nor would most of you.

My elders never spoke openly about what they’d seen, and done. However we could see the road map of battles cut into their body’s. When at the beach I saw war scars on my Dads legs burns on one Uncle, and shrapnel wounds on another. They didn’t have to tell us we saw, and understood.

They're gone now, and I miss them all. So I say God Bless you Dad, Uncle Lee, Uncle George, Uncle Clyde, Uncle Owen. Thank you for giving us our lives, our hopes, and the World.

From my COVID Journals. May 20th, 2020

Day 64...I think.

I got up did more work on my digs.

That crack under my windowsill finally plastered.

That's the last of the spots that needed doing.

Next...

The painting. ...which I'm putting off till June.

This to give me something to do.

My bathroom part of my bedroom, and part of my kitchen.

Mind you they don't seriously need it.

However, fuck it I'm Queer.

I like my digs cute.

After that...

I guess I just sit waiting for the vaccine.

I do have bleach.

However, I use that to mop my bathroom floor.

There, and other Bio-Hazard areas.

I'm hoping #45 in one of his moments

will drink bleach oven cleaner paint thinner or prune juice.

This to show his rubes it's safe.

I like the nation would watch with interest.

Be back later.

I'm going for a walk, and to market.

Btw, and this is a real life true fact.

Just as I posted the above sentence I heard another ambulance.

This I guess for another victim.

Either sick or dead.

As I say Cuomo is full of bleep.

It is 'not' leveling off in NYC.

Maybe in the upstate hick Kluxer towns,

but sure as shit not here.

Wish me luck be back soon.

"...Kind"

About folks helping elders. I'm 72 still okay gots my marbles and can wander about. Sometimes though there a few problems. Which is why I'm so heartful when sometimes my building neighbors knock and look in on me. Making sure I'm okay and if I need anything from the store. I read it's going up to over 90f tomorrow. I remember a few summers ago, I forgot my hat and water during a heatwave walk. I was dizzy about to fall. Fortunately, I was near my local library. ...above. These are used as heat shelters in NYC. 

Two young college volunteers saw me ran over and helped me up and walked me into the building. The librarians were kind got me water. One asked if I'd like something to read. I thought and asked for the 'Portable Walt Whitman' the Penguin edition. Wasn't expecting it tho' anything like it would have been fine. In a few minutes all smiles she came back and handed me that very volume. I've been wanting to share that story. People at heart are good. 

Life is hard complicated but folks are still kind.

“…kind”

 

One can safely portal back to about 1100 CE. Earlier is risky. I went back to July 860 BCE Manhattan. Wilderness, and rather cool even though summer. The long jump froze my unit. There four days subjective time as it rebooted.

No native folks I could find.

Though they found me and were watching. I awoke on the second day to dried fish, and nuts wrapped in leaves next to me. I spent four days living, and being fed, and protected by the Mannahatta people.

I never saw the kind folks that took care of me.

The Bronx May19th 11:16am 5019~CE.

I figured that part of the City would be above water. …it was.

There above the ancient subway exit of the 241st Street Avenue stop.

I climbed the overgrown stairway to the open air, and wilderness. What remained of the city was engulfed in tropical rain forest. Much as the Inca towers before it. Giant dragonflies flew above. It was very warm and humid. No people. I assumed these were settled further inland. 3k years is time enough for successor cultures to take root. The city portions above the deeper ocean however was-is-will be inhabited. Small mammals and varieties of insects abound. I sat on a moss covered log and noted in my i-Tablet:

"...I walked this islands wilderness long before the city was built. Now I sit in it's remains after it has fallen into the sea. How brief are empires."

"...Once upon a time"

This morning I set my dark matter pocket watch, and portaled. You become as a feather on the breath of Angels. A roadside just outside of Kittery Maine. Tuesday April 27th, 1938, CE.

I thought I'd be alone.

I often like to wander the countryside of past eras. I happened on a family with car trouble. They asked if I knew about engines. I said no. I was a writer. The older lady said, "...oh for them Colored newspapers?" I said: "...in a way."
They were a farm family. We chatted about what FDR said on the radio, and how hard the past winter was. Generous they offered me some of their packed lunch. The little girl let me hold her doll. Anne Frank was very right. People really are good at heart.

"...tales of tomorrow"

I set my dark matter pocket watch and portaled.

Benson Wisconsin June 3rd, 1957, 4:02pm.

There 19 seconds' subjective time.

Today she'd be a 75 year old woman.

Her family passing on her tale of the day a man

appeared in a glowing light on her lawn.

"...There, and Back Again"

My dark matter pocket watch set to random. July 1962. A newsstand proclaims John Glenn in orbit. Jumped a generation earlier. Times Square celebrates the end of WW2. Shimmered. August 16th, 1957, 1:26 pm Jones Beach Long Island. I see my mother walking my toddler sister Silvia by the shore.

Neon blur. A bright fall afternoon. The South Tower is collapsing down upon me. Phased…Beaver Street lower Manhattan 1865. Freedmen coming and going in their first months of Freedom.

Then home. My home my ‘hood my digs. …I’m not there.

Haven’t been for some years. Winter 2068. Warm humid. People dressed for summer. The shore of the Hudson closer. Finally Central Park. October 27th, 3:02pm 1954.

There’s peace in this time in these few acres. The climate not yet visibly changed. A chill in the air the colors at peak. Wind color clouds. In my 2020's base time it would warm with no colors whatever. In this 'when' gents in fedora’s women in long dresses children in cowgirl, and cowboy outfits. I remember. I had one too. All here enjoy the peace of not knowing what’s coming, and little of what’s happened. I sat on a park bench dressed for 2022 yet as always in New York getting no notice. I slept.

“...I Love NY”

I time portaled this morning to West 38th Street Manhattan. October 9th, 1956, 1:43pm.

I was dressed in 2022 a SpaceX sweatshirt Nikes, and Ukraine flag cap. No one noticed. I love NY. I was struck by unfiltered exhausts smog from light industry which was all over the city then. Also a background radiation of cigarette smoke. In them technicolor days everyone over the age of 12 smoked like a chimney. It made me light headed.

I weaved into traffic taking the snap above. ‘Was almost hit by a '53 Hudson delivery van. The guy yelled assorted ethnic slurs, and traffic rules at me. I would have taken his portrait, but didn’t want to start a race riot. I bought a newspaper for three cents and read about the Brooklyn Dodgers.

"...Phone Home"

I have an idea for a little story. I buy an old rotary phone at a flea market. I take it home plug it in and dial my childhood phone number. My Mom answers. Time has twisted and patched me through to 1960. So there I am with my Mommy on the line. Our connection stretching 61 years. I try to speak but can't. Perhaps just knowing my Ma is on the other end is enough.

 

Sez Uncle Sid:

"This shit ain't at all what I expected!"

DVD's came a bit early as well. This in the mid 1970's along with CD's, and cheap cell phones. There are four international space stations. The Civil Rights Act which ended legal segregation in both America's came sooner in the Kennedy timeline. May 1962. There was a failed assassination attempt because of it on JFK a month later. Limited Gay Rights came in 1965.

 "Seven Earths", an Alternate History

*I wrote this in 2018-pre-COVID."

Tho' I did foresee a plague in Mexico/U.S. Southwest towards the end of the tale.

Former President John F. Kennedy who held the office from 1960 through 1968. Is seen here in a portrait taken by the BBC for his last public interview in 1992. Kennedy remembered for the events in October 1962 when the world was on a knifes edge of nuclear war.

That, and his work in overturning American racial segregation support for the space program beginning the process of banning all nuclear weapons mediating the Canadian Quebec civil war, and his founding of the Department of the Arts.

He returned to politics late in life to run and be the first governor of the new State of Mannahatta. Formally New York City. Mannahatta being the 55th state admitted to the Union in 1983. 
This after Guam Fiji, and Puerto Rico became states in 1975. 
That, and Newfoundland in 1956.

Former President Kennedy after an illness passed away in  1993. 

U.S. flag in the 'Kennedy Lives' timeline.

Besides his many legacies to the nation, and the world. He is most revered for his posthumous book, and documentations released in 2018. These revealed the existence, and contact with parallel worlds. 

His book "The Seven Earths" changed human history.

The heretofore suppressed discovery, and tentative contacts with two of these worlds was made public by his daughter Caroline. As JFK wished 25 years after his death.  

This in a ceremony at the Department of the Arts. At which not only his book, and documentation was presented to the world but also the first known appearance of an individual from one of them. 

Earth-2. 

Her name is Toni Morrison, and she's an author.

The America of her Earth as Ms. Morrison describes is somewhat similar to ours. Among the exceptions being a more seriously failed Civil War Reconstruction. A longer Great Depression. Also their first moon landing was a success. 

She also mentioned unlike here their United Kingdom is a close allied nation. That, and has a different Royal line. They have a friendly Queen not a hostile Emperor.

A another major change from our history came in November 1963. Their President Kennedy was assassinated by a conglomeration of intelligence agencies, and organized crime. After which Earth-2 went on a long socio-economic downward spiral.

That America is now a divided impoverish nation. With homeless poor actually living on their streets. Mass drug addiction armed youth gangs. A stalled corrupt venal government, and worse.

The rest of that world is in a state of confusion wars genocides, and oppressions. Also their planet is suffering a possible extinction level change in it's climate.

The other six Earths are also different.

One is of course ours.  Next a pre-industrial hunter gatherer culture. Another is very similar to Mars, and never evolved life beyond simple microbes. The most advanced is a Neanderthal interstellar society. 

Yet another is in the long aftermath of major asteroid impacts. This seemed to have happened 1200 years ago. They were formerly in an industrial era. They are now roughly bronze age, and still recovering. 

The final world Earth-7 is dominated by Trilobites. These on our world were a pre-historic form of shallow sea crustacean.

There were attempt by the authorities to stop the dissemination of these historic facts. However, Caroline as per her father's wishes released all the classified files onto the world net. This with a unique form of inscription which makes it impossible to delete or alter.

This the opening to many worlds was President Kennedy's last gift. 

*Deleted scenes.

Kennedy timeline 2019 Edsel.

Yeah theirs is a piece of crap too.

*More details of the parallel Earth that Ms. Morrison, from our world, is visiting in the above story.

In the Kennedy history Peter Best stayed in the Beatles. Ringo died of Polio as a child. George was never born his father having been killed in WW2. Two other artists unknown on our world filled those places. The Edsel was a mild success. ...very mild see above. It is 'still' being built by Ford. Newfoundland is a U.S. state. It nearly became one on our world in the late 1940's. India is three different nations. Australia has been a republic since 1994.

In the other world's WW2 Germany in early 1945 made the components for one functional atomic bomb. However, didn't use it. The Russians overran its construction site before it could be moved. The Russians based on German work were making their own bombs by 1947. In the Kennedy history only one American A-Bomb was dropped. This on an uninhabited island in mid-pacific to show Japanese observers.

The first internet message was sent in 1964. Five years before our world .

DVD's came a bit early as well. This in the mid 1970's along with CD's, and cheap cell phones. There are four international space stations. The Civil Rights Act which ended legal segregation in both America's came sooner in the Kennedy timeline. May 1962. There was a failed assassination attempt because of it on JFK a month later. Limited Gay Rights came in 1965.

There was no prolonged Vietnam war beyond a short period of military advisors.

These were recalled in 1964. The Equal Rights Amendment for Women was passed in 1976. The Cold War ended in 1983 with the NATO Warsaw Pact conventional 'Phony War'.

Not a shot was fired. Rather a mutual pull back set in motion peace negotiations. Their world still has a Soviet Union tho' a more liberalized and stable one. The American Mars Juno mission failed with the loss of the 8 man crew in 1989. An International flotilla of ships returned in 2009. This exactly 20 years after the failed U.S. mission. They successfully established bases at the equator, and south pole of Mars. In 2011 a memorial to the American Juno crew was built at the Martian equatorial base

There was a major flu pandemic in Mexico in the early-1990's. This took more than half a million lives there, and in parts of the U.S. Southwest. This butterflied away the Cocaine Cowboy Cartels. There was race tinged sentiment to build a US/Mexican wall to prevent another cross border pandemic. This was refused by the federal government as an irrational response to an international tragedy.

A failed businessman named Trump is currently doing 25 to life in Angola prison.

This for fraud jury tampering multiple statutory rapes including his youngest daughter. Also for being part of a mob conspiracy to murder federal judges. All this, and selling classified documents to a foreign hostile power.

In 2021 an intelligent signal from a star 15 light years away was discovered by a Chinese radio telescope. This later confirmed by other nations. It was basic Mathematical equations plus compress data streams. Radio telescopes on our world are now also listening to that frequency. 

So far...silence.