Everyone should have a good radio handle. I don’t. This season at WAIS Divide we had Lancewa (pronounced with a faux-French accent), Nightingale (our Nurse Practitioner), Papa Xray (shortened from P90X, the guy is a beast and wintering at South Pole this year), Drama (right in the picture, short for Jonny Drama AKA, Mom) and Hollywood (left in the picture, short for…oh, you don’t want to know, but also known as Dad). Even our heavy equipment had radio handles; Delta Quattro for the D4 dozer, Peanut Butter for the Pisten Bully and Mother Tucker for the Tucker SnoCat. Radio handles are like AT thru hiker trail names. You can’t make one up yourself, it is bestowed upon you. You can’t ask for one; that’s the rule. It is an organic process and just sort of happens. Sometimes it is just the person’s name like K-nut or R-becca, or derived from their initials like Taco Nacho. Sometimes the name stands on its own (try “Leo, Leo, Leo, how copy?”. It works.) The best ones have a story behind them like Hollywood’s. Ask the next time you see him, he loves to tell that story!
Couldn't agree with you more, "Chief" (as in Chief Scientist - it wasn't a radio handle, per se, but it was something cool this past season, =D).
ReplyDeleteSometimes radio handles, in all their organic glory, blossom and fade within an austral summer (or run of summers if you're a pseudo-lifer). I had a few memorable ones ... sadly none beyond "channel 8".