CB Radio’s and Twitter – Networking then and Now
When I was a teen I would spend a lot of time with my grandparents. My grandfather owned his own business, JR Custom Floors and I learned a lot from he and my grandmother as they ran that business. Today as I was putting some dates and times on my calendar for some local “Tweetups” I was brought back to a time when my grandparents did much the same thing with their coffee meets.
My grandfather belonged to a club, it was called the “Metro CBers”. You know, those guys who had two way radios known as Citizen Band Radios and they talked to each other all the time. There were many a night when my grandfather would be on the Radio until 1:00am in the morning talking to his friends. They talked about everything on those radios and they all had “handles” like “Floorshine”, “Qupiedoll”, “Bigbelly” and so forth. Once a month they would meetup and have coffee, introduce each other, welcome the new CBers and handout their CB Cards with their handles on it. It was a lot of fun and I always looked forward to going with my grandparents. I did not know then that I was actually learning to network and those lessons would follow me into adulthood when I would start using a tool called “Twitter”
Oddly, the more things change, the more they stay the same! Oh, and my grandmother reminds me, that I was “Qupiedoll”. The handle that my grandfather gave me!
3 Comments to “CB Radio’s and Twitter – Networking then and Now”
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This is an awesome post! It never occurred to me how similar Twitter is the old radio days. This is a fantastic article to send to anyone who thinks Twitter is “new and scary” or something that is corrupting today’s youth. Very cool insights
Hmmm… since I’ve never been to a tweetup, I’m apparently not as progressive as your grandfather…
I think you are right about the new and scary. One of the things I hear from people a LOT is “A Stranger is Trying to Follow Me” Why would a stranger want to follow me. On the CB’s everyone was a stranger at first too. Then they became friends and networking buddies. Glad you like the post!
My father, a nurseryman, had coffee with the same guys every morning at The Chalet at 10am. My uncle, the farmer, did the same thing at The Corner each morning with all the other farmers in the area. Networking…it’s in my blood!