It was 1976; I was nine years old. I was at a friend's house staying over, running around in the woods, sword fighting with sticks, crossing streams on logs...the stuff that nine-year-old boys do. Well, that night, after supper (chicken & mashed potatoes as I recall), my friend and I went into his dad's den to play, so that his folks could watch telly in peace; it turned out to be a fateful moment for me, which later started a quest that has gone on for thirty eight years.
My friend turned on his father's Ham radio set, which was a fantastic and futuristic device to us; we turned the dial, listening to conversations, occasionally hearing exotic music, and even talking briefly to an oddly rude French fellow who thought that children oughtn't be doing such things. It was then that we stumbled onto the start of what seemed to be a dramatic conversation, and we were transfixed.
We couldn't believe what we were hearing. The man on the radio was from ancient Egypt, so he claimed, and he was confessing to another man that he had figured out the secret of near-eternal life! Neither my friend or I had heard of a radio drama before, so, initially at least, we thought we'd struck eavesdropping gold! I listened especially intensely. The Twilight Zone and Outer Limits TV shows had already done their devilisms on my already imaginative mind, along with old horror movies and Tarzan-lost-world-type adventure movies, so this was like the match that set the entire pile on fire.
Suffice it to say that we didn't find any alchemical solution to aging, at least not in the temporal sense. I left my friend's house the next day on a quest for whatever it was that I'd heard, and the pathway has kept my inner self quite young. I discovered old time radio, and it began a lifelong obsession. I've been looking for that particular programme ever since. Well, on one of my usual web harvests, as there are thousands available on the web for free (I have over 10,000 episodes now, and counting), I FOUND IT! It's an episode of the legendary show ESCAPE, and it's called THE RING OF THOTH, loosely based on the story of the same name by Sherlock Holmes creator, Arthur Conan Doyle.
It changed my life; perhaps it may do the same for you...for at least an evening.
My friend turned on his father's Ham radio set, which was a fantastic and futuristic device to us; we turned the dial, listening to conversations, occasionally hearing exotic music, and even talking briefly to an oddly rude French fellow who thought that children oughtn't be doing such things. It was then that we stumbled onto the start of what seemed to be a dramatic conversation, and we were transfixed.
We couldn't believe what we were hearing. The man on the radio was from ancient Egypt, so he claimed, and he was confessing to another man that he had figured out the secret of near-eternal life! Neither my friend or I had heard of a radio drama before, so, initially at least, we thought we'd struck eavesdropping gold! I listened especially intensely. The Twilight Zone and Outer Limits TV shows had already done their devilisms on my already imaginative mind, along with old horror movies and Tarzan-lost-world-type adventure movies, so this was like the match that set the entire pile on fire.
Suffice it to say that we didn't find any alchemical solution to aging, at least not in the temporal sense. I left my friend's house the next day on a quest for whatever it was that I'd heard, and the pathway has kept my inner self quite young. I discovered old time radio, and it began a lifelong obsession. I've been looking for that particular programme ever since. Well, on one of my usual web harvests, as there are thousands available on the web for free (I have over 10,000 episodes now, and counting), I FOUND IT! It's an episode of the legendary show ESCAPE, and it's called THE RING OF THOTH, loosely based on the story of the same name by Sherlock Holmes creator, Arthur Conan Doyle.
It changed my life; perhaps it may do the same for you...for at least an evening.
You can download ESCAPE ~ The Ring of Thoth HERE
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