Life, 1922-09-28 · page 15 of 36
Life — September 28, 1922 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three distinct pieces of humorous content: 1. **"I Have Built My Last Radio Set from Bed-Springs"** — A first-person narrative about an amateur radio enthusiast whose homemade receiver (made from scrap materials) grows uncontrollably complex, ultimately becoming an embarrassing surprise when guests arrive. 2. **The illustration** by Alice Harvey shows a man with his elaborate radio contraption, depicting the absurdity of DIY electronics during an era when radio was still novel technology. 3. **"The Expert Accountant Finds He Can't Add Two and Two"** and **"Good Measure"** — Brief humorous anecdotes at page bottom, poking fun at professional incompetence and mismanaged expectations. The satire targets the amateur radio craze and domestic pretensions of the era, mocking both technological enthusiasm and social embarrassment.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
I Have Built My Last Radio Set from Bed-Springs WAS a happy man until I read in the papers about a boy of eleven who made a radio outfit out of an old set of bed-springs and some clothes-line wire. | went down in our basement, where we keep everything we do not want, and my heart beat rapidly. We had enough for the Navy. j bought a little book for ten cents called “Radio for Unmechanical People.” The book said there was nothing to it and referred several imes to a child, a screw-driver and ndful of nails: The book said, efficient variable condenser, which will serve every purpose, can be made at home at a cost of less than half the price of a store instru- . ment. No mechanical skill is needed.” ! had never heard of a variable condenser, but I decided that I would have one. I would make a con- denser that would condense whatever was to be condensed to half its orig- inal bulk. Soon I was ensnared in primary coils, ticklers, transformers, loose couplers, grids and variome- ters. I was lost. Then I began to see that that eleven-year-old child was the kind you read about who enter Harvard at nine. He could also probably play six men simul- taneously at chess and at the same time carry on a spirited conversation with a chum, I had‘read about people making receiving sets which would fit into an ordinary safety-match box, but mine would not fit into one. It be- me bigger and bigger and more complicated. It looked like one of those things which, during the war, people reported finding near railroad bridges. \t last it was ready. I was keep- ing it as a surprise for my wife. I invited some friends in, but before they arrived I carried the first arm- load into the sitting-room and placed it in the corner behind the piano player. A few more trips and it was all up. “By the way,” I said as noncha- lantly as I could after the guests ar- tived, “how ‘d you like to attend Grand Opera this evening?” The surprise on their faces was delightful. _ “Well, then, if you are not dressed for opera I will bring it to you. Presto! chango!” and with that I The Expert Accountant Finds He Can’t Add Two and Two brought out the amplifying horn. “Now I will reach up into the heavens and pluck out the sweet strains of an aria for you.” With that I gave the knob a twist —and it sounded like the place Billy Sunday talks about. The guests looked at each. other uneasily. “That is nothing,” I said with a confident smile. “A twist of the wrist and it is all over.” I turned the knob in the other direction—and it was ten thousand times worse. Our friends tried to be polite, but it was.no use. Soon they were standing under the climbing roses. Quietly that night, after they were gone, I took the outfit and covered it neatly with a bag so that nobody but the ash-man would know what it was. Probably he will want it. I have often seen him poking expectantly through the stuff. It may be just the thing he has been looking for. H.C. Good Measure Tait: As you didn’t catch any- thing I suppose your fishing trip was a terrible disappointment? Bait: Not by a jugful! comicbooks.com