Learning summer job dignity for $1 an hour

They called me “The Trail Blazer,” Good Buddy. 

That was my citizens band radio handle in the summer of 1977, when the hit movie “Smokey and the Bandit” created a CB craze and millions of kids like me dreamed of getting one. 

Much to my surprise, my father permitted me to do so — even though I needed to attach a large CB radio antenna to the roof of our house.