Jimmy (a.k.a. Tree Stump) was another controversial local in the area who enjoyed a rather short, but tumultuous, career as a CB'er. Jimmy first got interested in CB in late 1972, through his casual friendship with Steve. Jimmy also lived in my neighborhood, not far from Steve, and he often accompanied Steve on his many agitation missions, and he was soon hooked. Initially, Jimmy ran a Realistic 100 mW 2 channel walkie-talkie for a few months before getting his first radio, a Realistic Navaho Pro in the middle of 1973. Steve had acquired the radio (broken naturally) in one of his many horse trade sessions, fixed it, and then sold it to Jimmy for cheap. Jimmy paired his radio to a Radio Shack 1/2 wave "Super Maxim" ground plane for his base antenna. At first, he was limited to only running a base station because his only mobile was a motorcycle. But once he had gotten a taste of the "fun" of agitating with Steve, he soon bought a 2nd hand car of his own and outfitted it with radio gear. Like Steve, Jimmy's favorite targets, for his unique "talents", were the sometimes grumpy, uptight, and very predicable adults on Channel 3 (especially Zipper and his brother, Papa Bear). His favorite method of agitation was to disguise his voice while baiting people into arguments. One of his more memorable voices was a character who's handle was "Wiener Schnitzel". A fellow with a pseudo German accent, along with a "nazi" attitude. I was along during a few of his "adventures" and, I had to admit, it was a lot of fun. But then I was only 14 at the time, and was easily amused. Plus, at that age, any excuse to go out driving around in a car was a good one. Jimmy's family decided to move out of my neighborhood at the end of '73. Their new home was only about a mile further away, but it was on much better ground for radio, and Jimmy's signal improved considerably. This made him a much more affective agitator. But he preferred mobile agitation to playing around from his base. I guess he didn't want to risk the possibility of people tracking him down.
While Steve and Jimmy seemed, at first, to be two peas from the same pod, it did not stay that way. Personality clashes eventually developed between the once inseparable allies. One of those first occasions where Jimmy and Steve had an on-air argument is documented here. The two of them would eventually make up, but not for long. Jimmy had made a name for himself, and had found his own crew of friends, and slowly grew tired of Steve. Unlike Steve, Jimmy had good social skills, and could actually make friends, many of which became turned off by Steve hanging around. Jimmy also hung out with Mitch for a bit of time in the summer of 1976, when he finally had enough of Steve. As his CB career progressed, Jimmy would own a few different radios along the way, including a Tempo One, H.F. ham rig. Jimmy lasted on CB until about 1977. He eventually faded away from the CB scene, although I'm not sure why he left. I'm guessing he just got bored with the whole thing.
Today:
As of the time of this writing, I hadn’t seen or heard from Jimmy since he left CB. But in the years since, I have managed to reconnect with him via Facebook. These days he drives a school bus and lives in the Quakertown area, which seems to have an almost magical draw to both current and former radio ops, as I knew more than a few people who ended up in that area.