Mattes's Musings by KC2GIK

As I did with Peter Jennings a few months back, I wanted to pay my respects to Rosa Parks in my own way. If you do a search for "Tribute to Rosa Parks" on your favorite search engine you will get more than you could ever want her life and now her legend. Ms Parks (she never married) has achieve more than any of the top figures leading the civil rights movement today because she left definance as a last measure. . The true civil rights leaders, Dr. Martin Luther King being the most recognizable, used definance as a last resort and united not only Black but any other believers in civil right. They changed people's minds by appeal to their hearts. They preached they you can't always use the same tactics and you must draw attention to your cause without seeming totally unreasonable. They also knew small battles would win the war and knew the difference between equal justice and special treatment, something that the new "civil rights" leaders utterly lack. Wha...

The best ideas can have the worst results. People feel they have to show rank in order to seem important. The lastest debate oon t he license plate list is a discussion over whether or not we should be grading collectors based on the number of good or bad transactions completed. I t doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense, I know I wouldn't want a "black mark" next to my name just because a deal went sour. Most collectors realize when someone goes on a rant about a paricular transaction, people have to take it with a grain of salt. Repeat offenders usually are very easy to spot, they only really want to deal with strangers and try to keep the transactions as quite as possible. It's sad but true. However I am not ready to broadcast evvery single reason why I feel someone screwed me. I geuss I trust people too much, in return I do want them to trust me. Notice who endorsed the idea, a ruthless plate collector who doesn't leave room for the slightest error. I a...

If I wrote everything that went on over the last few days most people would be bored after the sixth sentence. Going out to Hershey was just like going on any other trip in which I convince my folks to take a few days off from work. For someone who has zero expirence as a negotiator, I think getting my folks to take three trips to virtually unknown destinations. Antique cars buff from around the world converge on the Chocolate, White and Red Fields.. I had my "travel bike" all charged and ready to go with one goal in mind, finding license plates. Hershey is the biggest "unofficial" license plate show ever without the typical feel of a regular meet! I bought about seven plates which isn't that many considering there were thousands of vendors around! The only problem was I hahd one day to cover miles of ground and had to stift through the junk. The result five plates one was a sovunier plate from the car show itself. The one New Jersey plate was a n old courte...

Alright if you who have been into police scanning and on the Internet more than a month know about Jim Fordyce's website. For those who don't know about Jim's site, let me just fill you in. Jim's site was THE PLACE to go for general information about scanning. His list of links was longer than any other site out there. As a matter of fact a lot of scanner sites copied his links page because it was always up-to-date. Jim was also one of the first to succesfully put together all kinds of general frequency information. It was a resource many people, especially yo-ur humble writer, utilized to keep an eye out for the latest a nd greatest in the world of scanning. About two years ago Jim introduced message boards for the Northeast US, covering states from Maine down to Virginia. While he wasn't the first to think of frequency message boards, he was allowing other people to help him keep an eye on things. He deputized fellow scanner buffs in the various counties to ke...

Alright this is like catching lightning in a bottle, but I actually made it to a fire call. No I didn't see flames shooting fifty feet in the air like you see on TV, but I was excited. The fire was in the back of the house but I got to see all the coming and goings as well as a handful of towns working together. The wonder is I actually got beyond a road block by sweet talking one of the female police officers into letting me in.I also told a little white lie because I said I would be right back and then eventually rolled out of there when the mutual aid started to pull out. Hillsdale, Montvale, Park Ridge and even the folks from River Vale showed up! The fire was in the back of the house, so I can't really comment! Anyway below is the page sent out over the fire buff pagers WOODCLIFF LAKE (BERGEN) **WORKING FIRE** 21 OAKWOOD RD M/A REQ TO THE SCENE A/C/W EAN503/ EAN388. 10:04a.m.