Originally published in the September 1987 issue of the Collector and Emitter.It one only recently that Boris Bedenov, ace Soviet DXer and holder of the world record for both moon pies and RC Cola, visited Honor Roll Ranch, just a hoot and a holler south of town, to visit the great Q. R. Zedd, truly the world’s greatest DX operator, on the occasion of the birth of his firstborn son, Zepp. Tondleyo, Zedd’s spouse, was recovering nicely at the time, and busy painting one of the south antenna towers, when Badenov appeared. He was accompanied by the brunette, nubile, dagger-laden Natasha Bullwinkle, Boris’s QSL aide from Box 88. It was all real interesting and we would have told you all about it last month if our space hadn’t been so limited because N5MS takes up so many pages every month. But in the true spirit of amateur radio fraternity, we won’t mention that, and how unfair it all is. Anyway, when Boris and his entourage reached Honor Roll, he comes charging out of the limousine along with the CIA guys and Natasha and everybody, and the boys from the South Canadian Amateur Radio Society and their elected spokesman, WB5RZX. And old Boris, his Russian-mode transceiver bolted to his belt, strides up on the porch of the ranch house, looking for a confrontation with Zedd, and out comes Zedd, but he doesn’t even have a radio on him, but in his arms he has this little bundle of blanket-wrapped joy, the baby its own self: Zepp. “Zapp! Where is your inferior American radio?” Boris demanded. “I have work three new countries on way over here from lousy, rotten, disgusting, capitalist Goldsby Airdrome!” “Well, Boris, old bud,” Zedd drawled, sort of rocking the baby in his arms, “I been taking a few days off.” “What?” Boris choked. “Is got sick from some lowlife imperialist disease?” “No, Boris, I ain’t the one that glows in the dark from visiting Chernobyl. Come on in, son, and we’ll talk about it.” Well, Badenov was stunned, as you can imagine. But he followed Zedd into the house and some of us followed, while Natasha, murmuring something about WB5RZX, went off looking for same. (We knew she wouldn’t find him; he was hiding under the pickup.) Inside, Zedd gave Badenov a sixpack and a cigar, and sat down in the rocker with the baby. “Now’s DX, old son?” “DX,” Badenov thundered, “is great as always for great Russian radio sportsman! I have work all stations this week alone, using new antenna with Lithuania for groundplane! Last week –” Zedd stifled a yawn. “What is coming over you, Zedd?” Badenov cried. “Where has got your spirit of compete? How come for you to yawn when greatest DXer in world talk of DX? In not like corrupt, dishonest, lying capitalist Zapp!” “Doris, old man,” Zedd said with a smile, “you need to enperience the joys of fatherhood.” “Fatherhood?” Badenov echoed, shocked. “In name of new linear amplifier?” “Fatherhood,” Zedd said, “is fatherhood. — Now don’t get me wrong, son. I still plan to have time to work everybody all the time, and be the greatest. But becoming a father is great. It is a noble experience. It makes me remind myself of my own father, Zepp, of whom there was none greater with the possible exception of me. You ought to try it, son. You ought to be a father, too.” Badenov was so surprised that he lost the rhythm of empty Coors cans hitting the floor. “Is good, huh?” Zedd launched into a monologue about the joys of having a son. With the possible exception of one speech in Hamlet or an evening when Johnny Carson talked about Bo Derek, it was probably the greatest monologue in the history of mankind. We did not get a lot of it down verbatim, but he said things like “Being a father is a greater thrill than working Clipperton,” and “No man is a man until he has known this kind of thrill.” Boris Badenov sat listening, totally unprepared, and after a while you could see some of his medals sort of wilting. “You think I should do this, hah?” he asked finally. “You and that lil Natasha need to start you a sprout,” Zedd told him. “Ah! But what if Natasha don’t want no sprout, hah?” “Well,” Zedd sighed, looking end. “If you ain’t man enough….” “Man enough?” Badenov roared. “In not Boris man enough? I guess we see who is man enough, imperialist lackey swine, huh? You just wait a darn minute, big boy! I go find Natasha, I tell her I am going assert my manhood and we going to have baby!” So saying, Boris charged out of the ranch house. “Boys,” said the great one in a tone that could only be described as pregnant with meaning, “this may be interesting.” We waited. Minutes passed. Then we heard, distantly, a few screams, and a hoarse shout, and, soon afterward, the distant wail of ambulances drawing nearer. Knowing his journalistic reponsibilities, your reporter rushed outside and chased the ambulances. It was not a pretty scene down there by the No. 1 fishing hole. They were just loading Boris Badenov into an emergency vehicle. Natasha, it seems, had stuck him with her knife. “Natasha,” we asked carefully, getting as close to her as we dared, “do you have statement to make for the press?” “Press make me a statement, boy, eh?” she shot back, her wide green eyes never more fierce. “I innocent of all charges, demand imperialist pig lawyer! Also –” She sidled nearer, lowering her tone most fetchingly. “Also, she repeated, cooing, “you tell as one thing, so I don’t stick you with my knife too, heh? Where Is that WB5RZX?” — KU5B
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