The winter of 1962 was particularly bad for Chris´s Dad carrying mail as there was an unusually heavy snow fall that year. Dad decided to follow a few of the family members who had already headed west and packed up everyone for beautiful Southern California. Friends of Chris´ grandmother had told them about a sleepy little agricultural area where housing was affordable and it would be a short drive to the Chatsworth Post Office where his Dad had transferred. So in the spring of 1963 they settled in Simi Valley, California. A year later, Chris with the help of a school buddy from seventh grade, took the Amateur Radio test and went on the air for the first time, much to all the neighbors chagrin. His first radio´s were made from parts scavenged from old TV sets people had put out for trash, and although they worked, they were heard for miles around by all most of the neighbors so he was quickly taken off the air until he could save enough money to buy a real radio! Pulling weeds and cutting grass did the trick and later that year there was enough money for his first store bought transmitter and a WWII surplus receiver. Chris´ nickname "Sparky" was first given to him by his High School shop teacher after watching yet another self designed radio project literally go up in flames and convinced Chris that maybe Electrical Engineering might not be his best carreer path. But even geeks growing up in Southern California during the 60´s couldn´t escape the best of the Southern California experience. Scuba diving, skateboarding, (yes, even back in the 60´s), and a never ending supply of surf music were his mainstay. Chris also continued in 4-H until his senior year in High School learning numerous skills and begun a lifelong fascination in apiculture (bee keeping) and meteorology. Simi Valley was still a sleepy little town in the 1960´s and prior to that it was known for many of the old western movie sets that were built in the foothills. Corriganville Movie Ranch, was less than a mile from where he attended High School, and Chris´ Dad used to drive by the now infamous Spahn Movie Ranch, where Charlie Manson lived at the time of the Tate murder´s, on his way to work each day. With so many movies being filmed in and around the area it is easy to see why past President Ronald Regan chose Simi Valley for his Presidential library. To live in Simi Valley in those days was still like growing up in a western movie set and the kids in town only needed their imagination to be transported back in time as they would ambush the stagecoach or capture some desperado. The canyons, washes, and the endless foothills with their huge boulders stacked on top each other are now street after street of suburbia, but in the 60´s it was an old west playground with BB guns a blazing!. In 1969 after graduating High School, with a very low draft number, and a less than stellar first semester in college, Chris joined the U.S. Air Force.