The Frequency by Martin Tiongson
The end of the writing process for my book, The Two Oceans, coincided with my friend Sandie’s passing. She informed much of the book’s central philosophy and business knowledge, having been an entrepreneur herself.
I thought I had closed the chapter and put it to rest. Though the time was brief, it still left an indelible mark on me. But it is not fixed, as present and near future can collide with the distant past on rare occasion. This is the coda to my book’s story after its publication.
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Right in the middle of the orchard stood a tall structure enclosed inside a makeshift fence constructed of rough-cut wood and chicken wire. It had always been there, seeming to serve no discernable function, so all the years passed with it remaining unnoticed.
Months after Sandie’s remembrance, I talked to someone I recently met about her country estate. He asked out of curiosity where it was located, and I named the road it was on. His eyes brightened with the light of recognition, and he immediately asked if it intersected with Marine Drive. I had to collect my thoughts for a few seconds before I could affirm that it was indeed.
He excitedly started telling me about its owner, named Pryce, who he personally knew. He bought a nineteenth century spinet piano desk from Pryce, which was how they first met back in the nineties. The antique was in his house to this day and could still be played.
According to him, Pryce came from a well-off family in Fairhaven. One day, he decided to sell his family home, including all his heirlooms and possessions. Pryce’s dream was to live simply off the land, growing fruit trees and a vegetable garden. He gave the fruit he harvested to the community. In fact, it was said he started the tradition in Marine Drive of leaving bushels of fresh produce by the roadside for passersby to take home.
Pryce lived in a modest single-wide, next to the large shop area which he built. I learned he was an amateur radio operator, so he built the tall structure in the orchard as a radio tower to support his hobby. He broadcast his signal across the world, even reaching Japan. His amateur radio station’s callsign and address information stretched back to the seventies and was preserved in the radio amateur callbook, a longstanding and ever-growing document that connects people across different walks of life, continents, and decades for posterity.
We pieced together the timeline and concluded that Pryce sold the orchard to Sandie. I assumed he agreed to sell it to her because they shared the common dream of creating a communal place where their tribe could belong and partake of nature’s bounty. I hoped perhaps the new owner could continue that rich, intergenerational tradition.
I remembered Sandie saying that the land was blessed since it sat on Lummi soil. It seemed to be true since the fruit trees and shrubs flourished on their own without human intervention. As such, I wondered how anyone could argue that it was anything less than divine.
The radio tower, the fruit trees, the land, and the traditions, I realized these were all things that Pryce then Sandie cultivated, left behind, and passed on. The frequencies they once broadcast long ago were now faint but wide, invisibly bouncing off the ionosphere.
