Who is WyllyWylly Anyway?

Right after high school, I got into the CB somehow. I don't know how or why I found it so interesting, but I did. It became a thing that all of my friends and I did for a while: we'd hang out at the mall, shoot the bull and play around on the air. I kept hearing this guy who called himself Dr. Wylly Wylly on channel 19, razzing truck drivers.....I used to laugh so hard at some of his comments that I had tears in the corner of my eyes. Dr. Wylly Wylly had the strongest signal on channel 19 and when he keyed his microphone down, you heard no one but him. "Squishing", they called it in CB parlance. Dr. Wylly Wylly would get the truckers so fired up that they would be cursing him as they faded out into the distance. There were the catch phrases too: 'World Wide, World Famous' was the one you heard a lot.

As time went by and I got deeper into the tech side of CB radio, I got in touch with another guy who called himself the Indian and who had a reputation for knowing how to tune a CB radio. Rumour had it that he was the person who made Dr. Wylly Wylly's radio so powerful that no one else could talk on channel 19. I was learning more about the technical aspect of this hobby, so of course I had to have this guy tweak my CB, right? I wanted to be as loud and obnoxious as the good Doctor. I caught the Indian the radio one night and he declined to help, stating it was because he didn't care for the people I "hung out with" on the radio. I thanked him and said I understood, it was his choice. Disappointed, I was, but no means no.

A few days later, Mike (his real name) told me to go up to channel 40 (because no one really used that channel), and quickly gave me instructions on how to get to his shop. I was amazed at the change in heart but I didn't question it. When I got there, he told me he changed his mind because I didn't sit there and cuss him out like all the other idiots on the radio, and I was a gentleman about it. He was intrigued by that and saw something different in my mannerisms. As a result he gave me a chance. A good friendship grew out of that interchange and Mike taught me a lot about electronics. He was about twenty years my senior, and was a very unique, intelligent person. I miss Mike to this day.

Mike, the Dr. Wylly Wylly that I heard all the time, and one other guy all used the same name on the radio. No one really noticed this, but if you paid attention, it was obvious. As I became closer friends with them, I became one of the Dr. Wylly Wylly's on the air. Some nights we would gang up and tease all the tractor trailer drivers...some hated us, some looked forward to the diversion when driving on a long haul. No matter what, if you used a CB around that time, you knew Dr. Wylly Wylly.

When I started needing a user name for the Internet, back in about 1994, I resurrected it because I didn't want to be MARK8192 or something stupid like that. I figured it was unique enough that I could use the name in multiple places and maintain somewhat of a cohesive identity. So I picked out the most unique name I could think of....and it stuck. The tagline "World Wide, World Famous" that we used to use seemed to fit, and at first I carried that persona over to the Internet chat rooms, on AOL, in the IRC channels, you name it - the object had always been to razz people a little bit and to do it intelligently.

As time passed I dropped the "Dr." and became simply WyllyWylly. First off, it looks more symmetrical and, to me, better. The attitude changed too, and is no longer intended to raise peoples' blood pressure (but sarcasm is something I still possess). I don't talk to Mike, FatCat, or the other Mike that was Dr. Wylly Wylly anymore, but if they ever see that name, it will be a calling card in cyberspace.

The first incarnation of my journey into website design for myself was known as WyllyWeb. It was to be completely anonymous, as Dr. Wylly Wylly had always been. As you can see in these pages, the anonymity has now gone by the wayside. Anymore I firmly believe that if anyone really wanted to know who I am they would find out anyway. Plus, I have nothing to hide and could really care less.

Aren't you glad you asked?