Everybody seemed to like the warm reception back at the old homestead, and the brotherly affection shown to Hamilton by Carl. Now Hamilton disappears back into the woodwork for a while, gone but not forgotten, and his cheerful presence will be always be felt, much like herpes.
On the personal front, Carl finally gets around to, as Ricky would say, ‘drilling that well!’ The next few chapters will be getting a little steamy!
Technical note - There was a question about whether remote controls existed in the mid ‘70s. The answer is yes, but the equipment was limited. On televisions, it was limited to the big, expensive systems. They were common to cable modem boxes, which were becoming common in the affluent Baltimore suburbs at the time, and the Towson/Lutherville area was one of the most affluent.
They were even available in the late ‘60s & early ‘70s on very high-end cars as remote starters. When I was in my early teens (1969? 1970?) my Boy Scout troop had a car wash fundraiser at a local bank. A Cadillac pulled in, and the driver got out and let us start working on the thing. After a few minutes it started up all on its own! None of us had a clue and we all jumped back and stared, and it stopped. We looked over at the driver, but he wasn’t even looking at us. We just looked at each other and went back to work, and about two minutes later it happened again. This time we caught the driver grinning at us. He showed us the remote; none of us even knew things like that existed. One hell of a surprise!