Wilkes-Barre Times Leader<\/p>\n
March 21, 2004<\/p>\n
DAWN SHURMAITIS Special to the Times Leader<\/p>\n
HUNLOCK TWP. – Today is Albert Yascavage’s 81st birthday. He has survived the Great Depression, the storming of Omaha Beach, the Battle of the Bulge, the Agnes flood and the death of a beloved son.<\/p>\n
Ever-curious and self-taught, Yascavage continues to forge ahead in this age of the Internet, creating his own Web page and even trading on eBay.<\/p>\n
Over the years, the Hunlock Creek resident has earned a worldwide reputation for an encyclopedic knowledge of military radios and manuals, trading under the moniker “Surplus Al.”<\/p>\n
He houses his radio crystals and military manuals – which number in the tens of thousands – in a warehouse and small workshop crammed with collectibles that include a photo of the USS Missouri and a John Dillinger wanted poster.<\/p>\n
He lives alongside his workshop in a warm, well-kept house with Dolores, his wife of 52 years.<\/p>\n
“I was always honest and never cheated anybody,” he says, threading a thin path between floor-to-ceiling collections. “That’s why I never got ahead.”<\/p>\n
He discovered radio as a boy in the Fiddler’s Green section of Plymouth Township, picking up signals from far-off radio stations using a battery-powered crystal set. At night he’d keep his “ear to the world,” listening to everything from hillbilly music to Eddie Cantor and Al Jolson.<\/p>\n
His passion later served as a foundation for his military service. After stints in the Civilian Conservation Corps and Merchant Marines, Yascavage joined the Army, serving as a radio operator with the Second Signal Company, Second Infantry.<\/p>\n
Overseas, Yascavage earned medals – and even bathed once in good champagne. He witnessed the horrors of a newly liberated concentration camp and heard a rousing speech from Gen. George Patton. Those are memories that remain with him to this day.<\/p>\n
In 1946, Yascavage returned home, soon joining the 109th Field Artillery of the Pennsylvania National Guard and starting a radio and television business in West Nanticoke.<\/p>\n
For years, Yascavage combed Army depots up and down the East Coast looking for obsolete military radios such as the BC-1000 and the SCR 536.<\/p>\n
In 1972, the Agnes flood claimed most of his inventory. “I had four or five thousand books and crystals floating down the river. I couldn’t rebuild.”<\/p>\n
Along the way, he also published a one-man senior citizen newspaper distributed throughout five counties.<\/p>\n
A ham radio operator since 1951, Yascavage still frequents amateur radio shows. “You can work the world on 4-5 watts,” he says, ticking off his call letters of W3UGD. “I even talked to people from Antarctica. I had a lot of friends I’d talk to about radio. Of course, most of them are dead now.”<\/p>\n
Today, he sells his wares primarily through the on-line auction house eBay. “Without eBay, I couldn’t pay my taxes. It’s not much, but it helps.”<\/p>\n
Buyers hail from all over the world, he says, showing off a package ready for shipment to London. “When they want information on government radios they come to me. This business will never die. Collectors will be here forever.”<\/p>\n
Although he suffered a stroke a few years back, he hardly shows the effects, touting the benefits of soya lecithin. If the vitamin makers were smart, Yascavage would star in their commercials.<\/p>\n
In an effort to reach out to long-absent war buddies, he created a Web site (www.wwiibuddy.com) and uses an e-mail (surplsal@ptd.net). The Web site, which carries numerous photos, also tells his life story.<\/p>\n
His aim, he says, is “to leave some part of a meaningful legacy.”<\/p>\n
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Wilkes-Barre Times Leader March 21, 2004 DAWN SHURMAITIS Special to the Times Leader HUNLOCK TWP. – Today is Albert Yascavage’s 81st birthday. He has survived the Great Depression, the storming of Omaha Beach, the Battle of the Bulge, the Agnes flood and the death of a beloved son. Ever-curious and self-taught, Yascavage continues to forge […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-profiles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}