Hi Calvin,
I'm 49 and have only been a ham for going on 11 years now. I dabbled in CB off and on (mostly off) since I was about your age, prior to that I was strictly and SWL and enjoyed building crystal sets. I always
wished that I had my ticket, but I thought you had to be a rocket scientist to get one, so I never bothered. Then, along came the internet and after discovering pretty much anybody could get their license and it wasn't that hard (after checking out the stuff on ARRL), I went ahead and went for it.
I wish my dad or granddad had been into amateur radio and the only guy in one of the towns that I grew up in that was a ham was the mean old guy that ran kids out of his yard, so, I never got brave enough to ask him what his tower and antennas were for.
Well, that's my story, abbreviated, and there is a bit more on my qrz.com bio. I hope more young hams show up to use the site here, Buddy has a nice one here for us to use. M3h, I'm not a young ham anymore..... not on the outside anyway, just on the inside, and besides, "I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night."