Our First TV Our First TV
I can remember when TV came into our house. When I mention this to people, they find this hard to believe. Most people can't remember a time when TV wasn't in their home. But there it was...It came one afternoon and never left.
Our "new" TV was second-hand, and when dad first turned it only showed grey wavy lines. Dad told us that in a few days there would be pictures, but someone had to come by first to make this happen. He had contracted with the TV repairman to come to the house and erect a TV antenna on the roof. I don't recall what program was the first thing we saw, but most likely it was a soap opera.
The TV set was black and white and as the TV repairman opened the back panel, this was a "world" that was new and strange. Inside this "box" was wiring that connected glass tubes and other electronic components. Quite honestly we didn't know how bad the picture quality was until we replaced the set several years later with another black and white TV set. With the new TV set, you could see more detail and you could actually see things in this new box. For many of us, we remember this TV set as it brought into our living room the Gemini and Mercury space flights. It also took us into the early seasons of Bewitched, I Dream of Genie, My Mother the Car, My Favorite Martian and other memorable TV shows.
Mom didn't take to the TV at first. In those days she listened to the rock and roll stations, and it was during this time we learned classic tunes such as "purple people eater". In addition she read a lot, so TV was probably another diversion from her regular activities. To be fair, there wasn't much on TV in those days; and we only got one channel - KFYR in Bismarck, North Dakota. We didn't have to worry about "surfing" or who had the remote control. If you didn't like watching football on Sunday afternoons...you just ended up doing something else. And the only thing I remember about baseball games was the Hamm's Bear jingle - who can forget "in the land of sky blue water...water...Hamm's". We turned the TV on and there was channel 11. There were no other choices, so no one had to fight over what we were going to watch. This TV was part of our evening ritual for many years. We saw Howdy Doody, Its About Time (Its About Space), Lassie, Sky King, the Lone Ranger and so many other programs. And on those occasions when dad left on business trips, mom would let us sleep downstairs on the floor. We would stay up until the national anthem was sung and the Blue Angels flew across the screen. It was during one of these rare late nights when I saw the movie Frankenstein for the first time. And on Sunday evenings, it wasn't Ed Sullivan that we demanded to watch. No, that honor went to Loretta Young . We refused to go to bed until she came down that grand stairway.
Then there was TV Dinners and TV Dinner Trays. But that's another story.
Story by Terry Smith