!965 must have been the year we got our first television too.I don't really recall exactly when we got it,but I'm dating it to 1965 because one of the first thing I can ever recall seeing on it was about the civil rights riots in the United States.My father would watch the news whenever he was home,and I recall watching what was really a riot,though that grainy blue screen was not really capable of catching much of the horror of it all.But I do recall a bunch of people being sprayed with a large fire hose.I wondered if maybe sometime the firemen might come down our street,maybe someday when it was really hot and do that to us.
That first television was a monster.My father brought it into the house and set it down on a table.It was heavy,for my father was then a fit and strong man and he could move it only with difficulty.It was not made of lightweight plastic,or lightweight anything else either.The outer casing was made out of some sort of material which could have been metal,or maybe ceramic,but was in any event thick and heavy.The screen must have been about twenty five inches across and it's glass was very thick.And the back of it was stuffed with what appeared to be hundreds of glass tubes,which lit up when you turned the set on,and took a very long time to go out after it was turned off.Even after the picture had disappeared,an eerie orange glow would show on the wall behind the set and linger there for a long time.Because of that,I really wanted to see into the back of the set.I also recall that the glow made me slightly uneasy.I was used to electrical things that went off immediately when you turned the switch,so this seemed unnatural to me,as though someone or something might be in the back of the set.
On top of the television there were a set of rabbit ears,so called because of their shape.Not everyone's set had rabbit ears.In those days you would walk down the street and look up at the houses and see television antennae.Great big metal things attached to the roof that drew in the television signal.There was no cable connection then,the signal came out of the air.Not everyone had a television then either,We knew and visited a lot of people who did not.So I imagined you could tell who had a television by the presence of those big antennae. It was alleged that you got a better signal with one,but rabbit ears worked-sort of. In any event,my father didn't want to put an antennae on the roof,so we had rabbit ears.You would sit around and patiently adjust them until an acceptable picture came on the screen.And this didn't always happen.There could be a great deal of difference in picture quality from one day to the next,or even from minute to minute.
That first television must have been a used one.It never really worked very well.Both the vertical and the horizontal hold had to be adjusted nearly continuously most of the time,or you would not be able to see a picture at all.It was very rare to be able to sit through a whole half hour program and not have to get up to fiddle around with the set.
One night we were sitting around listening to-I say listening to,because we certainly were not watching-Gilligan's Island.I recall the characters talking,something to do with falling into,or being thrown into a volcano,and I remember the laugh track.But we were not seeing a picture,just a bunch of blue and white lines flipping around on the screen.It took a whole half hour and my mother still could not get the set to behave.About the time she did manage to get a picture,it had started raining outside,and there was thunder and lightening.So she turned the set off,and we were disappointed.She explained to us that you always had to turn the set off in a thunder storm,for fear that it might blow up from being struck by lightening.So for that reason,I was doubly afraid of the set.I knew about lightening,I'd been in electrical storms lots of times.Neither thunder or lightening really frightened me,but I knew they were things that belonged outside along with all the rain that always came with them.It was the thought of lightening coming into the house,through our television that disturbed me to no end.I wondered why my father would bring something into the house if lightening could come in through it,and,anytime it rained even a little bit,I wanted to be as far from the television as I possibly could.I even asked my father if lightening could really come into our house.He said yes,it could,and said that he once knew someone who had been sleeping in his bed when a bolt of lightening came in one window,blew a hole through the mattress,and went out another window.This was about the last thing in the world I'd wanted to hear,because my mother had been telling us that the best place to be in an electrical storm was in our beds asleep.My father disagreed.He said the best place to be was inside your car,because it had rubber wheels that grounded the lightening.So why then,my four year old sense of logic was always asking,didn't we just turn of the television and all run out into the driveway and get into the car when the lightening started?
When my father was at home he seemed to have more luck at getting the television to work than my mother ever did.But eventually it just quit and he had to send it out to get it repaired.It didn't have to go far.Just next door to our neighbors,who fixed televisions in his basement.Together the two of them moved it from our house to his,via the back doors and into his basement.It was a hard thing to move,very heavy,and the two of them,both strong men had trouble moving it.
One day,just before bedtime I was out playing between our house and the neighbors house,and I decided to look into his basement window to see if I could see our television.I didn't want to get caught doing this,because I knew looking into peoples windows was not a good thing to do,but I really wanted to see.I thought I might somehow get to see the insides of our television.But,when I bent down to see through the window,I saw that there were a lot of televisions,maybe dozens in there,and they all pretty much looked alike to me.I couldn't tell which one was ours.There were also hundreds of tubes that went into the back of television sets.It seemed every square inch of the room was covered in tubes,and there were shelves of them all along the wall too.Too many to count.The room had a fluorescent tube light too,and it flickered like the television sets,only not the same color.So looking into the window was a kind of ghostly experience.I didn't get caught,but I never looked into that window again either.The whole place made me a bit uneasy,because of all the televisions.I thought that if there was a big storm,surely the whole end of his house would be blown off because of all of those television sets.If lightening ever struck in our neighborhood I was convinced that that is where it would happen,and that the explosion would be really big.So whenever the least bit of rain started,I would make certain I never went near that window.
Sometime later,we got out television back,and it worked reasonably well.There were only two channels in English and one in French,which we never watched.Most of the shows we watched back then were on the CBC.There was a show called The Friendly Giant,with a really big man,a rooster that lived in a canvas sack,and a giraffe that came when you whistled and stuck his long neck inside the window of the castle where the giant lived.The giant would then read a story,and,after fifteen minutes the show was over.It was followed by another show,which I do not recall by name,but which had a talking mouse,and an older woman who only spoke french.It lasted for fifteen minutes too,and was followed by a show called Mr. Dressup. That show had a little boy puppet,who,along with a dog puppet lived in a hollow tree.There were a couple of bird puppets too.My sister and I liked the show,but my father said a couple of times"that man is as queer as a three dollar bill." When that show finished it was lunch time.The news came on while we ate,then my sister would go off for a nap.In the afternoon a movie came on,and I would usually watch it.Sometime I'd fall asleep,because not every movie was to my liking.I liked cowboys and Indians the best,and there was usually at least one of those movies on every week.There were war movies on too,and I enjoyed them too.But most of the other movies were not very interesting to me,and that is when I sometimes drifted off.
That first television was a monster.My father brought it into the house and set it down on a table.It was heavy,for my father was then a fit and strong man and he could move it only with difficulty.It was not made of lightweight plastic,or lightweight anything else either.The outer casing was made out of some sort of material which could have been metal,or maybe ceramic,but was in any event thick and heavy.The screen must have been about twenty five inches across and it's glass was very thick.And the back of it was stuffed with what appeared to be hundreds of glass tubes,which lit up when you turned the set on,and took a very long time to go out after it was turned off.Even after the picture had disappeared,an eerie orange glow would show on the wall behind the set and linger there for a long time.Because of that,I really wanted to see into the back of the set.I also recall that the glow made me slightly uneasy.I was used to electrical things that went off immediately when you turned the switch,so this seemed unnatural to me,as though someone or something might be in the back of the set.
On top of the television there were a set of rabbit ears,so called because of their shape.Not everyone's set had rabbit ears.In those days you would walk down the street and look up at the houses and see television antennae.Great big metal things attached to the roof that drew in the television signal.There was no cable connection then,the signal came out of the air.Not everyone had a television then either,We knew and visited a lot of people who did not.So I imagined you could tell who had a television by the presence of those big antennae. It was alleged that you got a better signal with one,but rabbit ears worked-sort of. In any event,my father didn't want to put an antennae on the roof,so we had rabbit ears.You would sit around and patiently adjust them until an acceptable picture came on the screen.And this didn't always happen.There could be a great deal of difference in picture quality from one day to the next,or even from minute to minute.
That first television must have been a used one.It never really worked very well.Both the vertical and the horizontal hold had to be adjusted nearly continuously most of the time,or you would not be able to see a picture at all.It was very rare to be able to sit through a whole half hour program and not have to get up to fiddle around with the set.
One night we were sitting around listening to-I say listening to,because we certainly were not watching-Gilligan's Island.I recall the characters talking,something to do with falling into,or being thrown into a volcano,and I remember the laugh track.But we were not seeing a picture,just a bunch of blue and white lines flipping around on the screen.It took a whole half hour and my mother still could not get the set to behave.About the time she did manage to get a picture,it had started raining outside,and there was thunder and lightening.So she turned the set off,and we were disappointed.She explained to us that you always had to turn the set off in a thunder storm,for fear that it might blow up from being struck by lightening.So for that reason,I was doubly afraid of the set.I knew about lightening,I'd been in electrical storms lots of times.Neither thunder or lightening really frightened me,but I knew they were things that belonged outside along with all the rain that always came with them.It was the thought of lightening coming into the house,through our television that disturbed me to no end.I wondered why my father would bring something into the house if lightening could come in through it,and,anytime it rained even a little bit,I wanted to be as far from the television as I possibly could.I even asked my father if lightening could really come into our house.He said yes,it could,and said that he once knew someone who had been sleeping in his bed when a bolt of lightening came in one window,blew a hole through the mattress,and went out another window.This was about the last thing in the world I'd wanted to hear,because my mother had been telling us that the best place to be in an electrical storm was in our beds asleep.My father disagreed.He said the best place to be was inside your car,because it had rubber wheels that grounded the lightening.So why then,my four year old sense of logic was always asking,didn't we just turn of the television and all run out into the driveway and get into the car when the lightening started?
When my father was at home he seemed to have more luck at getting the television to work than my mother ever did.But eventually it just quit and he had to send it out to get it repaired.It didn't have to go far.Just next door to our neighbors,who fixed televisions in his basement.Together the two of them moved it from our house to his,via the back doors and into his basement.It was a hard thing to move,very heavy,and the two of them,both strong men had trouble moving it.
One day,just before bedtime I was out playing between our house and the neighbors house,and I decided to look into his basement window to see if I could see our television.I didn't want to get caught doing this,because I knew looking into peoples windows was not a good thing to do,but I really wanted to see.I thought I might somehow get to see the insides of our television.But,when I bent down to see through the window,I saw that there were a lot of televisions,maybe dozens in there,and they all pretty much looked alike to me.I couldn't tell which one was ours.There were also hundreds of tubes that went into the back of television sets.It seemed every square inch of the room was covered in tubes,and there were shelves of them all along the wall too.Too many to count.The room had a fluorescent tube light too,and it flickered like the television sets,only not the same color.So looking into the window was a kind of ghostly experience.I didn't get caught,but I never looked into that window again either.The whole place made me a bit uneasy,because of all the televisions.I thought that if there was a big storm,surely the whole end of his house would be blown off because of all of those television sets.If lightening ever struck in our neighborhood I was convinced that that is where it would happen,and that the explosion would be really big.So whenever the least bit of rain started,I would make certain I never went near that window.
Sometime later,we got out television back,and it worked reasonably well.There were only two channels in English and one in French,which we never watched.Most of the shows we watched back then were on the CBC.There was a show called The Friendly Giant,with a really big man,a rooster that lived in a canvas sack,and a giraffe that came when you whistled and stuck his long neck inside the window of the castle where the giant lived.The giant would then read a story,and,after fifteen minutes the show was over.It was followed by another show,which I do not recall by name,but which had a talking mouse,and an older woman who only spoke french.It lasted for fifteen minutes too,and was followed by a show called Mr. Dressup. That show had a little boy puppet,who,along with a dog puppet lived in a hollow tree.There were a couple of bird puppets too.My sister and I liked the show,but my father said a couple of times"that man is as queer as a three dollar bill." When that show finished it was lunch time.The news came on while we ate,then my sister would go off for a nap.In the afternoon a movie came on,and I would usually watch it.Sometime I'd fall asleep,because not every movie was to my liking.I liked cowboys and Indians the best,and there was usually at least one of those movies on every week.There were war movies on too,and I enjoyed them too.But most of the other movies were not very interesting to me,and that is when I sometimes drifted off.
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