I want to talk about TVs. I remember when we got our first TV when I was around five years old. While I have memories of life before then, I have no memories of what our evenings where like between dinner and bedtime. One memory I do have is before we got our first TV. We were living on my grandparents farm. They had converted the upstairs into a rental, and we lived there while my parents' home was being built. My brother, sister and I would walk to the neighboring farm and invite ourselves to watch Howdy Doody every late afternoonish. It was a very small screen in a big box, and the reception was blurry....but it was the best part of the day. We learned a lot of stuff too. How else would we know that you could actually send away for Snap, Crackle and Pop hand puppets?Televisions had evolved quite a bit by the mid sixties. We got our first color TV the week JFK was shot. I remember my father being estatic that he could watch the continuous coverage in color. For me? Color TV made watching these folks on Peyton Place a whole lot steamier.
So fast forward to now. I have two TVs. One is in my living room and it's about six years old and is a 27" flat screen....not a flat panel. Still, it was on sale and it suits me just fine. Just a side note, I watch TV in the livingroom when I have company and when my reality shows are on...that's it.
This is that TV.....nothing fancy. Just a few things to fuss with on the front, but I use the remote from the cable company so I rarely use them.....
This is the TV in my bedroom. It is a flat panel....with the same type of buttons that I don't use for the same reason.
Some friends from my church invited me over to watch some basketball yesterday. I really don't know much about basketball....and except for going to my grandkids' games, I don't get too excited. These friends have invited me over several times in the last year, and I always have a good excuse not to accept their invitation. Today I decided to go over.......This is their TV....nice...52". 
When I arrived it was on....and loud. I was the first one there for the basketball bash. The husband and wife were busy in the kitchen and told me to make myself at home, and turn the volume down if I wanted. I looked around for the remote and it was nowhere...great, so, yeah, now I'm running my hand over the tv looking for some secret compartment.....how embarrassing, their daughter comes in and looks at me like I'm crazy! The controls are on the top edge. JUST GIVE ME THE REMOTE!
This whole episode reminded me of an incident years ago. Before I bought my flat panel TV for my bedroom, I had an older 19" TV from Sears. It was something like this one. Sort of....not really.
I had it forever and marveled at the excellent picture it had. I wanted it to go out so I could justify getting rid of it. I finally gave it to a co-worker for her kids' Playstation. And...I finally got my little flat panel TV. When my grandson was three, he asked me if he could watch TV in my bedroom. Of course I said yes....he looked at it and his eyes got has big as saucers. Then he asked. "Grandma, what are those "(pointing to the knobs). I said, "thats how you change the channel, you turn those." He looked at me and said, " REALLY? Boy grandma, you have the coolest stuff...we have to use the remote!"
7 comments:
Sadly, have the uncool kind with a remote and not knobs too! But it does take us three remotes to watch tv which is CRAZY!
lol thats funny grandma j. we used to have the huge wooden tv with knobs and a cable box. those old tv's were the best.....they last forever. hopefully your basketball buddies know that in a few years their plasma tv will need maintanence...all plasmas do. so much for "out with the old, in with the new"
-veronica
I don't think my kids would know what to do without a remote either. What a shame that we use to have to get up to change the channel. Although I have to admit I'm a remote fan now and I get very frustrated when the kids leave it where I can't find it. Or when they leave the input to their video games and I can't figure out how to get it back the the TV so I can actually watch a show.
My son (Cooper) is one and he's just figuring out how to push all the buttons on the edge of the tv. I wouldn't mind one with the buttons on the edge. But he is learning cause and effect from it, so at least that's something! =) Meghann (Cortney's sister)
I remember my dad's remote...ME! Fortunately we only got about 5 channels and he didn't have to search much because the TV Guide came in the Sunday paper:)
I definitely remember your Sears TV. We had one on a TV stand when I was around 10. We would move it around the family room. It had a shaky, rolling type of picture. I recall tapped the top of the TV to get it to stop rolling. In the 70s you just dealt with the poor picture quality. Now...it would be in the trash with a new TV in its place.
In the 80s my parents finally agreed to a VCR. Well, in England there were three types: VHS, Sony BetaMax, and Video 200. Yep, you guessed it we got the Video 2000 player. I think at any given moment there were about 100 movies for rent in this format. It was a true dud.
I told you I was feeling sad and depressed this week, right? Well, I just decided to read your old blogs : ). I know that will cheer me up. We had this wierd TV that someone gave my dad at work. It was big and it was in a cream colored stand. Isn't that funny. I wish I had a picture of it. It had knobs and it was cool!
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