Actually, I am old enough to remember the days before television reruns and even television itself. I remember when all we had was a radio and we would gather around it to listen to all sorts of shows. I especially enjoyed the comedians such as Amos and Andy, Bob Hope, Red Skeleton, Jack Benny, Milton Berle and Fibber McKee and Molly. And there were the cowboys such as Tom Mix, the Lone Ranger, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. And there was a children's program that I never missed on Saturday morning, but I can't recall its name. I do remember that it used "The Teddy Bears' Picnic" as a theme and had Buster Brown Shoes as an advertiser.
The other thing I remember about radio is that the baseball games were not usually broadcast live. An announcer would sit in a radio studio and read the play by play from a ticker tape as he received it. That would be boring today, but it was exciting then to a young baseball fan.
Television broadcasting began in my lifetime, in the early 1940's. It is estimated that in 1947 there were 40 million radios but only 44,000 televisions. It was also estimated that 34,000 of these were in New York City. By 1949 there were TV networks from New York to the Mississippi River and then by 1951 they stretched to the west coast. It is interesting to me that in 1949 our local television station, WGAL-TV, went on the air and was the first station in Pennsylvania. And so we sort of grew up together.
We had friends, the Sheffys, who owned an appliance store in Lititz and they had the first television set in Lancaster County. They were charter members of our church. We loved to visit them and watch pro wrestling on their black and white set.
Finally, probably when I was in third grade, we purchased our first set. I remember getting up on Saturday mornings and when the test pattern finally went off, I would watch Covered Wagon Theater. Of course there were also kid's shows such as Howdy Doody, and Kukla Fran and Ollie, and we never missed them. At night, when the station signed off for the day, they would play The National Anthem.
When I was in junior high, the Sheffys had a big anniversary sale at their store in Lititz. They had several very special bargains for the first shoppers. My brother and I went to the store early in the morning to get in line. Our early morning efforts were rewarded by the purchase of a ten inch television for ... nine cents! Somehow we got it home and put it in the bedroom which we shared. We had arrived! That was one of the best bargains that I ever made and it is a great memory.
I think WGAL began to broadcast in color about 1954, but it was years later when we finally switched to color. My dad was working as an engineer at RCA and one of his coworkers built a set for him. It came in a large cabinet which we are still using in our living room today.
Maybe I'll talk about my favorite shows in another blog, but there are three events that I watched on television that I will never forget. There was the day that I was teaching and we were interrupted by an announcement that President Kennedy had been shot. This brought a silence throughout the school that I will never forget. For the next week we sat in front of the TV watching the funeral and the surrounding sad events. And, while I was watching on live television, I was stunned as Lee Harvey Oswald was assassinated. I will never forget that picture.
A few years later we were living in Tallahassee, Florida, as I attended Florida State University for a semester. My parents and my sister came to visit us there and together we watched the first moon landing and the first man walking on the moon. Spectacular and memorable.
Then a few years ago I was prepping for my second block class. I had the television in the room turned on and was watching the news. Suddenly they broke in with the news that a plane had crashed into the towers in New York City. Then I watched as the second plane also crashed into it. The remainder of the day I watched the news with my classes who sat in stunned silence. Another day that I will never forget.
There is no doubt that television has changed the world and made it smaller. I'm not sure that all the changes are good, but it has become an integral part of the changing world that we live in. Modern technology is now doing the same thing.
A few days after I had written this blog, somebody sent me an interesting poem that those over 55 might enjoy. You younger readers will have no idea what this means. So, seniors, enjoy!
You could hardly see for all the snow,
Spread the rabbit ears as far as they go.
Pull a chair up to the TV set,
"Good night, David; Good night, Chet".
Dependin' on the channel you tuned
You got Rob and Laura or Ward and June.
It felt so good, felt so right.
Life looked better in black and white.
I Love Lucy, The Real McCoys,
Dennis the Menace, the Cleaver boys,
Rawhide, Gunsmoke, Wagon Train,
Superman, Jimmy & Lois Lane.
Father Knows Best, Patty Duke,
Rin Tin Tin and Lassie too,
Donna Reed on Thursday night -
Life looked better in black and white.
I wanna go back to black and white.
Everything always turned out right.
Simple people, simple lives;
Good guys always won the fights
Now nothing is the way it seems
In living color on the TV screen.
Too many murders, too much fight,
I wanna go back to black and white.
In God they trusted, in bed they slept.
A promise made was a promise kept.
They never cussed or broke their vows;
They'd never make the network now.
But if I could, I'd rather be
In a TV town in '53.
It felt so good, felt so right;
Life looked better in black and white.
I'd trade all the channels on the satellite
If I could just turn back the clock tonight
To when everybody knew wrong from right.
Life was better in black and white!
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