Television

Television came to Idylwood when Uncle Gordon bought a TV set. We would all gather in the Thomas living room to watch, I Love Lucy, Gunsmoke, Lawrence Welk and many other shows. I am sure Helen and Gordon got sick of the company almost every night.

Perhaps 6 months later mom and dad took the plunge and bought a 21” Motorola console TV with an Alliance Antenna rotor.

Our black and white TV behind Janice. the case on the floor was my cornet case. By this time we had the window air conditioner for the living room.

Anyhow, we could receive three channels: ABC, CBS and NBC. One broadcast from Houston, one from Galveston and one from Lake Charles, Louisiana. Thus the antenna rotor was used to aim the antenna on the pole outside toward the transmitter mast to get the strongest signal. Generally the picture was fuzzy.

All of the TVs at this time were based on vacuum tube technology. When the TV was turned on there was a 30 second warmup period before things came on. If the TV did not work, it was probably a defective tube.

The process was to turn the TV off, take the back cover off, remove all of the tubes, marking a piece of paper to note which socket contained which tube. Then head to the 7-11 and use the tube tester on all of the tubes. Replace the defective one and get going again.

On the back of the TV were some controls to adjust the picture. We generally put a mirror in a chair and got behind the TV to move the knobs while watching the result thru the mirror. Favorites were Horizontal Hold, Vertical Hold, Brightness and Contrast. Modern TV’s have it all over those old Black and White behemoths.

This is what a tube tester looked like

Another shot of Janice at her table in front of the window Air Conditioner and the TV

If the tube tester did not solve the problem, the next step entailed taking the whole, heavy, hard to handle console to the TV repair person for diagnosis and surgery. Luckily our nearest TV repair guy was down the block and across the street.

Here are some of the shows we watched pretty regularly:

– I Love Lucy - Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez – Gunsmoke - Matt Dillon and Chester – Have Gun Will Travel - Paladin – My Little Margie – Father Knows Best – The Ed Sullivan Show -Sunday night variety show – Sea Hunt – Perry Mason - courtroom thrillers – The Twilight Zone - Rod Serling – The Little Rascals – The Three Stooges – Ozzie and Harriett – Rawhide - with Clint Eastwood as Rowdy Yates – The Honeymooners