Technology

Things have changed considerably in my short life. When I was young, we sat around a very large rectangular box,36"Hx 24"Dx 36" W, that had a very small, 12" or so screen. My Mom complained that we watched too much of this Television. I guess things haven't changed too much in that reguard. My kids watch way too much as well. This large rectangular box held the black and white screen, some speakers and a whole bunch of tubes that look very similar to light bulbs or fuses that plugged into sockets on the back side of the TV. If your Television stopped working properly, you removed a tube and took it down to the local Super X Drug Store and tested it to see if it was "good". You rarely removed or checked more that one tube at a time because they all had the same looking socket, but had very different purposes. If you tried to interchange one tube for another, well, it just didn't work. At some point my Mom realized that if she removed a tube, we couldn't watch TV and we would come when she called us. However, my Dad and olders brothers quickly found the missing tube and replaced it and we were soon watching TV again. I don't remember watching anything other that cartoons, Lawence Welk and Red Skeleton, maybe Howdy Doody and News. Oh and Wallace and Ladmo and Captain Kangaroo. That was enough to keep us glued to the box and ignore Moms request to do some chore or get ready for something. The reason for her frustration. Then she got the idea to carefully switch some tubes around so the TV didn't work. As usual, my brothers or Dad began to work on the tv. Quickly realizing that mom had switched tubes after having tested a number of tubes at the store. All of which were "good". They began switching tubes around and before long no one remembered which tube went where and we were left with just the box for many years that didn't work. TV's in those days, after all, were furniture. Nice wood and all. You didn't want to have empty space in your living room. I ended up at the Famulettes across the street watching TV, but not as much as before.