In our modern age of
instant-on solid state color televisions, we Baby Boomers” rarely reminisce
about “the way T.V.s’ used to be”. For example, it always took such a
long time for it to “warm up” before finally getting the “black and
white” picture, and, if we were turning it on to watch one of our favorite
programs a little after it started; it seemingly took forever to “tune
it in”! As a kid (and even now I must
confess), I was always fascinated with the “snow static” on “channels we didn’t
get.” It always looked like millions of ants running amok on a sheet of white
paper! (I guess for someone who also “reads the phone book” at times, ONLY I
could find interest in doing things like this). If you recall from an earlier
story, when I was on my senior trip to Washington D.C. in 1966, I scanned the
phonebook at the motel and found that there were 26 columns of “Smiths” in the
Washington D.C. area phone book! (If anyone should ask you, or if some radio
station should call you with that question for a contest, NOW you will KNOW)!
AHAAA, who says my stories don’t have any redeeming value!? How many of you
“old timers” remember what they put on the T.V. screen while they were “Experiencing Technical Difficulties”? If you give up click
here for the answer BUT FIRST TRY TO THINK
OF IT BEFORE CLICKING FOR THE ANSWER ABOVE! (Anyone
born after 1955 is exempt from this quiz, so go ahead and click it now). All
of the appliances we had seemed “to work weird” and the old Sylvania T.V. was
no exception. There were times that the picture started to “flip” with those
wide, black bars with “an arrow in the middle of it.” When this happened you
had to get up and adjust the “Vertical Hold” button IN THE BACK of the set! I
could never understand why the controls were located BEHIND the set! Lined up
with this adjustment were 3 other identical dark brown serrated rods labeled
with small gold letters for “Horizontal Control,” “Contrast,” and “Brightness.”
They certainly were designed for and by “grownups” since when we were “little kids”
and we had to “fix the vertical,” we had a hard time trying to turn the
serrated-edged plastic rod and trying to see the screen to know when it was
fixed! No doubt, this was another adult conspiracy
against kids in the 1950’s. The most used was the “Vertical Hold” followed by
the “Horizontal Hold.” We never messed with the other 2. Sometimes when “a tube
was weak”, you either had to get up every few minutes and fix the “vertical” or
spend a long time trying to get it to stop “flipping”. Eventually, Bud Nickles
would show up and replace a tube and the picture would stay in one place for
what seemed like only a few weeks. If the “vertical tube”, or whatever, wasn’t
too far-gone, Uncle Ned had an easy, convenient way to fix the vertical
“flipping.” While laying on the sofa and the picture started to “flip,” he
would stomp his foot on the living room floor and that would often temporarily “fix”
the “flipping”. We used to lie in bed and hear the intermittent “stomping” and
knew that Uncle Ned was watching “Uncle Miltie” and later “The Jackie Gleason
Show,” or Sid Caesar, etc. On modern day solid state TV’s there are no “Vertical
or Horizontal Hold” controls. I guess that’s why my feet sometimes “fall
asleep” while watching Satellite T.V., since I don’t have to stomp my foot on
the living room floor to fix the “flipping.” Alas, I guess that’s the price we
pay in the name of progress…
