TV and Me

 I remember the very first TV my family bought! It was 1950 and we were living in Bountiful, Utah, but my dad bought an early TV, even though we could only get two channels, and they were limited!

I remember “Howdy Doody,” and later “Captain Kangaroo,” and even later “Mickey Mouse Club.” How I enjoyed these early tv shows. The screen was maybe seven inches high and in black and white, but I loved it. It was a magic box.

My father, who was an early adopter and technology viewed the TV as a status symbol instead of an enjoyment, and I remember that we weren’t allowed to watch TV when he was home—unless he was watching a show, then we could watch alongside him.

I don’t recall my mother, who loved stories, mysteries, and books, ever watching TV unless it was with Dad. Dad liked the “Luci Show” (which I hated), “Gene Autry,” and of course the comedies, “George Burns,” “Sid Caesar,” and the “Lone Ranger.”'

Dad’s favorite show was the “Your Hit Parade,” and he watched it faithfully

each week; I loved the music, and later we’d all sing them. I recall my older brother, Gary, with his hair styled like Pat Boone, singing the teen hits.

Another of my father’s favorites was “The Ed Sullivan Show,” and he loved to listen to the new music performers.

There were also Teen music shows; “Dick Clark’s American

Dick Clark American Bandstand

Bandstand,” was a favorite and we’d sing and dance along with the music. It filmed all over the country, and occasionally it would film in Salt Lake City, and we’d try to see who of our friends made it on TV.

I remember our first color TV, and how we were among the first in the neighborhood to get one; everyone wanted to come to our house and watch it.

I was a young married woman when “The Beatles” came to “Ed Sullivan’s” and I recall enjoying

Beatles

their music. I recall I was a Beehive teacher, and our Beehives made a skit of some of the earliest Beatles songs and sang it at the ward talent show.

When we got married, Ed’s parents gave us a small used 13-inch black and white TV, and that was our view of the world. I don’t recall watching it that much, although Ed liked “Dragnet,” “The Andy Griffith Show,” “Bonanza,” and we both liked “Perry Mason.”

I preferred lighter fare, “Bewitched,” “I Dream of Jeannie,” “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” and “Gilligan’s Island.”

Walk on the Moon

One of the most momentous memories of TV was when in 1969, man walked on the moon, and we watched it on our home TV. I was expecting my first daughter that July and had hoped she would be born during the moon landing. She was born over a month later—in late August

.

Even more touching to me, was in 1973 when the Vietnam POWs were returned to the United States. I remember staying up all night watching them arrive in the Philippines and then to America. Ed and I stayed up watching as each walked down the ramp off the plane and called out the ones we knew personally. Most of the ones released first were the Air Force Pilots who had been in prison the longest, and Ed was touched when his high school buddy, Larry Chesley, was among those released.

I recall crying when Jay Hess of Bountiful was released in 1973. I been at a “Waiting Wives” meeting

Jay Hess meeting his daughter

with his wife in August 1967; When I dropped her off at her home, I noticed the ominous blue Air Force car at her house that had come to notify her that her husband had been shot down.

Other memorable TV moments was watching the earliest Cable News Network (CNN) in Alabama and being amazed at being a part of all the news of the world.

One of my all-time favorite series was “Poldark,” both the 1975 series that we saw on TV and the 2015 series that I love even more. The 1975 series was on TV 9 hours earlier than in the states, so I watched it in the middle of the day. But oh, how I loved it. Eventually, the whole series was released, and I bought the entire series!

I remember TV while we were living in Italy. We could only get an Armed Forces Network (broadcast from where we lived in Vicenza). It wasn’t satellite TV; in fact, all the shows we got were years older than in the states, so the first year we’d already seen everything.

The station opened at 6:00 A.M. with the Star-Spangled Banner and closed at midnight with the same. We always stood at attention when it played.

They did have one show that we enjoyed. It was an armed forces program about places in Italy (and in Germany) and it was fun to get ideas on where to go visit.

My oldest son worked at the station after his first year of college, and they did their own local news---I even have recordings of him telling the news (it was never sensational news, but more what was going on around the base).

Once in a great while, we got some up-to-date national news—but only a short burst.

We could receive Italian TV, but I didn’t watch it very much, even when I was studying Italian and wanted to listen to the language and try to interpret it. It was hard to watch because the country receivers were different. We were NTSC and Italy was some other frequency, so you never got good reception.

Sometimes in my life, I’ve had cable TV and even satellite TV, and enjoyed it, even though I’m not a big aficionado of TV. My husband loved it, and as his health failed, he loved to watch it. His favorite, of course, was sports, though I don’t care for it. I continued to enjoy CNN.

Now, I have only local channels available through small antennas. I still love TV, especially the PBS shows, the movies, the NCIS shows, mysteries and of course, BYU TV. I guess I’m an anomaly, and that’s okay!