Memories of first television by several members Clarke Class of 1962.
“I remember a repairman coming when we needed service for our television. I think his last name was Stickler. Channel 5 didn’t always come in very well for a long time. I remember getting warnings about sitting to close to the t.v. It would make you blind or get cancer or some awful thing. I once ordered a magic plastic cover for the t.v. screen from the Winky Dink Saturday morning show. If you put it on the screen and used a special marker you could figure out a mystery clue. One morning I used the marker but didn’t get the protection sheet on the screen-my mom sure grumbled trying to get the marks off the t.v.”
“When we went out of town to visit my sister we watched Hit Parade and the Jackie Gleason Show on t.v. Mom and I went to Fern Underwood’s to watch the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. Our neighbor would go outside to adjust the antenna on their house and yell in the window to his wife asking ‘is the picture still bucking?’”
“We didn’t have air conditioning but we had television. When it got hot in the summer we would put the television set next to the front door and watched wrestling sitting in the front yard and eat popcorn. We knew it was real because the good guys won.”
“Our television came from Allen’s Radio & TV on the south side of the square. Bernard Allen brought the set to our house and set it up. His brother Eldon got up on the roof and installed the antenna. We had an antenna rotor put on that would turn the antenna electrically from a box inside. The screen on the set was probably 12 inches maybe. You had to sit close to watch it. My grandparents didn’t have a t.v. set and they would drive over to our house from Murray Saturday nights to watch t.v. “
“We never had television but would go to friends to watch wrestling on Saturday nights. I remember them having a sheet of plastic or something they could place over the t.v. screen and it would make it “color”.
“We lived in California when we first had t.v. My folks went to the Lawrence Welk show and we were able to see them dance on television. A neighbor down the street were aunt and uncle to movie star Debbie Reynolds and had a color set. We were invited to watch Peter Pan.”
“I came home from school one day and there were two big console sets in the living room. My parents were deciding which one they liked better. I sure don’t know how they could choose-Channel 5 was mostly snow anyway. I recall that every year we watched The Wizard of Oz movie.”
“I remember when Channel 5 was the only station, then shortly after we had channels 13 and 8. None of my grandparents drove or had a car so on Saturday afternoons mom would go to Woodburn and bring them to our place. After dad and I finished chores we had supper then we watched television. Favorite shows were Gunsmoke, Have Gun Will Travel, sing along with Mitch Miller, Lawrence Welk then wrestling.”
“Our first t.v. was bought at Kenny Persels DX station. We could get Channels 8 and 13. Someone would go outside and turn the antenna to get Channel 5, the picture was always snowy. We called Lester Patterson if we needed it repaired.”