Many things have changed over the course of my lifetime and that is to be expected. However, they seem to be changing at a rapid clip and this senior can barely keep up!
It seems like we all used land line phones forever and now the majority of people have cell phones. You no longer pick up a phone just to place or answer a call. You use it to email, text, explore the internet, take pictures etc. Plus, you can use it anywhere that there is a signal…not just in your house. That would have been considered a “fantasy” back in the day!
Cars had keys, roll-up windows and no seat belts. Now they come with fobs, buttons to press for the windows, GPS to get you to your destination and cameras to guide you as you back up. We also “buckle up” before we drive off.
TVs look much different today than they did in the 50s. They also have features that were only dreamed about back then. Our first TV was black and white. When we got a color TV it was a real treat. Today’s high definition makes for a sharp picture and DVRs let us record shows and watch them whenever we want.
I am someone who will resist change until I have no choice. That happened recently when certain channels on our TV showed this message…“One moment please. This channel will be available shortly.” At first I believed those words. However, when “shortly” turned into more than 24 hours I knew there was a problem.
I paid a visit to the local Xfinity store which went much more smoothly than I had anticipated and 100% better than calling their customer service number. I just wasn’t up to “unplug this…unplug that… press this number…press that number”, etc… I have been down that road in the past and it usually ends with a technician needing to come to the house. So I decided to go in person and ask for a visit.
I was told that because there had been a cancellation a technician could come to our house within 4 hours. I was also told that our box had outlived its life so a new box would be installed. Because I am “old school” I could see no reason to get the “voice remote” so our old remote was programmed to work with the new box. When the remote dies I expect I will have no choice but to upgrade to the newer model. I will probably love it and wonder why I resisted.
As I watched the technician program our TV to the new box I couldn’t help but took a look back to how things were done “back in the day.” We got our first TV in 1952. It was a floor model with a wooden cabinet that matched the color of the furniture in the living room. There was an antenna on our roof and when the picture got distorted from a strong wind we called our TV repairman, Mr. Ransom. He got up on the roof, adjusted the antenna and hollered down the chimney to find out if the picture was clear.
The TV had a scalloped opening in the bottom front section and our cat used to get behind the TV when it got near bed time. I guess he could tell time! He would poke his nose out of the opening. He was always lured out with food and tucked away for the night in the kitchen so he couldn’t disturb anyone.
Back “in the day” TVs had no remotes for changing a channel, adjusting the volume or viewing a guide for programming. If nobody wanted to get out of their chair then the TV remained on the same channel until “the spirit moved us” and we got up.
Most people had only one TV so you had to agree on what to watch. Of course, my parents loved Lawrence Welk and on Saturday nights they always tuned in to that show. It featured a band and the vocal talents of the Lennon Sisters. Bobby Burgess had wonderful dance moves and Jo Ann Castle entertained us with her honky-tonk piano tunes. Joe Feeney’s Irish vocals were my parents’ favorites as they both were of that nationality.
At some point our old TV could no longer be fixed and we had to get a table model. Floor models were no longer an option. Bruce Baccei, who sold us our TV, came up with an excellent solution. He knew my husband, Peter, was handy so he suggested we keep the wooden box part of the old TV and Peter could do some minor renovations and put the portable TV inside it. Problem solved! Peter worked his magic and we had that setup for many years.
There are a lot of things in life that I wish could have stayed the same. But watching HD TV in color will never give me any reason to wish that I could switch back to the 50s version.
Maybe some day I will trade in my 2006 car and carry a cell phone with me. But not yet!
