TV-Part One

I asked my mother once, did you have TV when you were little and she said no.  We had radio. Radio? How did you live without TV!? 

So, the year I was born (or shortly before) we got our first TV in the Bronx. 

You can see our first TV here, in 1951.  The stand it's on came with us to Queens when we moved. It was too big for this TV and I wonder if a radio used to sit on top of it. 

Here is a TV I remember the most when we moved to College Point, with my brother Charlie.  Notice it is the same stand in the above picture. Now that stand looks too small for this TV.

The picture was not much better in person. The rabbit (antenna) ears sat on top.  The remote control was not invented yet  

So if you were walking within eye sight of my father he might  tell you to move the antenna, to get a clearer picture or change the channel. 

 Many times we would have to  stand there moving the antenna, complaining that we have to go out! 

Aluminum foil would be put on the tips of the antenna to try to get a clearer picture.

A bad picture had ghosts.  I had to look it up to try to explain it. lol

In television, a ghost is a replica of the transmitted image, offset in position, that is super-imposed on top of the main image. It is often caused when a TV signal travels by two different paths to a receiving antenna, with a slight difference in timing.

There were other knobs to turn to try to tune for a  better picture , but it was hard work.

TV programs did not stay on all night. I don't remember when it went off. Maybe around 1am  with the Flag blowing in the wind.   Maybe it came on at 5am. 

It was many years later that color TVs came out, with remotes!  I was married a few years  before we could buy one. 

Next I'll talk about having ONE tv with 4 kids and 2 adults. 

Banging on the pipes

In 1971 Tony Orlando and Dawn recorded a song called, Knock three times. 
In Apartment buildings this was one way for kids to communicate. The things we had to do before THE Internet. lol

My friend Martin lived a floor below and sometimes we would tap out messages. We'd use a utensil, I used a spoon.  Probably what we never thought about was...the whole building could hear us tapping out. 

The kitchen had the best pipes and that's where I remember sending messages from.  

If I got too crazy with the tapping, I'd get yelled at by my mother.

Sigh, that was a cute short and sweet memory.