Grandma's Story - Chapter 5 - for Chase

Last Wednesday was my the birthday of my first grandson, Chase. He turned 13 and I look forward to spending time with him today at the Mall, hunting for his birthday gift and eating lunch at one of the cafes. Things we like to do together. This year I wrote a chapter of Grandma's Story dedicated to Chase.

CHAPTER 5

What Did You Do for Fun?
For Chase

Today young people have so much to keep them entertained – like your SPORE game on the computer, television and DVD’s. Some of your friends probably have I-pods and Wii’s and other techy play things I haven’t even heard of. So maybe you wonder what kids did for fun way back when Grandma was a kid.

There were no computers in those days. Not even TV, at first. I remember the first time I even heard the word "television". It was at the dinner table and someone mentioned that a kid in the hospital had gotten a television set. I wondered what is that? and imagined it was like an erector set. The first time I watched TV was at my cousin’s house; all of the kids gathered around this little television set with a tiny screen to watch a cartoon show.

Meanwhile, my family listened to the radio. We liked Jack Benny, Amos n’ Andy, Fibber Magee and Molly, and Fred Allen – all comedy shows. We listened to the "Inner Sanctum", a scary program that opened with a squeaky door. And there were radio shows just for kids. I would imagine what the characters on those shows looked like. Once my Mom took us to see the radio show being broadcast; we were in the audience. How surprised I was to discover that the radio personalities looked nothing like I had imagined.

We got a television set when I was 7 or 8 years old. It was a big tube, with lots of smaller tubes, in a wooden square box. My father would try to fix it by fiddling with the tubes in the back, while I told him if the picture had stopped jumping or if it was in focus. When that didn’t work, he gave it a whack on its side and very often that whack did the trick. Television in those days was a test of patience. Many were the days that the studios’ signal went out and we would just sit in front of the set, staring at a test pattern. Which was kind of like a target that didn’t do anything.

To be continued .....