In the summer of 1951 when we lived way out in the boondocks of west Texas we got our first television set. The nearest TV station was about sixty miles away and to get a picture you had to install an antenna on a pole about fifty feet high held in place by four guy wires! We had a choice of two colors: black and white! Somewhere between us and the TV station that summer it seemed to snow an awful lot because that’s mostly what we could see on our huge 9 inch round set.

        One program had a gal named Dagmar who was very well endowed and wore a low-cut tight sweater. In fact they even made her wear a hankie or something in the "V" of her sweater to disguise her obvious assets. Today she would not draw attention, but back then all the wives would try to forbid the husbands from watching that hussy!

        Three years later I was transferred to another place out in the boondocks so had to hire someone to dismantle the TV pole and antenna and then to put the dang thing back up again in the new place. This time we had a choice of two TV stations, one sixty miles and the other ninety miles away. In the early morning when you turned on your set you would get some real pretty geometric pictures called test patterns. (Once got up early in the morning when my parents were visiting and found my father intently watching the test pattern!) A little later you could get good pictures of snow storms! Then around 10 or 11 p.m., they would play the Star Spangled Banner and the TV set would go plum black!

        A year later I was transferred again, but this time to a big city of 6,000 people. They counted the population on Saturday when all the farmers and ranchers came to town. Had to get the TV pole and antenna dismantled and then reinstalled at the new place. This time we were only thirty miles from the TV station. Moved from there a few months later and I decided I could install the damn antenna myself.

        I got all of them guy-wires stuck in the ground, then got up on the top of the roof and was raising the pole up with antenna on top and all of a sudden the pole came apart and there I was with pole in hands and had to find a place to stick it in. Made a heroic stab at the hole on bottom and did it! Also was listening to football game on my fancy radio and got real excited and started jumping up and down.

        All of a sudden when I jumped up I came down on a ladder and went bump bump bump all the way to the ground....I laid there for a few minutes trying to figger out if I was still alive, then staggered into the house and asked my wife, "Didn't you hear me falling?" She said, "Yes, I thought you were dead."

        The next time we moved we didn't need a 50 ft. antenna tower....just had to use "rabbit ears". TV station was right there just a few miles away. Then in a year or so we saw a COLOR TV displayed in shop window....People from all over town gathered around to see it!

        When we moved to Dallas in 1961 and we could get 4 TV stations then. Since by that time there were four of us in the family there were problems about which station we were going to watch. I settled that by getting three more TV sets; on in each bedroom and one in the den. Then guess what? Everybody wanted to watch in the den!

        Now that I am living alone, I have a little set, a medium one, and a great big HDTV, but I spend most of my time in my office with the little TV on for company while I'm sitting here on this dang computer. The HD one is connected by satellite and it takes an electronic engineering degree to do anything with it! I haven't had to call for help in about a week now so I guess I am learning something. So far I haven't had any complaints from my dogs about what I watch. If they don't like my selection they just go off in another room and sleep!