The Bakersfield Voice

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Let me just say up front that I love high definition TV. Throw in a satellite dish with a home theater and you’ve really got something.

Maybe it’s the New Year or recently turning 57, but I can’t help looking back at how I got to 2006 with all of the above. 

Although I never had to walk to school in the snow –– uphill both ways, I was probably 8 years old when we got our first television.  Until then, I had only seen television sets in the store or at a friend’s home. Instead, I listened to “Wild Bill Hickok” and “Inner Sanctum” on the radio. Mostly, I just liked to play outside and didn’t miss what we didn't have.

When television did arrive in the Kessler home, we got two channels and these signed off at 11 p.m. each night. My parents watched everything there was to watch, but I was only interested in “Crusader Rabbit” and “Clutch Cargo.”

The thing that fascinated me to no end was the TV accessories and knobs.  We couldn’t afford a rooftop antenna and had to get by with 'rabbit ears'. My dad would spend time before each show attempting to optimize the reception by constant adjustment of the 'ears'. I remember one time when he wanted to watch a football game and had to stand with one hand touching the antenna.

Getting the cleanest picture was only half the battle. The vertical hold knob was integral to this effort also. What good was a strong picture if it just continued to flip? It was such a common issue to TV owners back then that it just became known as the 'flipper' knob.

When the TV went out, it was a family crisis on a par with a car breakdown. For a fee you could have a TV repairman come to the home, fool around in the rear of the set for a while, hand you a bill and then give you your life back.

My dad would have none of that –– not when you could fix it yourself. In those days, hardware stores and many supermarkets had 'tube testers.'  You could bring in your suspect TV tubes and see if they were good or bad.  Dad liked to go to the Safeway because he trusted their tester. As long as it wasn’t the picture tube, we could usually be back on air in an hour or two.

I don’t mean to say I want to return to a time when TV reception was iffy and sets actually had knobs. I like the current state of television. What I kind of miss is the family interaction around that miracle of technology, the television. It was a truly interactive experience, from adjusting the rabbit ears, adjusting the 'flipper' or manually changing the channel.

The television experience has really changed since then. My interaction now consists of three remote controls and manually changing the DVD.  Now, if they could just improve that.