Color TV!
Moms View Message Board: General Discussion: Archive March 2004:
Color TV!
I was just reading about it being the 50-year anniversary of color TV, and it got me remembering about my own black & white TV childhood (yes, I'm OLD! LOL). We would pull the "on" button and then have to wait for the thing to warm up, then gradually the B&W picture would come on. I never knew anything else until I was almost in college (I graduated h.s. in 1980, so my parents were waaaay behind). The first time I saw "The Wizard of Oz" in color was as a college freshman, in my dorm. Of course, I always knew about the scene where Dorothy opened the door to Oz and it was color, but I'd never seen any change until that year. I was pretty excited about it! (Imagine an 18 yr-old being wowed by something so trivial). Anyway, my own kids are amazed that we didn't have color TV. Of course, they are amazed that we didn't have videos, too!
My father loved his electronics, so we always had a color TV.  I do remember the little black and white TVs because we had plenty of them, too! LOL
I might give away my age if I say that it wasn't until I was 7 or 8 that we got a TV that didn't have dials on it - and my Dad worked overtime so he could afford it!
I remember black and white TV.....waiting for the tubes to warm up and when you turned them off, everything blacked out to a little dot in the middle......do you remember that?? Rabbit ear antennas....a knob to change the 3 channels you had reception on........ROFL
Oh yes, I remember all these things! LOL! However, my Dad was an electronic engineer so we did have a color TV pretty early on. Our spare was an old B&W.
I also remember being the first family on our street who had a microwave oven.  Such cool technology!
How about PCs and VCRs? Hardly anyone had PCs when I was in college (81-85). And to be able to watch a show over and over whenever you wanted?! HOT DOG!!
Funny how times change. My Mom still talks about how she grew up with an outhouse and did her homework by candle light. LOL! Makes me wonder what life will be like for my grandchildren.
I'm 26, but I remember when I was young our TV was the kind that had the knobs. I always got in trouble for turning the channel changer knob to fast. My parents always said to turn it slowly LOL
And, an interesting tid-bit....the man who invented the television lived in my grandmas house just before she bought it. Many many many years ago I always thought that was the coolest thing when I was younger. Almost like I was somehow connected LOL
Black and white tv most of my childhood. I think we maybe got a color one when I was in high school (grad-1978) and I don't think we had a remote until I was in college or out of college.
We got a microwave in 1978, I think. We thought it was so cool to warm up a marshmallow for a s'more. We kept making them, since it was fun watching the marshmallow expand.
I didn't have a PC until after I was married. Sarah was little, so maybe 1992 or so? Windows 3.1 with a monochrome monitor that was only 13"! Then we got a color monitor, but still only 13" Now, three computers all with 17" monitors!
Got a vcr in 1987 and thought it was great that I could go to the video store and JUST rent a video and not the player, too!
Now, on 3rd vcr and have a dvd player, too!
CD player in 1987, too! LOL!
My first microwave was purchased in 1984 and lasted me 15 years. Current microwave is already 5 years old!
Dawn, I got my first microwave in 1985 and just replaced it last year.
We did get color TV, I guess when it was *new*, around 1965 or so.
Got my first VCR in 1986, geez, I just got a DVD player last year!
Who else remembers 8 tracks and reel to reels????
LOL, Karen! 8 tracks didn't last long, did they?! It was very annoying when the song would fade between tracks. My Dad had a reel to reel. Quite the walk down memory lane.
Karen, I also remember the TV stations "signing off" at 2 a.m. (or whenever) and playing this crackly old tape of "The Star Spangled Banner," with the flag waving in the breeze...then snow.
Yeah, I remember 8-tracks, but I never had one.
Wow, you ladies have brought back memories for me....as a child, watching Captain Kangaroo in black & white....
I'm 45, and I remember how 'magical' it was to first see "Wizard of Oz" on a color set
Oh, yeah, and I had an eight-track player when I was in high school.
We have a reel to reel player. Sometimes I pull it out and we watch movies on the wall from when I was a baby LOL Very fun I'm trying to convince my girls that it really is better than just watching a boring DVD!
I remember Lost In Space as the first tv show I saw in color. When we bought our first color TV the tv guy who came to hook it up could only come at cetain times because there weren't that many shows on in color.
I also remember Captain Kangaroo on b/w!
We had the old black and white which I remember watching JFK's funeral on. I watched Captain Kangaroo, Lassy, and The Walt Disney show with Walt! That was our "family night" program.
I learned to type on a manual typewriter with the keys in a semi circle that would bunch up together if you typed too fast. LOL
You young-uns can't imagine the awe when feeze dried coffee was introduce!!!! LOL
My mother had an old iron press for the sheets. Sheets were not always premenant press.....They came out of dryers in horrible wads!
Phones had rotory dials. No other choice. I remember when "Princess" style phones were the first time you could choose a phone style! There were no other choices before. LOL
Hair dryers were bonnets and you rolled up your hair before donning the bonnet. You were really living if your hairdryer came in a carrying case with a zipper, yet.
Post-it notes were were a mistake that 3m bought on a hunch, when it's stock was at one of it's lowest points. Looks like it paid off.
I remember ditto machines. Loved the smell of that purple ink on the paper! And carbons were a rule of thumb on the typewriter as well as business forms.
I had the Beatles on 8-track. I had stacks of 45's. Heaven forbid if any of them got a scratched!!!
Asprin was the only pain reliever. No one knew what anti-inflammitories were. There were community vaccination clinics at the school for polio on sugar cubes. Eveyone knew at least one person in their neighborhood who had had polio. TB tests were performed once a year in all schools when I was in elementary. Everyone got mumps, measles, and Rubella as there were no vaccinations for those diseases. You lived through them and figured it was a phase of life.
Dad wore a fedora, everyday. Mom had a pillbox hat for almost every outfit. Both Mom's and Dad's clothes fit in one closet with sliding doors (no walk-ins).
Girls wore only dresses to school. I wore my first pair of pants to school in the 9th grade.
We wore bathing cap with a chin strap everytime we went swimming, no matter pool or lake.
We traveled from Michigan to Florida and I-75 did not go all the way through Kentucky and Tennessee.
There were no car seats, seat belts, or bike helmets. There were no baby monitors or disposable baby bottles. No disposable diapers. Diapers were washed at home.
Need I go on???? I really dated myself!
The girls had to wear a rubber swimming caps when I went to summer camp--mine had these garish flowers that I hated, hated, hated (the boys had longer hair than me...it wasn't fair!). My parents still have their rotary phones! I remember what magic it was when my big brother got a "Swinger" camera in the 60s... you took the picture, then pulled the paper out, tore off a layer, and then waited while the image mysteriously appeared! I think he had to "fix" it after that with some type of squeegee thing. Very cool.
Mary, I grew up with rotary phones, and even used ditto machines when I first started teaching in 1986. That wasn't very long ago! LOL!
Janet, I had one of those AWFUL flower bathing caps, too! HATED IT!! In fact, a pic of me wearing it at the local pool made the front page of the paper! I was HORRIFIED! 
Didn't you love the smell of the ditto machines? *sniff* AAHHH! No, it wasn't very long ago!
LOL, Janet! Actually I hated the smell from ditto machines. I also ruined some nice teacher clothes from that darn fluid! GRRR! I remember reading the fluid was actually toxic and had been linked to causing cancer or something like that. I was thankful when our school switched over to a Xerox machine. SO MUCH easier!
Ugh! I hated the ditto smell-but I couldn't stop smelling it! LOL!!
Remember when there was no call waiting or answering machines? I remember not being able to use the phone because someone was waiting for an important call. You could also use the excuse that you 'tried to call- but the line was busy, or that no one was home'...
Our t.v. dial had 12 channels on it. We turned the dial too fast and lo and behold- the dial really did break! We spent years after that changing the channels with a wrench!
My parents got their first microwave oven in 1990.They didn't get an answering machine until 2 years ago and it is so funny to listen to their message. My mom sounds so uncomfortable....
My sister who is 20 years younger than me(she is 15 now) learned how to use a vcr before I did! She is the one who comes over to my house after daylight savings time and changes all my clocks for me!LOL.....
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