Friday, February 16, 2018

2-16-18 REMOTE

Circa 1972, or thereabouts 
An attempt to recall my past in random flashes of memory.
Right about the same time as I outgrew my passion for tree-climbing, we moved away from our house with a yard full of trees, down the hill to the Pleasant Hills Apartments on East Bruceton Road in Pleasant Hills, PA. As apartments went, it was a nice one, with three bedrooms and a good sized living room, with a small but adequate kitchen. I think, besides the trees, I most missed the windows, not just for the light they brought to us, but for the flow of air. Not so much on high smog days, which were no rare thing for us there in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, in the shadow of the Clairton Steel Works slag dump we called Mount Ugly. But the scent of earth awakening in early spring Pennsylvania, when the steel mill was down-wind, was simply divine. For the first time in our lives, there in the Pleasant Hills Apartments, we had air conditioning. Thinking back on it, it was a double-whammy, because at the same time we  got a beautiful, huge used-but-still-in-great-shape colored television. This was serious evidence of living the American dream, though my memories include curling up in the old white rocker in that air conditioned apartment with my glassy eyes fixed on the TV, trying not to think about the fact that our father had abandoned us.
Those were the days when the TV guide in the Sunday paper was precious property, more important even than the comics section. We were at the mercy of the schedule inked onto thin newsprint. If we wanted to watch the newest episode of The Brady Bunch, or even an old re-run of The Big Valley, we had to make sure we were planted directly in front of that thick convex screen at exactly that hour. There was no pause button, or rewind, so commercial breaks were necessary, for obvious reasons. We learned to do what needed to be done in exactly 2 minutes. That's about how long it took for a piece of Wonder Bread to take on a golden skin in the toaster. 
Television was a piece of furniture in those days. It held its place of honor there on the west wall of the living room. All other furniture faced it, like a royal court faced its king. That big 13 inch screen on our massive colored TV was amazing, for sure. But the most awesome  piece of technological  wizardry was the warm transistor-radio shaped remote control, with it's umbilical-like cord connected to the console. We could plant ourselves on the couch and never have to move. Ever. Until nature called. We could switch from Charlie's Angels straight over to The Love Boat without touching our feet to the ground. It was awesome! (Groovy would have been the word we used.) We called that early version of remote the Clicker. When we eventually got a wireless one we called it the Zapper
Nowadays I sit comfortably in my leather recliner and Dave sinks down into the couch in front of our rock fireplace. Next to the fireplace is a dandy piece of cherry-wood furniture that the average person would not realize hides a 55 inch flat screen TV. When we want to watch something, we push a button inside that piece of furniture and our thin LED television rises up and covers the oil painting on the family room wall. Dave turns a knob by the cement logs in the fireplace and gets an instant fire going. I toss him two wireless zappers, one for the TV and cable, and the other to control the various wireless subscriptions that offer us unlimited options of shows to watch, including, interestingly enough, Charlie's Angels and The Love Boat.  We never... seriously NEVER, have to watch a show as it unfolds through the airwaves. We can instantly record, and rewind, and watch something else while we record, or just choose from an eternal list on Netflix. 
No doubt, day after tomorrow, we will only have to think that it would be nice to watch something or other, and it will magically appear before our eyes.
I kind of miss the days when, in early December, the list of Christmas specials came out, and we would circle the dates on our paper calendars. Then we would make sure our homework was done and the dishes were dried and tucked into their shelves before 7 pm on Tuesday night when Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was being broadcast. You knew that the same scenario was unfolding in all your classmates' homes. There is some sort of solidarity in that. 
Progress has it drawbacks.

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