“Is Corinne Hansen there?”
I paused, because first it was an adult calling and second, no one we knew called me by my full name. Responding the way Mom insisted we answer, I replied:
“This is she.”
That’s how I found out I had won a brand spankin’ new portable black and white television.
Yup, I had won second place in the JC Penney “Guess the Number of Cherries on the Presidents Day Cherry Tree” contest. A week earlier we had all gone to Penney’s, as I recall because George needed new underwear. While Mom and George were shopping we little girls stayed in the lobby counting tiny plastic cherries hanging from an artificial George Washington cherry tree. I sat comfortably and kept track of the hundreds while Libby stood under the tree and counted the cherries. I suspect we filled out handfuls of guesses and stuffed them into the cardboard box under the tree. I must have thought you had to use your whole legal name on such important official endeavors. One of my little-sister-informed guesses must have been pretty close. Close enough to find me back at JC Penney for a photo for the local paper. We walked out carrying a ten-inch television with a carry handle on top.
At that time, we had no TV in the house. Dad had skipped town and taken the TV he kept in the smoky corner of the basement with him. He left his full ash trays and empty beer bottles though.
Mom let us keep the prize in our bedroom, with rules limiting the watching of it of course. Golly, we loved having that TV. Libby used to come home and watch The Big Valley as she decompressed from the pressures of fourth grade. We suddenly had great interest in the Pittsburgh Press Sunday Edition because it included the weekly TV Guide. My go-to shows were Gilligan’s Island, Carol Burnett, Petticoat Junction and Green Acres, I Dream of Jeanie and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. And Saturday morning cartoons! Oh man, remember Saturday morning cartoons? Followed by Saturday chores. Good times.
One Saturday afternoon, after cleaning our bedroom, Libby and I crouched in front of the TV for the Saturday Matinee Movie. The TV was so small we literally had to sit inches away, our folded knees bonking into each other. We had anticipated this particular movie ever since it showed up in last Sunday’s TV Guide.
I really don’t even remember the show or anything about the plotline. What I do remember was that, as it was building to the pivotal scene, our adolescent hearts throbbing in our flat chests, the TV went on the blitz. The screen started flipping out, with chevron stripes rotating up and down. I leaned over and changed the rabbit ear antennae, checking the screen as I shifted the thin metal rods poking out of the top of the box. We could hear the conversation becoming quietly romantic, passion heating up, but dang it, there was no picture! So, we started CPR, pounding on the TV, whacking it first on the top and then slapping it on both sides. This was how our dad had always fixed things. As the script moved into heavy breathing, I gave the thing a mighty smack with my fist and poof, it was gone. I had killed our TV. In the name of sex. Yes, sinful, passionate kissing on a blanket in a meadow. I was not just naughty, I was evil. And now our TV was broken.
I frankly don’t recall if we ever got it working again. We probably went back to playing Barbies or climbing trees.
A quick internet search of “hitting a TV to fix it” indicates there is actually some science behind percussive maintenance on old machines. Something about placement of components and what heat does to shift things, etc. I don’t understand any of it. The internet also says that kind of therapy is no longer effective in newer technology. (It’s not effective in fixing people either. Someone should have explained that to our dad.)
