Get Up. Change the Channel. - Dr. Ed Iannuccilli

Get Up. Change the Channel. - Dr. Ed Iannuccilli

Dad came home from his long day at Quonset Point, had supper while reading the newspapers (two editions in those days), and if he had anything left, sat in front of the television on his inviting well-fitted comfort couch. Save for election years when political news captured his attention, he often fell asleep, anticipating the 4:30 AM alarm. However, some programs garnered his interest to stave off slumberland.

We had a choice of three television channels, only three networks in the fifties . . . NBC, CBS, and ABC. When Dad wanted to change a channel (rather, to have a channel changed), I was assigned the task. “Edward, get up and change the channel.” The floor in front of the small screen was my spot.

“Why not him?” I pointed to my brother.

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“Because I asked you.” We had one TV. We watched whatever our parents wanted because they were in control of the knob-turners. Nothing remote.

Dutifully, I released my head from my hand, churned up from prone to vertical, sauntered one step to the newly acquired, state-of-the-art 12-inch RCA TV; so state-of-the-art that a 45-rpm record player, whose sound exited the speakers of the TV, was connected to it, and sat dutifully on top. I grasped the knob with my thumb and two fingers, clicked around, and halted to the command, “OK, stop, there.” Dad’s finger was on the TV’s pulse.

His favorite stop was at John Cameron Swayze ‘hopscotching the world for headlines,’ and delivering the news with no hint of disinformation, in fifteen minutes.

And then it was on to something else. He stayed awake for Milton Berle, who occupied the same channel, so a respite for me, as I stayed on the floor. So too did we get a reprieve when there was a baseball game . . . televised daily from Boston, home of the Braves and the Red Sox.

My favorite night was Friday when I watched The Hopalong Cassidy Show. That was a night when I invited neighborhood friends whose families had not yet gotten their TVs. And it was a night I was allowed to stay up to watch the boxing matches from Madison Square Garden. I loved that time with Dad.

In those days, three channels were as good, if not better, than today’s one hundred (or more). There was nothing to miss since we had nothing to miss and knew not what there was to miss. Our grandchildren think it funny. Oh, and those channels went off the air at eleven PM, following which all there was to see was a snow screen.

In addition to having few choices, and save for the new experience, there was not much that we wanted to see. Unlike today, we were quick to figure it out.

But, in those TV heydays, it was not about the choice. It was about something new; entertainers came into our home through a magic screen.

How lucky we were to be a part of that early excitement.

Dr. Ed Iannuccilli is the author of three popular memoirs, “Growing up Italian; Grandfather’s Fig Tree and Other Stories”, “What Ever Happened to Sunday Dinner” and “My Story Continues: From Neighborhood to Junior High.”  Learn more HERE.