Our first TV was a living room grade console style. I remember feeling grown-up because I could sound out the name 'Magnivox' on the lower right hand corner, gold letters over the brown/gold weave of the speaker covering, like on the old radios. The whole thing was encased in dark stained wood, perched on little splayed legs which rested there on our gray wool living room carpet.
I was 6 when we finally got the thing that it seemed to me everyone else already had. It took a while for my Dad to make the move into this future, the likes of which none of us could know. For the first few years it stayed in the living room until we all decided it should go downstairs in the play room. Probably after my brother read 1984 in High School, and we knew that this thing should never become the bad kind of 'big brother' controlling our house more than we could control it.
Before our own set I had gone to my friend's home to watch the 3 Stooges, Red Skelton, Bugs Bunny cartoons, Captain Kangaroo and Romper Room. I relished my afternoons at the Dickenson's, released from the oppressive tedium of Catholic elementary school. I loved the comedy, and I remember we laughed so much, in between shows or playing at applying DeAnn's Mom's red lipstick, or collecting pop bottles to take to the corner store to buy candy. That Rocky Road, unbelievable.
In these years my parents were preoccupied, over worked, over whelmed with their mission to produce and support as many little Catholics as "God chose to give us". That meant God chose to have me changing diapers as soon as my little hands could work a safety pin.
So, the TV. I digress. The really early memory of what we saw on the Magnivox was John Kennedy's Funeral procession. The hymn played was a dirge which made me sob at 7 years old. Even when I hear it now I choke up. The blow to us was like a sucker punch. He had kids my age. He was so young, handsome, articulate. Even as a little kid I could see that. We had met him in person when he was campaigning in 1960. He stopped into the Salem fairgrounds, which was 5 blocks away from our house. Our neighbor's sister worked in his press corps so our group got introduced. My mom shook his hand and he commented on her "lovely children".
Our sadness at his death had no words.
So when, on February 9, 1964, the Beatles played on The Ed Sullivan Show, and I had a teen aged sister who was hip enough to know when that would be so that we were all sitting in that little living room watching history, well our hearts began to heal. We thought, especially the girls, that we would explode with happiness. It wasn't until years later that I realized this was my 8th birthday. What a day, what a gift! Four smart, handsome, funny, talented young men with adorable accents singing us love songs and dance music. They were sent from heaven.
Fifty Four years later I can still feel the eight year old shy kid who saw the world begin to open up on the TV screen. I can still feel the sadness of loosing a man we loved, like a member of our family. I can still remember that sense of being so full of excitement at seeing rock music played by young guys so darling that I understood why all those girls were screaming. It wasn't for love, it was for letting go. It was for the enormity of the future opening up to mystery, and then it was still so full of promise.
