Z is for Zenith

Zenith televisions.  I remember these.  We had one and my grandparents had a Zenith CONSOLE television.  I can remember watching professional football and golf on our Zenith.  I remember getting to stay up late and watch the Beatles on the Zenith and drooling over Kurt Russel in Disney movies (back in the day when I liked Disney...I still drool over Kurt Russel).  When I was little I watched Captain Kangaroo on the Zenith.  When I was older, after school I would come home, fix a snack and watch Gilligan's Island or Batman or the Flintstones or the Addams Family or The Munsters...Do you remember Green Acres?  Bewitched?  I Dream of Jeannie?  The Brady Bunch?  Whether I liked them or not, I watched.  That's what the Zenith was there for, right?  And let's not forget about the NBC peacock! And those antennae!  What about rabbit ears?

Funny, though, I don't remember ever watching television during the summer months.  I remember spending days at the library where my dad's mother was librarian.  I remember playing with my cousins and neighborhood friends; riding my bicycle; going to the swimming pool every day; vacations...but not television.

I'm pretty sure the only thing my grandfather ever watched on their Zenith CONSOLE was the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite; baseball games; gospel music on Sunday mornings and LAWRENCE WELK.  My grandmother, on the other hand, loved the soap operas on CBS.  As The World Turns and The Guiding Light were her absolute favorites.  And then, on weekends when I spent the night, she and I stayed up late and watched Elvis movies (I started to write 'old' Elvis movies but they weren't really that old then, were they?).

At our house, we would eat supper on TV trays while watching television.  Not at Grandmother and Granddaddy's though.  At their house, supper time was family at the table time.  We had that at home once my parents adopted my three wonderful brothers.  But I think it was because the den was a bit small for 6 of us to sit with TV trays and watch that smallish television.
 
I remember my mother telling the story of my grandparents' Zenith when I was three years old.  Apparently, I liked to turn the knobs on the set but, for some strange reason, that little pleasure of mine was not all that pleasing to anyone else.  So, one evening I was about to turn the knobs and my mother said, "Pam, do NOT turn the knobs on the television."  She says that I stood there and looked at her, looked at the television, and then back at her.  Suddenly, I took off running and, as I passed by the set, I reached my hand out and turned every single knob without slowing down one bit.  Sadly, I haven't changed much when it comes to having my way.

And that's the way it is- Saturday, April 30, 2011.