Never (mercifully) had to do that…but, having grown up in the Midwest, I remember having to explain to distressed-looking ‘new kids’ at school that the local civil defense siren going off at noon on Mondays didn’t mean the Ruskies were attacking…but instead that they just tested it regularly, mainly in case of tornados. (I did occasionally wonder, however, if the evil Ruskies might be clever enough to attack at noon on a Monday, just to catch us off-guard… [:S])
I ran a line out the window to a little ‘Radio Shack’ antenna – not much more than a glorified coat-hanger – hanging in the low-hanging branch of a tree in the side yard. Easier (and faster) to adjust, no climbing required.
I don’t think I was ever watching TV early enough to see the sign-on…but I vividly remember the National Anthem being played at sign-off…always right after ‘Thought For The Day.’ [:D]
Ours was the cartoon ‘station manager’ literally tearing his hair out, with a janitor with mop and bucket smiling in the background. I always wondered what kind of technical glitch could be solved with a mop and bucket…unless the aforementioned SM was likely to pee himself. [:$]
Napoleon XIV, ‘Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah,’ and…my favorite…‘Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.’ Sherman’s My Son, the Folksinger and Vaughn Meader’s First Family album were the only comedy records my parents ever owned. Everything else was Sinatra, Montovani, Burl Ives, and…my pre-adolescent favorite…Julie London. (Not that the music of that last was my favorite…but I used to stare longingly at Ms. London’s sexy album covers, even before I quite knew why.)
A more innocent (i.e., clueless) time, for darn sure.
On the 'ol television front, playing with walkie-talkies and upsetting the parents and neighbors TV reception and hearing the ramblings of ten year olds…
When an aircraft would fly over the picture would go wobbly until it passed.
W.O.R. Radio out of New York would have a show at night called the pillow talk club where they woujld ask you to listen to their music through your pillow so your parents could not hear it. In the morning the transister radio would be dead and you needed to find a new battery.
Ever hear the chicago radio program called The Breakfast Club?
Ever listen to Gene Sheppard’s stories from N.Y.? If you never heard of him, think A Christmas Story. That’s some of his stuff and he did the narration.
In the mid-1960s, my mom used to listen to “Don McNeill’s Breakfast Club” – think the same demographic as, say, Mike Douglas or Larry King – weekday mornings on Chicago’s ‘old folks’ radio giant WGN.
But even more bizarre…from a pre-teen’s POV…the same city’s 50,000-watt Rock’n’Roll radio powerhouse WLS used to run the same show…on a few hours’ tape-delay, I think…between Clark Weber (early mornings) and Bernie Allen (early afternoons). To recast it in terms of a slightly later entertainment generation: sort of like if they had run “Lawrence Welk” mornings on MTV. [:D]
AFRTS would put out canned programs from the States, play them twice and dispose of the records, much like the old Liberty Records from WWII. I have maybe 5 of those that my Father grabbed during the war.
We would have some strange safety/public service commercials and just plain strange comic bits show up on the radio too. We got things like Chicken Man, Wolfman Jack and his bit Casa Del Lobo besides his usual broadcast show and his Christmas special each year. I managed to get some things on tape while on duty by either taking my cassette radio with me or just loading a tape and let it play while locked in my locker.
Hells yeah! Even as pre-teens, we lived and breathed everything WLS. I actually got to meet and converse with Art Roberts and Clark Weber at (separate) personal appearances in Arlington Hts and Wheeling (we lived in Buffalo Grove at the time). Pretty heady memories for a kid who – to hear my mom tell it – had the old pocket transistor ‘surgically attached!’
I’ll see your Silver Dollar Survey…and raise you a ‘Super Summer Treasure Truck.’ [:D]
[BTW, notice anything really odd about the survey below? Other than, say, the Jefferson Airplane, Al Martino, the Everly Brothers, the Mauds and Jon & Robin all appearing in the same mid-to-late-'60s R&R Top-40 space/time continuum??
I remember meeting Gene Sheppard when he did a show at our high school.
Remember the show Jesus Christ Super Star? I got to see the play with the original cast in S.D. just before I went overseas for the first time. Not many years later one of the female singers became a hit singer during disco.
Built most of Monograms cars over the years. Built the Big Rod and the Big Deuce. Still have the Deuce. Making it a rear engined rod with a Pocher V12.
Built most of Pyros gun kits. Still have the Bavarian Wheellock Rifle kit, all 4’4" of it that is not in that flier.
Was a member of the Auto World club. Still have my jacket patch.
Guess I’m a lucky guy in that I still remember lots of that old stuff at 82 years old.
Only in the higher cultured areas do they have the “u” in 40.
They can be a bit odd like that. If you have for some reason, seen them when they hold their cup, the saucer never moves.
When Mountain Dew first came out they had a Ozark style hillbilly as its identifier trademark. When did that go way? I had heard that it was going to be brought back. A new class distinction they may have just rediscovered?
Why did it take so long to get a rocket to land vertically when it was happening all the time on 1950s T.V.? Rocky Jones, Tom Corbet, and Flash Gordon are examples. After that you can add you can add Thunderbirds to the list.
Palindromes…Wasn’t that a name of a chracter on a TV show back in the day? It might have been a comedy science fiction show like Quark, or maybe something newer.
