Nothing to do with chips this time. Just a personal memory and reflection. I thought I'd post it here. -- Dennis
I grew up in the 1960s and 70s. In those days, every family had just one television. It was "the TV." That was it. Like the phone. ("The phone" was on "the wall.") There was only one TV. They turned it on one day in around 1964, and as far as I know, it stayed on, day and night, until I left for college.
And in the days before Netflix, before the Internet, and even before cable, "the TV" meant a big TV in a wooden cabinet that sat on the floor. It looked like a big piece of furniture with a TV screen in it. Some grand pianos are smaller. You got three channels. Six if you could contort the antenna into just the right spot and somehow get it to stay there.
Our family's TV was black and white. (For reference to our younger readers, imagine if your TV got stuck on TCM.) My father was a child of the Great Depression. His thought process was simple: "Why buy a fancy (and at the time, expensive) color TV? The TV we have works just fine." Some families on our street had "color TV." We did not.
"They must be rich," I thought.
Then came "the picnic."
My father worked on Philly's waterfront along the Delaware River at "The Sugar House." That's what he always called it. He worked at Domino Sugar, which was south along the Delaware from the former Jack Frost Sugar Refinery, site of today's Sugar House Casino. Apparently, employees of both plants, a mile apart, called their refinery "The Sugar House."
In the summer of 1973, I was 10 years old. We attended the company picnic. It was a big soiree, an all-day barbecue at some giant park with a lake and music and hundreds of people who worked at the Sugar House. The "company bigwigs" even flew in from New York. There would be door prizes, the best of which was -- you guessed it -- a new color TV. It would be awarded to the family holding the winning ticket that matched one drawn at random, or so we thought. We all got one ticket each upon arrival. I got barbecue sauce on mine. It was delicious.
In late afternoon, they started giving away door prizes, spinning a big steel barrel full of tickets and calling out ticket numbers for lesser prizes. Candy, the obligatory "basket of cheer," and other stuff. We weren't interested in those.
My brother, Jimmy, was 12 years old. I glanced at him and noticed he was holding a long string of tickets.
"Where'd you get those?" I said, staring at my one barbecued ticket.
"I found them in that trash can over there," he said, pointing to a big metal garbage can near the stage.
Soon, it was time. The man on stage called out a bunch of numbers. There was a pause. Then...
"I won!" my brother shouted. He took off like a madman for the stage, running like little kids run when they win the big prize. He made it to the stage, where two men looked at his ticket. He gave his name, speaking into a microphone.
"Well, Jimmy," said the man with the microphone, "it looks like you, ah, won a new TV."
Even at 10 years old, it seemed like something was wrong. There was a pause. Something unexpected had happened. Something was up. But I didn't care. At least not for two days.
It was two days later, a sunny summer Monday afternoon. I was sitting on the floor in our living room watching cartoons in color on our new TV when two men knocked on our front door. My mother answered.
They were from the Sugar House. There was some mistake. Something to do with the tickets. My brother was mentioned. The TV was mentioned. I wished they would shut up so I could watch the TV.
Suddenly, one of the men was in front of me, smiling. The other was unplugging the TV. The screen went black. I looked for my mother. She was on the phone in the kitchen, where "the wall" was. She was calling my Dad at work.
"Some men are here from the Sugar House. They're taking the TV."
Instantly, both my parents knew what kids don't know: The contest was fixed.
The organizers obviously palmed a ticket stub and threw the matching half into the trash. The plan was to call that number and have a "ringer" come to the stage to claim the TV with any ticket they happened to be holding. The men on stage would "confirm" that the fake winner had the correct ticket, and he'd be off with the TV. They might have pre-selected some favored manager to actually win, or the whole thing might have been a scam where the TV gets returned to the store the next day.
It was all very neat, and would have worked -- until my brother found the string of tickets they threw away and ran faster to the stage than the adult who was supposed to claim the win. When he got there first and had the actual number they had called, they were in a bind. Everyone heard the number, and my brother had that ticket. They'd either have to give him the TV, or admit to hundreds of people watching that they rigged the contest.
My mother hung up the phone. My Dad was on his way. My mother was upset about the TV leaving, but more upset that two strangers would come to her home and imply that her son had done something wrong. Ever genteel and polite, she still had not a sour word for these men. It was the 1970s, after all. Moms didn't become ass-kicking badasses until the early 2000s. If any asses needed to be kicked, my Dad would have to handle that when he got home. Mom made coffee and offered it to the men.
"My husband will be home in a few minutes," she said.
The men didn't stay for coffee. Somehow, news of my father's impending arrival reminded them of some urgent business elsewhere. They ran off with the TV like ... well, like they stole it.
My father made it home in record time. He was loud on a good day. Today was exceptional.
"Who were these men?" he asked.
"Well, one was so-and-so tall and had blah-blah-blah hair and glasses," my mother said.
Dad knew the guy. "That's Reds." And the other guy was Big Pete. Everyone in the 70s had a cool nickname. Until I was 15, I thought my whole family was in the Italian mafia. Except we were Polish.
Next, Dad was on the phone to his union -- the Longshoremen. (Okay, we weren't "in" the mafia. We just worked with them.) He was angry. He wanted something done. They came to his house and took the TV "in front of my kids!" he said. "My kids!" He spoke like they had killed a man in the living room.
In the end, the company kept the TV, but disavowed any knowledge that the contest was "fixed." Oddly, they somehow knew that my brother should never have gotten the winning ticket.
And after stewing over the whole affair for a week, my father went out the following weekend and bought a new color TV. All it took was some shenanigans, a fixed contest, a couple of big mob-looking guys barging into our house, and an empty space where our prize color TV use to be.
THE TRUE STORY OF HOW MY FAMILY GOT OUR FIRST
COLOR TELEVISION
(Circa 1973)
COLOR TELEVISION
(Circa 1973)
I grew up in the 1960s and 70s. In those days, every family had just one television. It was "the TV." That was it. Like the phone. ("The phone" was on "the wall.") There was only one TV. They turned it on one day in around 1964, and as far as I know, it stayed on, day and night, until I left for college.
And in the days before Netflix, before the Internet, and even before cable, "the TV" meant a big TV in a wooden cabinet that sat on the floor. It looked like a big piece of furniture with a TV screen in it. Some grand pianos are smaller. You got three channels. Six if you could contort the antenna into just the right spot and somehow get it to stay there.
Our family's TV was black and white. (For reference to our younger readers, imagine if your TV got stuck on TCM.) My father was a child of the Great Depression. His thought process was simple: "Why buy a fancy (and at the time, expensive) color TV? The TV we have works just fine." Some families on our street had "color TV." We did not.
"They must be rich," I thought.
Then came "the picnic."
My father worked on Philly's waterfront along the Delaware River at "The Sugar House." That's what he always called it. He worked at Domino Sugar, which was south along the Delaware from the former Jack Frost Sugar Refinery, site of today's Sugar House Casino. Apparently, employees of both plants, a mile apart, called their refinery "The Sugar House."
In the summer of 1973, I was 10 years old. We attended the company picnic. It was a big soiree, an all-day barbecue at some giant park with a lake and music and hundreds of people who worked at the Sugar House. The "company bigwigs" even flew in from New York. There would be door prizes, the best of which was -- you guessed it -- a new color TV. It would be awarded to the family holding the winning ticket that matched one drawn at random, or so we thought. We all got one ticket each upon arrival. I got barbecue sauce on mine. It was delicious.
In late afternoon, they started giving away door prizes, spinning a big steel barrel full of tickets and calling out ticket numbers for lesser prizes. Candy, the obligatory "basket of cheer," and other stuff. We weren't interested in those.
My brother, Jimmy, was 12 years old. I glanced at him and noticed he was holding a long string of tickets.
"Where'd you get those?" I said, staring at my one barbecued ticket.
"I found them in that trash can over there," he said, pointing to a big metal garbage can near the stage.
Soon, it was time. The man on stage called out a bunch of numbers. There was a pause. Then...
"I won!" my brother shouted. He took off like a madman for the stage, running like little kids run when they win the big prize. He made it to the stage, where two men looked at his ticket. He gave his name, speaking into a microphone.
"Well, Jimmy," said the man with the microphone, "it looks like you, ah, won a new TV."
Even at 10 years old, it seemed like something was wrong. There was a pause. Something unexpected had happened. Something was up. But I didn't care. At least not for two days.
It was two days later, a sunny summer Monday afternoon. I was sitting on the floor in our living room watching cartoons in color on our new TV when two men knocked on our front door. My mother answered.
They were from the Sugar House. There was some mistake. Something to do with the tickets. My brother was mentioned. The TV was mentioned. I wished they would shut up so I could watch the TV.
Suddenly, one of the men was in front of me, smiling. The other was unplugging the TV. The screen went black. I looked for my mother. She was on the phone in the kitchen, where "the wall" was. She was calling my Dad at work.
"Some men are here from the Sugar House. They're taking the TV."
Instantly, both my parents knew what kids don't know: The contest was fixed.
The organizers obviously palmed a ticket stub and threw the matching half into the trash. The plan was to call that number and have a "ringer" come to the stage to claim the TV with any ticket they happened to be holding. The men on stage would "confirm" that the fake winner had the correct ticket, and he'd be off with the TV. They might have pre-selected some favored manager to actually win, or the whole thing might have been a scam where the TV gets returned to the store the next day.
It was all very neat, and would have worked -- until my brother found the string of tickets they threw away and ran faster to the stage than the adult who was supposed to claim the win. When he got there first and had the actual number they had called, they were in a bind. Everyone heard the number, and my brother had that ticket. They'd either have to give him the TV, or admit to hundreds of people watching that they rigged the contest.
My mother hung up the phone. My Dad was on his way. My mother was upset about the TV leaving, but more upset that two strangers would come to her home and imply that her son had done something wrong. Ever genteel and polite, she still had not a sour word for these men. It was the 1970s, after all. Moms didn't become ass-kicking badasses until the early 2000s. If any asses needed to be kicked, my Dad would have to handle that when he got home. Mom made coffee and offered it to the men.
"My husband will be home in a few minutes," she said.
The men didn't stay for coffee. Somehow, news of my father's impending arrival reminded them of some urgent business elsewhere. They ran off with the TV like ... well, like they stole it.
My father made it home in record time. He was loud on a good day. Today was exceptional.
"Who were these men?" he asked.
"Well, one was so-and-so tall and had blah-blah-blah hair and glasses," my mother said.
Dad knew the guy. "That's Reds." And the other guy was Big Pete. Everyone in the 70s had a cool nickname. Until I was 15, I thought my whole family was in the Italian mafia. Except we were Polish.
Next, Dad was on the phone to his union -- the Longshoremen. (Okay, we weren't "in" the mafia. We just worked with them.) He was angry. He wanted something done. They came to his house and took the TV "in front of my kids!" he said. "My kids!" He spoke like they had killed a man in the living room.
In the end, the company kept the TV, but disavowed any knowledge that the contest was "fixed." Oddly, they somehow knew that my brother should never have gotten the winning ticket.
And after stewing over the whole affair for a week, my father went out the following weekend and bought a new color TV. All it took was some shenanigans, a fixed contest, a couple of big mob-looking guys barging into our house, and an empty space where our prize color TV use to be.
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