Television? . . . . What's That?

    I mentioned in an earlier post that in the early 50s we didn't have a TV yet. I read some statistics somewhere recently that around 1950, there were something like ten million televisions sold  in America. Unfortunately, not too many of them made their way to my block in East New York. Now you know why we spent so much time outdoors.

NOTE: This isn't my family (although it could be)

        So!, you ask, what did we do when we couldn't go out? Well, we did have RADIO! Radio was fantastic. Radio was our source of news, music and entertainment. The whole family would sit around the radio and listen to "shows" much like people do today with television. (At least I think some families still watch TV together) Probably the greatest thing about listening to a "radio drama" is that you got to use your imagination. Some of them were so well done with sound effects and stuff that you could actually see in your mind what was happening. An interesting note here: On October 30th 1938 (a bit before my time) on CBS radio, Orson Welles narrated an adaptation of H. G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds". Millions of families sat around their radios listening. It was done as if it was a newscast, with sound effects and the whole nine yards. What's interesting is that some people didn't know it was a show and actually panicked thinking we were being invaded by Martians.
        This is a list (by no means complete) of some of the radio shows we listened to:

• The Lone Ranger
• The Shadow
• Inner Sanctum
• Abbott & Costello
• Burns & Allen
• Amos and Andy

      
         I'm sure there are many of you that can relate to those wonderful times of growing up without TV. If anyone has some of their favorite radio shows that they would like to share, please list them in the comments area of this blog and I will update this post to include them.

        Now radio wasn't the only indoors activity we had. We had board games, card games, newspapers, (especially the funny's), and magazines like "Look" and  "The Saturday Evening Post". One of my personal favorites was doing "jig-saw" puzzles; and believe it or not.....(yes I am a boy) ....knitting and crocheting. When I was about five or so, my maternal grandmother lived with us for a while and taught me how to knit and crochet. I couldn't make a sweater but boy could I make a long scarf and a pretty good doily.

Start here

End Here

        There were many other things too. Our father was a carpenter and he had a little shop in the cellar where he had lots of tools and about a million pieces of scrap wood. That's where my brother and I would make "scooters" out of a half-a-pair of old roller skates, and old wooden orange crate or milk crate and a 2x4. We made lots of other stuff too but we were most definitely "scooter" builders of the first caliber.     
        Indoors, outdoors; it didn't matter, we knew how to have fun anytime, anywhere. As I'm writing this, the common complaint that just about all kids have now-a-days; "I'm Bored", popped into my head. I think I can honestly say that we seldom, if ever, complained about being bored, and if we ever dared to complain, our parents would simply say: "Go find something to do"........And we did.
        I was going to end this post here but a couple of things just popped into my head. I absolutely loved "Lincoln Logs" and my "Erector Set"........ Not to mention "Mister Potato Head".

Have fun playing.
Don