Black and White TV shows. Our grandchildren would ask "what is that? so here goes my description of more of a wonderful life.
Wow, we did not live in a city so it was a long time before we received any TV transmission. I was married before we had television, but soon after our oldest son Drew was born we bought a TV. We were mesmerized by the black and white shows we could receive. "Red Skelton", ”I Love Lucy" and " Lassie" were some of the ones that could lift your spirits and make a evening at home low cost entertainment. That is once the set was paid for We would struggle to make the $12.00 a month payment for a whole year before we could say it was free entertainment.. For special occasions we would invite friends over to watch “Gun Smoke” or “Paladin – Have gun will travel” and that was also when pizza first came out. Make a Pizza and spend the evening laughing and enjoying friends. The Gibson’s just lived a crossed the street and so an invitation on short notice was nothing and was an exciting time. Also Celia and Allan Hill spent many times with us viewing the crazy antics of Lucille Ball and Red Skelton. The Ed Sullivan Show was where we got acquainted with Lennon Sisters who latter joined Lawrence’s Champagne Music.
I think we spent more time watching TV then than we do now as we didn’t have any money to do too much of anything else. At that time my Husband worked for Slim Olson Service Stations and was the Assistant Manager. He only had one day off a week which was Thursday so if the holidays fell on other days of the week he had to work. Life was wonderful and still is.
The old black and white shows were never rated R. I don't think they were even rated at all because of the laws and restrictions on what could be shown and even said on TV. We never had to worry about seeing anything risqué and even hearing any thing said that might offend any one who might be present. Even the commercials at that time were good to watch. Most of the commercials were singing little ditties like the “Alka-Seltzer” commercials that were "Plop Plop Fizz Fizz - Oh What a Relief it is" and “Betty Crocker” who was the best cook on Television.
We even had news commentators like Edward R. Morrow that made reporting the news special and exciting with out so many commercials, of course we didn't have chopper 5 to be on the scene immediately like we have now and the news was not quite so instant but it was good news. The weather forecasts were more predictions rather than forecasts. Technology has changed so many things all the way from Black and White TV to Color TV to Cell phones, I pods, SMART Phones, to I Pad 2 what ever way we receive our movies, shows or weather we see all this with progress in this wonderful country. No matter what or how, life is wonderful and bread still is a joy to eat whether you see it as Wonder Bread or made from scratch.