Since I grew up in the 1950s and 60s, technology has improved so many areas of our lives. I remember our small, black and white television that brought in three channels. The set weighed about a hundred pounds, and it had tubes as opposed to digital format. The picture was poor and often distorted. You had to wait for the tubes to warm up before you had reception.

We were popular because we were the first family in our Detroit neighborhood to own one. Every night, we had visitors coming over to watch this amazing media. The guy across the street would use field glasses to watch our set from an upstairs window.

Color television didn’t come into my life until the 1960s, and not all shows were in color. We would often watch programs just because they were in color. Some of them were really dull to a teenager. Every afternoon, after dinner, we would watch Dick Clark and American Bandstand. The dancers on the show were regulars, and we all had our favorites. We would search them out on the dance floor as the camera panned the studio. It was like we knew them, and we would talk about who was better looking.

I took pictures of the television screen, and I still have one of Dick Clark advertising Beechnut chewing gum. The television would sign off at eleven o’clock, and the National Anthem would play. The screen would have a test pattern on it until it came back on the air in the morning. Television was a time when we sat and watched as a family. In the summer, when school was out, we didn’t sit in and watch daytime TV. We were out and about. On a nice day, sitting in would not have been an option.

Telephones at this time were not mobile. The family phone had a party line. A party line was shared by more than one family. Before you made your call, you carefully picked up the phone to see if your neighbor was using it. You had to wait your turn, or you could listen to their conversation. You might hear some juicy gossip. If it was an emergency, you would tell the party to hang up until you had made your call. You had no privacy.

Our phone had an extension, and I would listen to my sister’s phone calls and blackmail her until she would tell my dad. If you wanted to make a long distance phone call, you had to dial “0” and talk to the operator. She would ask for the number you wanted and then ask your number. You could give someone else’s number, and they would get charged for the call. This is what I heard, anyway. Phone bills were only a couple of dollars a month, and many folks didn’t have one. Snail mail was the rule of the day. We wrote many letters then, while we were watching our Admiral Television.