Television Tubes

                                Golf ball Couch (Boston Children's Museum)

1/12/06

     Who's going to tell them about the old days the television tubes that you had to test one by one at a tester at Thrifty Drugs?  Different configurations on the bottom of the tube that you had to puzzle and figure out to put in which plug.  Once you did that, you'd press the tester button.  It was like a geiger counter needle.  The needle would shoot up into the green 'good' or stay in the red.  In red, the tube needed replacing.  The tubes came in little boxes that you'd carry home and then replace in the back of your tv.  Sometimes all the tubes would be good and then..uh,oh...you'd have to replace the picture tube which was the mother of all tubes but the size of the father of all tubes.  You couldn't do that yourself, you'd have to send for a tv repair man or, send your tv away where it would mysteriously be repaired.

    Then you could watch the 10 or so channels that existed until the UHF stations were added which required a special antenna on your tv, not the huge V antennas on the roof of your house.  You could watch the channel until it went off at midnight or sometime in the night when a test pattern would appear.  The test pattern was a picture of an Indian Chief with some lines radiating from his head. In this current day of political correctness an Indian would never be used because somehow someone would figure out that was discriminatory. So, it's fortunate there are no longer test patterns and also fortunate that there's 100's of channels that never go off the air.  Gives us a huge variety of viewing pleasure.  I think tubes and the Indian pattern may have served a better purposes.

**This is a story in need of a revision for certain.  I was cringing as I typed it.    The immediacy of the "I" was replaced by the "you".  "you" doesn't work here because it's clear I mean "I".   Yet the bones of the story, about the differences in televisions then and now is important.  Below is a quick revision.

   One of my jobs was to ride my bike to Thrifty Drugs to test the television tubes when they needed to be replaced.  Thrifty, besides having a soda fountain where you could buy and eat apple cobbler with ice cream, also had a tube tester.  I rode around to the front entrance where the tube tester sat next to the cashier.  The first part of tube testing was to figure out which  socket to place the tube in.  Each tube had a different configuration on the bottom.  The tube tester had the female version of the configuration.  I liked puzzles, so I usually found the match quickly.

   I'd insert the tube into the proper place and push the tester button.  The machine reminded me of a geiger counter with a long needle that zoomed from stationary to someplace along a scaled spectrum.  If the needle stayed in the red zone, it would need to be replaced.  If it zoomed to the green zone, the tube was working properly.  To replace a tube I called the cashier who would unlock the cabinet and sell me the new tube in a small box I'd take home.  I'd replace the old one by pushing the new into the back of the tv.

   When all tested tubes were green, the picture tube was the problem.  The picture tube was massive and needed to be replaced by a tv repairman either in house or taken to a tv repair shop and returned.  The picture tubes were the most expensive, but not as costly as a new tv.  And, no same day service, meaning there would be no tv for several days.

   Once the tv was repaired, I could once again watch the 10 or so channels the tv carried.  To change the channel, I would stand in front of the tv and turn the channel switch until I found something I liked.  No remotes.  Several new channels were added with UHF.  This had a separate channel changer and a different antenna.  The UHF antenna sat on top of the tv, different from the huge V shaped antenna that sat on the roof for the regular stations.

   All tv stations didn't broadcast after a certain time at night.  If I turned on the tv in the middle of the night, all of the stations were broadcasting test patterns.  The test pattern was a profile picture of an Indian Chief with lines radiating from his head. There was a steady tone associated with a test pattern.

  Just as new understandings exist for many ideas previously not identified as discriminatory, the wrong headed use of the Indian Chief test pattern is a thing of the past. Another nod to forward movement through education?  Bye, bye tubes and test patterns, hello hundreds of channels that rarely stop broadcasting. Bye, bye Thrifty Drugs, but not bye bye to apple cobbler.  Anyone know where to get some?  

**Improvement, but still needs a bit of work, but I no longer cringe.

     

 

In the Rearview : )

      I don't want to live life in the rearview, but sometimes the view is better from that direction.  Grass is always greener in the future.  Past and future.  But what about the present?  This is creative nonfiction, memoir writing if you will.  Recollecting the past, anticipating the future, and the writer is in the middle.  The past gives us material, reflection in the present can lead to understanding in the future.  

     Each of us have our past which shapes us, our present which defines us, and our future, the dreaded or deeply anticipated unknown.  What lingers longest is the past.  We remember what we remember how we remember it today.  Writing our memories is a way of making meaning of our lives.  Writing our memories is what connects us to universal themes.  I haven't lived your life, but I have lived mine and I have my own stories of love and loss, triumph and learning, doing this and that, feeling joy, sadness, possibilities.  Through our memories we not only connect with ourselves, but share with others in what we do and don't understand about life.  Often it is  easier to comprehend life when we visit through the lens of someone else--  as evidenced in literature, spoken stories, movies, art.  I and Thou.  

   I want to peek in the rearview so I don't miss the sunsets in unanticipated places.  I want to take the material I have gathered over decades of writing and flesh it out and place it in public view.  I offering to Thou.  What do we have in common? What makes one life unique?  

   In 2006 I was emerging from a deep depression triggered by the sudden death of my beloved.  I knew writing to be my helpmate, and I wrote and wrote in journals, filling them with fingernail grips on each day.  But journal writing, while necessary, was not what I longed to do.  My creative spark lie dormant.  Where was the kindling?

    As a way of holding myself accountable to blend past with present, I decided to write about one person or thing or idea from my childhood for 100 days.  I was inspired by an artist's exhibition I wandered into in Wyoming when we were looking for a bathroom break on the way back from Yellowstone.  Jim Brandenburg took one photograph a day from the Spring to the Winter's Equinox.  I thought writing one short piece a day would be easier than CHASING THE LIGHT. Some days it may have been, other days not so.

   I'll challenge myself again.  I'll put those ideas to work in this blog.  One a day.  I'll write them down as I did, and in current time.  From the far past, to the near past, to the present.  I'll be eager to explore what I knew then, and what I know now.  And, how all of this may help for the future.  For my writer self.

Emerging from the Pandemic

 

       Time, here it is, there it goes, now it's here.  Pandemic time.  Two years of hard shut down, cautious reawakening, tentative emergence.  Mask always in my back pocket even now.  Shots up to date, one new one pending to boost for variants.  And yet, I'm finding my way back.  I weigh the odds that the CDC espouses.  Outdoors, not crowded, indoors, no longer than 15 minutes, mask stays in pocket. Variations to the rules depend on who I'm with, where I'm at.  If we all need to be vaccinated to be in there, I'll stay longer without a mask.  Senior Center.

      I've flown to Boston and back from Los Angeles, mask never removed except for sips of water.  I've flown from Burbank to Phoenix and back, same scenario.  Was I lucky or not exposed, or were my antibodies working?  I was safe in any event.

     Point is, last year at this time, I wouldn't have even ventured anywhere without a mask.  Still wear one now in the grocery store.  So, I'm a cautious emerger, but it's about time.  I use my hand sanitizer whenever I go somewhere and get back into my car.  When I get home, I wash my hands.  

     My way of thinking has changed.  I'm going to be wary, but not fearful.  So far, it's worked.  As flu and Covid seasons intertwine this Fall/Winter, I'll be in a mask more than out, I suspect.  Still don't want to tempt fate with either illness.  I don't want to play on the freeway.  I don't mind staying home.

     It's been two years to get to this point.  I'll make it a soft landing.  One day soon I'll write about how the pandemic changed my life, and society in general.  Stay tuned, I'm back!

Social Isolation in the Time of Covid 19

     Up until last week I was a quite busy retired Senior Citizen.  I not only babysat one of my granddaughters four days a week while her Mommy worked, but I taught a Creative Writing class every week, and a Journaling and Conscious Aging Class once a month at our local Senior Center. I also taught a Creative Writing Class at a retreat center once a month.   I still had time to enjoy my friends and read and watch tv and do all of those other kinds of normal things.  But then came the non-normal times that sent panic and fear through populations and a unity to quell the rising tide of an unknown virus.  And, I find I have a lot more free time.

    I am at least three parts that can move my focus as I choose to socially isolate because I am of that certain age.    I value history and the unique perspective of people who live it.  Documenting history from my view may be helpful further on down the line, or perhaps, even today.  Who knows?  Secondly, I am a writer.  In teaching all of these classes and watching my granddaughter (which is joyful), I have moved away from understanding that.  Thirdly, I have various backgrounds in therapy and education which inform me.  All of these parts might coalesce and offer universal themes.  I'll test it out.

        Writing will be helpful to me in this time of uniqueness and hopefully, helpful to others.  Perhaps we can start a discussion that is apolitical and kind as well as thought provoking.  We may be isolated in person, but not in a created community.

Because of a seeming divide in our country, I’m hopeful that our all being in this time together to fight the spread of a disease,  may push a reset button on this division.   There are entrenched concepts on both sides, unwillingness to move along a spectrum.  Everyone speaks as if they are an ‘expert' from their point of view.  Some of us know more than others in certain areas,  but disallowing opinions and a desire to figure out how to build a bridge over any chasm, causing everyone to shout to be heard, is not likely the endless loop that is beneficial to all.  

   And so my thought that perhaps these attitudes that have us on opposite sides of a chasm may allow us to narrow it to the benefit of all as we work together to stop the spread of this virus.    Once we tackle this, we will not likely kumbaya away, but perhaps have a start at exploring our differences in ways that move us forward. This is my hope.

Sunlight and Shadow

              Over the bridge above troubled water, out of the darkness into the light.  The steady clip clop of the horses echo in the covered bridge, built in 1896. Around us the sturdy beams and braces of wood protect us from the heat of the day.  The churning water below sends cooling mist through the slats.  We bump and sway with the rhythm of the carriage.
          I ponder how life is like the carriage ride, pulled by two sturdy and sure footed horses, along the dusty heat infused trail, on the precipice above the banks of the raging river, through the well-constructed bridge, into the sunlight from the shadows.
          I ponder.
          It is.
          Yes.

And, I did it! : )

     It's out in the world now rather than occupying space in a drawer or in the cloud or on my desktop.  The very act of finally announcing its printed existence has energized my writer self.  So, here I am writing.  I'd forgotten for a while, weighed down by both worry and ultimately joy, that I am a writer.  So much interferes with that realization.  Life, mainly, and the choices I make to do this instead of that.  Responsibilities, sometimes, for what I've said I will do and believe that I must.  That inner critic gnawing at my self confidence.  The psychological black hole of being and nothingness where what's it all about abuts who cares, in the end causing inertia. 
     And yet, here I am.  Proud, not boastful.  I wish you would read it, I hope you will read it, it's a good story if you like those kinds of stories.  If you take a chance, I hope you will enjoy it.  I've researched it, followed the characters where they led, made a few subtle points regarding prejudice, family, women's abilities, war.  But, even if you do not read it, it is now out in the world, a culminating act of bravery and hope on my part.  I am a writer after all, and that's what we do.  We write.   It's not about acceptance necessarily, but possibility.  Although, I'll also take acceptance. : )

What a Month!

      We've all had those "what a months!".  Times when things were so far out of our control that we understood how little control we have over life.  We don't like to reflect on that usually as we go about our days thinking, "I've got this".  And, to the best of what we know, we do.  At least we believe we do.  But then there are those months that tug on our understanding of life.  Such was this past four week period, a month in time, if not a particular month.
     My daughter was in her 33rd week of pregnancy and had just decided to stop working.  She had not been feeling well for some time and her carriage was such that she was in the final week of pregnancy.  She developed gestational hypertension, her feet and hands were swollen, she lumbered.  On one trip to the doctor for normal monitoring of herself and the baby, she also decided to make another appointment to check out her swelling.  (So confusing why she needed to go to an internist for this, but that's the system).  The internist, in consultation with an obstetrician decided she needed to go to Triage.  Thus began the week, began the month that was.  While she was sent home that day to monitor her blood pressure and urine, she was back in the hospital in a couple of days for an 8 day stay they ended in an emergency c-section when they could not get her blood pressure under control.
    Piper Terese was born on November 2 and spent the next six days in the NICU.  Before Piper went home my daughter was sent home and then back into the hospital because of her blood pressure.  Both she and Piper finally went home together just a week ago.  Since then it's been my joy to dispense TLC and Mom and Grandma hugs.  My mother used to say "a bad beginning is a good ending".  My mother had lots of sayings, but this one applies here. 
    I've been pondering the why of these happenings to my daughter.  I know she will take a while to process all that has gone on.  In that processing I'm guessing she may turn the events on herself in some way, as if she could have done something differently.  She could not.  Lesser women would have caved at all of the challenges she's been through in these later stages of her pregnancy and mostly in the past month of her hospitalization, major surgery, coming home to care for her newborn daughter.  She amazes me with her strength and resolve.  She is an incredible woman and an awesome mother.  Piper is so lucky to be her daughter.  I am so fortunate to be her Mother.
  I had five pregnancies, four live births and a miscarriage.  I tripped through them without a hitch other than some queasiness and tiredness.  I rue my daughter's experience in so far as she did not have the great good joyful time of the normalcy of pregnancy.  I am grateful that I did not experience the challenges she faced, and overcame. 
  I realized the seriousness of what she was going through more than she did (thankfully).  Thank heavens for the competent doctors who knew what to do in the emergency situation.  Because of them, and my daughter's resolve, I did not lose my most precious daughter.  She has been my joy and I know that Piper will be hers. 
  Thanksgiving is next week and I am so thankful for many things, not the least of which is my understanding of how fiercely I love and how little I can control in life. Being reminded of this over the past short time period and living in the moment to moment has been both stressful and stress free. As I process and navigate what was, I live in what is.  My hope, my daughter, my granddaughter, life.  I've got this!