Mainly local television brought our news…we had a whopping ‘3’ channels…in black and white.
Stop laughing, we thought we were the house to visit because we HAD a TV.
My Daddy’s favorite newscaster was Walter Cronkite with his AMAZING voice and on-screen respect for those he covered.
For those who have never seen/hear Walter, he ALWAYS closed his coverage by saying "And that's the way it is" followed by the date, hence my title for today.
Subscribing to the newspaper was also something my Daddy did…unfortunately, we only had ‘1’ and it was rather skewed on the local news (something I later found out). However, I loved reading the comics, they were in COLOR! I know, how did they do that?
A Sunday didn’t pass without my using my silly putty to flatten and get a ‘copy’ of FAMILY CIRCUS by Bill Keane...like this (i think this is an incredible CAKE)
Occasionally my parents would turn off the TV was ‘rough’; but that didn’t happen a lot then, so most of the news was discussed out in the open. Fright did come a few times by local news events of rioting or discussions of war. Daddy spoke out quite often about his opinions on both subjects, some of which I grew to understand and others still confuse me .
Presidential visits to cities back then were MUCH bigger than they are viewed today; so, we would attentively watch as President Kennedy would parade through the city he was visiting.
His assassination will always be in my memory as well as his funeral; I was the same age as John John, and I remember standing in front of the TV saluting with him.
Somehow BLACK and WHITE truly matched that moment in time, giving it the somberness and respect it deserved while we as a nation TRULY grieved.
His assassination will always be in my memory as well as his funeral; I was the same age as John John, and I remember standing in front of the TV saluting with him.
Somehow BLACK and WHITE truly matched that moment in time, giving it the somberness and respect it deserved while we as a nation TRULY grieved.
One of my
The crackling of the voice transmissions along with the fuzzy black and white pictures coming across the TV AMAZED me…"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." I heard those words live as they were occurring.
(side note: My grandmother NEVER came to believe they truly went there…she thought it was all a hoax just to give the Kennedy Whitehouse a leg up on Russia)
Those words will live in my memory forever…that moment totally intrigued the ‘techy’ in me. Years later I visited our local science museum and awed over the moon rocks and the ‘copy’ of the lunar module. I was EVEN MORE intrigued in Washington DC to visit the Smithsonian Air&Space Museum where I saw the actual water-landing capsule.
Probably one of my biggest personal moments: In the late 1980's I worked as a telecommunications industry executive secretary and Retired Col. Frank Borman (Apollo 8) was on our board of directors.
His biggest fame came on December 18, 1968 when he was commander of NASA’s Apollo 8 (earth's first close-up view of the lunar surface/dark side of the Moon)
His biggest fame came on December 18, 1968 when he was commander of NASA’s Apollo 8 (earth's first close-up view of the lunar surface/dark side of the Moon)
It’s fun remembering the days I handed him coffee, just said ‘hello’ or stood closely by as he sat at my desk while calling his home office.
(He was smaller than me but he was a GIANT in my memory.)
(He was smaller than me but he was a GIANT in my memory.)
Times dear to my heart, for sure.
Come join in @ Mocha w/ Linda…I want to hear about your memories.
