DECEMBER 14, 2024 – For most of my growing-up years, our family lived without a television. I’m not sure if this was a conscious decision on the part of my parents or simply a “result by default” after the television that we did own had gone on the fritz. The default scenario alone is unlikely. My parents were diligent people. If something around the house needed fixing, Dad either took care of it on the spot or by the next weekend if the job required spare parts from Joe’s Western Auto hardware store. Or Mother hired someone to address the problem if a more involved and immediate remedy was necessary—repairing the suddenly malfunctioning furnace on a sub-zero day in January, for example.
In the case of our TV, I suspect what occurred was that the television I remember only from its perch on the shelf in the “cold room”[1] must have quit working; since it was housed in a small attractive wood cabinet (the screen was only about 12”), Dad might have decided to save it—perhaps, he thought, he could put the cabinet to good use some day. Because televisions back then weren’t exactly cheap, Mother and Dad probably decided to wait on making a replacement purchase, my parents being the sort who deliberated over such decisions. As time progressed, however, maybe they decided that their home was simply a better place without a television; that their kids should be spared the saturation of influences that were beginning to dominate popular culture.
Mother and Dad weren’t obsessed with isolating us from the “idiot box.” Since our grandparents owned a television, we were allowed to watch it during the evening of our all-day Sunday visits. And—I remember getting to watch Wild Kingdom hosted by Marlin Perkins and sponsored by Mutual of Omaha and The Twentieth Century, narrated by Walter Cronkite and sponsored by Prudential Insurance (never underestimate the power of advertising!), on Saturday afternoons at my grandparents while I waited for my sisters to finish their violin lessons at the Gilombardo School of Music a few blocks away near the main campus of the University of Minnesota.
Besides, the broken TV in the “cold room” wasn’t . . . well . . . what you’d call “unwatchable.” On one boring all-day rainy summer day, my two older sisters and I got the bright idea of pretending to watch TV. From our little chairs crowded together in the doorway of the cold room, we took turns changing the imaginary channel and watching imaginary shows. Predictably, my sisters chose some popular kids’ show, like Howdy Doody. They’d utter fake laughs and plaudits while I expressed boredom and disapproval. Then after a few minutes I’d announce that it was my turn to twist the channel. Reluctantly, they agreed. By way of magical telepathy—a precursor of the modern remote—I’d “change it” to something that featured cowboys and Indians (so I informed my sisters), whereupon I was the one to yell out an approving “Whoo-hoo!” and my sisters were the ones who were disgruntled.
In retrospect it was some of the most entertaining TV that any of us could have watched had our family owned a fully functioning set.
Before that TV faltered and was consigned to its shelf in the “cold room,” it had provided Dad with a few minutes of memorable entertainment. Over subsequent decades he recalled his amusement whenever he saw any of us encounter difficulty in assembling something, whether it was a bike rack or a piece of furniture we’d picked out at Ikea to furnish an apartment.
“This reminds me of the time . . .” he’d begin.
For years in a row when we were kids, Uncle Bruce—our “Santa Claus”—would fly out from New Jersey to visit us between December whatever and New Year’s Day. Not having kids of his own, he reserved his North Pole largess for my sisters and me. He was also sure to give Mother and Dad some big-item present. I remember in particular the complete set of pots and pans, which arrived in a big load of cartons—no assembly necessary. One year, however, a present to my sisters required lots of assembly.
I was too young to remember the gift, but according to Dad—who by the time he was retelling the story 50 years later, had himself forgotten what it was—the present came unassembled, involved numerous moving parts, and required multiple tools (none of which was included) for assembly. Furthermore, the complicated toy, whatever it was, came from Japan, and though a set of detailed instructions accompanied the parts, a lot had apparently gotten lost in translation.
As Dad told the story, the attempted assembly took place on Christmas Eve—in the living room in front of the fireplace. Uncle Bruce, who, if he didn’t possess Dad’s patience and genius for such endeavors, was nonetheless quite proficient at things mechanical. Despite his engineering skills, however, our New Jersey “Santa Claus” was having a devilish time of it. Dad took one look at the butchered English of the instructions and decided to stay clear of the scattered parts. The night was extremely cold, thus providing Dad the convenient excuse of having to tend the blaze in the fireplace and requiring more frequent loads of firewood to be hauled in from the porch.
On a small table off to the side was the little television—fully functioning. “It so happened,” as Dad would invariably recount with a laugh, “that whatever was on TV right then—I forget if it was a sit-com or a skit on a variety show—was a guy who was having one helluva time putting together some elaborate Christmas toy for his kid, except the harder the guy tried to follow the instructions, the worse it got until what was supposed to be whatever—a doll house or something, I forget—was beginning to look like a laughable mess, with the guy getting madder and madder.”
At this point in retelling the story—even the 100th time over the years—Dad always laughed, sometimes hard enough to require putting his handkerchief to his watering eyes. “I was in stitches,” said Dad, “as I watched your uncle Bruce working in almost exact tandem with the poor guy on TV . . . except that Uncle Bruce was so focused and frustrated he never noticed what was happening on TV.”
Dad and Uncle Bruce have been long gone from this life, and I doubt my sisters can remember what the contraption was that gave Uncle Bruce as much grief as the unassembled toy had caused the guy on TV. But plugged forever into my memory is Dad’s “TV Christmas mirth.”
Subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.
© 2024 by Eric Nilsson
[1]An uninsulated and unfinished room that served as a large walk-in closet adjoining the living room of our first house in Anoka.
