In Living Color

Watching the Winter Olympics, my mind wanders back to the times I had watched them before, and to the Wide World of Sports with its "the thrill of victory... and the agony of defeat." With only three channels and *gasp* no cable, a sports "special" was a welcome respite from the normal fare, and we were drawn to watch the drama of human athleticism. We watched these colorful games and other shows all in black and white.

I remember going to Sears ~ we did all of our civilian shopping at Sears Roebuck ~ with Daddy and Mommy and maybe a couple other siblings. We went to the television and stereo section of the store, where Daddy began to talk to the salesman. He (the salesman) extolled the many virtues of the model that we showed an interest in. The next thing we know, we hear him inviting us to come "bring the whole family" over to his house that evening to see the Color TV in action. (The only shows that were on in color, at first, were few and far between: Bonanza, Lawrence Welk and the Wonderful World of Color; so, in order to see the color, one had to wait for one of those shows to come on.)

I can imagine the salesman got home and told his wife that they would be having a family over to see the color tv that night, but Daddy hadn't mentioned that the two or three children with them were not the whole family. I think I can actually remember his wife with her "deer-in-the-headlights" look as we filed into their living room to enjoy an hour or half hour of color magic.
Of course, we bought the TV. We then proceeded to invite our "unfortunate" friends, who didn't have COLOR, over to view its many splendors. We'd sit through Meet the Press, like we would miss something if we looked away, waiting for Bonanza to start. Any show that was in color suddenly was even more desirable to watch, but Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color beat them all... from the intro song, "The world is a carousel of color, color, color. Wonderful, beautiful color, color, color..." to Tinker Bell touching her wand to make the three splashes of color *plink, plink, plink* ~ we were mesmerized and enchanted.

Just the other day, NBC got stuck on a loop of various NBC peacock spots... I said, "Look, it's stuck on the peacock." Mike said, "That's a peacock? I never knew what that was!"

Nowadays, kids complain if they have to watch a black and white movie or show. They take for granted that they can view everything in color... but we, who grew up in the infancy of television, could always envision the colors, in our mind's eye, and see it as we see it all now ~ in living color.