You have served me and my family well for over 60 years, from the early days of a flickering image on my Uncles 9 inch DUMONT with Lucy and Uncle Miltie doing their antics , News, Game Shows, Howdy Doody and Clarabelle asking "What time is it?".... western's, sports , politics, soaps, playhouses , then .on to the 60's with the images of Al Shepard sitting on a rocket while we sat in a hallway in grade school with the TV showing the launch, .... of that fateful day in Dallas and later young John John saluting his dad , with me racing downstairs to watch cartoons on Saturday mornings or home from school for the 3 Stooges on our own Zenith B+W, Mr Wizard, to our class trip tours of NBC Rockerfeller Center and being on COLOR TV (WOW!!!!) and onto the insipid sit comms and of course ,SPACE Missions ..Uncle Walter hosted on CBS in all it's color. Being there Christmas Eve '68 seeing the Moon go by as the Apollo 8 astros read from the Bible... Sweet! Then Apollo 11 ---- almost 3 days of broadcast straight There was Kent State, urban riots, Martin Luther King, The Vietnam War and other crisis brought to your living rooms at 7pm, but we still watched.

The 70's brought Cable TV, but we resisted, dad said it cost too much money ($9.95 a month) and there is nothing on it that we can't get off air. Archie Bunker made us howl and new terms like MOVIE of the WEEK came in.. PBS entered our households and this Nova series drew my attention. Carl and Julia WHO???? Talk and Cooking shows and other formats glutted the airwaves and made us stagger and ponder how we"re gonna watch all this stuff? Then, SALVATION.........
The VCR arrived.......... Time shifitng, recording broadcasts off air and then watching them at more reasonable hour or DAY..YAHOOO!!!! We abandooned sitting down at the alotted hour to watch at our command. REMOTE CONTROLS<, Color, sound, quality got better until

the 90's when a new phrase DIGITAL TV, widescreen, showed up and lured us to purchase one. We were seduced by it's stereo sound, flashy menus and wide aspect viewing ratios but dad still kept an old 1972 RCA in the rec room ......"just in Case"

So, with the end of this type of analog TV what do we have to show for it? How has it shaped our lives in a world where it was described as the BOOB Tube and a vast cultural wasteland? Some say it drove familys apart and caused social and cultural upheaval but to this day I still have the fond memories as a kiddie of sitting there with dad on a Saturday nite and watching GUNSMOKE and all was well with the world because MATT DILLION would get his man in the end.