Television When I Was Young

As a kid, I didn’t watch a lot of television. I enjoyed Saturday morning cartoons, though, and I watched the classics, like Popeye, Mighty Mouse, Bugs Bunny, the Flintstones, the Jetsons, Dick Tracy and Dudley Do-Right.

In the evenings we would watch Leave it to Beaver, Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, The Andy Griffith Show, Star Trek, The Untouchables, Bewitched, Hogan’s Heros, Batman, Gilligan’s Island, The Wild, Wild West, Mission Impossible, The Addam’s Family, The Munsters, the Dick VanDyke Show, and, one of my favorites, Get Smart. There were other shows, too. We only had 2-3 channels to watch but there was always something to watch at night. Sunday afternoons we watched football games. I understand this makes it sound like all I did was watch TV, but there were only a couple of shows every evening and these shows were aired over several years.

Television is great entertainment, and back then most of the shows were innocent compared to today’s fare, but I discovered a dark side to TV when I was young. My mother watched a couple of soap operas and she got so involved in the characters that the shows could wreck her day or make her cry. They were filled with so much drama, betrayal and unhappiness that her tender heart had a hard time not getting emotionally involved, so she quit them cold turkey and never watched any again.

I enjoyed watching TV as a kid, but I loved reading books much more. I also loved playing board and card games, exploring the woods and riding my bike. I am grateful for my happy memories of my childhood, some of which were times spent laughing with my sisters in front of the TV.