Ask a stupid question and you get a stupid answer, or so the old saying goes. It would seem logical that the Hundred Years’ War lasted 100 years, but actually it lasted 116 years. All of us are not Vulcans, and logic doesn’t always work, Mr. Spock.
A question with a less obvious answer might be: What kind of horse did Joe Cartwright ride on Bonanza? The correct answer: a pinto!
I have been a lifelong fan of Bonanza. I remember watching it as a young child. The show seemed to pass from the land of reruns for a while, but how excited I was to once again make the show’s acquaintance via the world of cable television.
Cable television was unheard of when I was growing up. My family started with a Philco black and white console television, undoubtedly purchased from Jack Buckner’s Furniture and Appliance, located on old Main Street in Maynardville in the same building occupied by the Maynardville Post Office and a café (I believe it was named the Starlight). We then graduated to a portable RCA color television. On both sets, we had the choices of Channels 6 (WATE), 10 (WBIR), and 26 (WTVK). Channels 6 and 10 were VHF, and 26 was UHF. You can do a Google search if you wish to find out more about those designations, but for us it meant that Channel 6 got the best reception, 10 not as good but still OK, and 26 had to have an outside antenna. The problem with the outside antenna was that every time the wind blew the antenna would turn, and that affected the reception. Of course, the reception always seemed to be negatively affected. There was nothing more frustrating than trying to watch a decent television show on a windy or stormy day.
With the color set we graduated to “rabbit ears”, a mechanism of two inside television antennas, sometimes with a round contraption in between the antennas that could be turned with a knob to get better reception. For me, the main difference in the indoor “rabbit ears” and the outside antenna was that you didn’t have to get wet or cold when trying to tune in UHF—you could be equally frustrated in the comfort of your own living room. For people with as little patience as my father, it meant he could do his cursing inside so the neighbors a hundred feet across the road couldn’t hear his colorful expletives.
When my mother and I moved in 1984 from the rental house I was mostly raised in to a new rental house down in a hole around a sharp curve on Highway 33, I briefly entertained the idea that I might be able to get cable television. Several obstacles raised their ugly heads. First, the rent was higher, income was lower, and cable wasn’t available at that location. I could not believe that cable could not be accessed on the side of a major state highway connecting Maynardville with Tazewell in the mid- and late 1980s, but such was the case. Making matters worse, the reception was so bad down under the road that the only channel barely accessible was Channel 10. I remember moving that portable RCA color television all over the living room trying to tune in the final episode of Dallas. Reception went from bad to worse to “badder” to “worser”, resulting in my practically beating that portable RCA color television to death as I recalled a few of Dad’s colorful expletives.
But then, in 1991, almost thirty years ago to this very date, Mother and I moved to the first and only house we ever owned on lovely Walker Ford Road, where I still reside with my wife and Precious Kitty. Oh joy! Rapture! Finally, cable was available, and I was working and could afford it! I could almost have kissed Richard Corum’s feet when he came to install this wonder into my life.
It didn’t take me long to find my favorite channel, either, the long-gone Family Channel. I wish that channel could be revived as it was then. The Family Channel brought back my long lost Bonanza and introduced me to other westerns. You may have watched the descendant of the former Family Channel, in its present incarnation known as Freeform. It seems the channel has gone through many changes throughout the years, both in ownership and name. I was unaware it still existed in any form whatsoever. You can read the entire history of this wonderful station by conducting a Google search (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Freeform_(TV_channel)#The_Fami…, Retrieved April 12, 2021). Every Saturday afternoon was filled with westerns, and mowed my yard on a schedule so that I didn’t miss Bonanza.
But one of the greatest joys of initially having cable television was being able to watch a television program without “snow”, waving lines, blurred color, adjusting outside antennas/indoor “rabbit ears”, and other similar aggravations. I don’t remember what my first cable bill was, but I do know it was reasonable. There were occasional outages, but at the time I could simply determine how many days were covered in each billing, note how many days service was interrupted, make such notation on the bill and deduct the amount from the bill. That was in the days when Comcast seemed more accommodating—never once in those days did the company charge me for days that service was interrupted for any portion.
But times change. If you access the article cited above, you will learn that finances and appeal to competitive viewer markets are constant drives that determine what services you will receive via your cable or satellite provider. Also, we have gone from the day that you could simply write on a cable bill how much you were going to deduct from your payment because of interrupted service. Try calling Comcast to ask a simple question—you might, as once happened to me, finally get to speak with a representative living in the next day that your time zone hasn’t yet seen! I have to admit, I found that amazing.
Times have expanded competition between providers. It has become a game to juggle providers to reduce pricing, get better services, etc. But all seems to end the same way. You have a provider—you get an initial good deal. Over time, the price seems to increase, until you one day realize you are paying more for the same or similar services than your friends and neighbors. Then you either negotiate a lower price with your current provider (I seem to find this happens less frequently as time passes) or change providers who promise you the moon, then slowly raise your prices. Then you repeat the process, etc, ad nauseam, until you either die of natural causes or give up the chase.
In closing, it reminds me of what I call the Frog in the Pot philosophy. Frogs are cold-blooded, meaning their body temperature adjusts to their environment. If you take a frog and place him in a pot of boiling water, he will immediately jump out; however, if you place the frog in lukewarm water and slowly turn up the temperature, he will adjust and stay until he is boiled and it’s too late to evacuate the premises. Sound familiar to anyone?
Until next time, I leave you with a trivia question from my storehouse of email wisdom—Which country makes Panama hats? Read me next week in historicunioncounty.com for the answer.