Back the televisions were tiny with 6" screens, perhaps, yet powerful in their visual messages. News reporters and TV personalities and weathermen transformed our lives exponentially. Our world changed.
"Baldy" Hart's Café' on Forrest Street, North Brookfield was the first. Uncle Fred Charron may have been third in bringing television to the Brookfields. Charles R. Babe Varney was one of the first to sell televisions in Town. Mac's TV emerged in the Fifties and our world has never been the same since.
Aluminum Bow-Tie antennas graced chimney pots.. reaching for the waves..the television waves. TV-Top boosters amplified the distant signals eradicating "snow."
Big Brother Bob Emory saluted the President with a glass of milk while Don Kent and Jack Chase became overnight successes each Noon. TV was truly innocent. Soon after, Channel 7 (WNAC-TV and WJAR-TV Channel 10 from Providence) gave us choices in our viewings.
Dragnet, a MARK-IV production, saw Jack Webb saying "Just the facts, Mam."
Weatherman Don Kent made my youthful existence interesting. Kent was the best! In time, announcers like Tom Ellis was a welcomed addition to our screens. We became more and more addicted to watching television. Like the automobile, televisions became of age. So many celebrities.. so many memories!
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| First Color Set purchased for my parents -March 1968 -Mac's TV $700! |
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| Mr. Don Kent, himself! |
The Vietnam War was viewed each night in living color with VHS tapes flown in from the Orient. Eventually, Satellite transmissions such as the "Aloha From Hawaii" with Elvis entertained us well in 1973 in April. Australia, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, South Vietnam, and other countries watched it live on Globecam Satellite.
Television has evolved in a wild and compelling manner. Today, it's 24-7.
Everything has a birth and it's Happy Birthday to WBZ and all other channels across the skies in giving us what we are: CONNECTED.
ROBERT LOUIS POTVIN
IN HIGH DEFINITION! LOL.
Box 11
West Brookfield, MA
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