Many of the members won't remember not having a TV in their lives, but I do. In those cold winter nights, when it went dark early, the whole family used to sit in semicircle around the coal fire in the fireplace. There were thick curtains on the doors and home made draught exludes at the base of the doors. The room was lit by candles. That's when Grandad was in his element, because then he had us kids spellbound with his stories. Did any of you members do similar? I've just found this series on youtube and it sort of brings memories of grandad.
I don't remember not having a TV; we had the old black and white Motorola as far back as I remember. However I do remember spending time with my grandpa and listening to his stories. I adored my grandpa, and in cold months there was always a wood fire in the fireplace at his house. He smoked a pipe and sat in a rocking chair; I remember the smell of that tobacco and the creaking of his chair when he rocked. Thanks for the memories, Bert.
I was in high school before we got a television. They were around long before then but, where we lived, there was only one television station whose signal would reach us, so most people didn't bother with it. My uncle got the first television in the area and, as I remember it, you couldn't tell the Cowboys from the Indians, so I didn't see the point of it. By the time I graduated from high school, we could get three stations, but two of them were iffy, and they all went off the air at 10:00 or 11:00 pm except on weekends, when one of them would boost its signal and stay on all night. Television wasn't a part of my childhood, but I would bring my little transistor radio under the blankets with me to listen to serial radio shows at night.
We spent our time outdoors, sometimes working, but mostly building forts, playing war games, swimming in the rivers and lakes, camping out, and sometimes taking long bicycle trips. Later, there were go-carts made from old washing machine motors. By the time I was fourteen, there was a motorcycle.
I grew up with a television, but after I left home, I didn't have a TV again until my wife (to be ) gave me an old B&W TV as a gift, as she thought I was lonely. We have had one of some kind since, although when I lived in Bush Alaska, we could only receive two stations--one run by the state and one operated by a church. We mostly watched videos then I lived alone before we got married and was an avid reader.
I can't believe you missed out on Howdy Doody and My Friend Flicka. Did you ever sit by the fireplace?
We didn't have a fireplace, but we sat around the oil stove, or around the woodstove at camp. At our house, we had an oil stove but we didn't have a system of radiating the heat throughout the house, so the only warm areas were around the stove. Most of the old shows, I have seen in re-runs or via streaming, but I don't think I have ever seen an episode of Howdy Doody.
We had a black & white television when I was a kid (born in '54), but as an adult I acquired a few old multi-band console tube radios. I still have the one that picks up the BBC. I sometimes listened to BBC programming in the evenings as a break from the boob tube.
One of my grandfathers died before I was born. Many said he was rather grouchy. I don't know if it was true or not. The other grandfather was quiet, never said much. I don't remember him ever speaking to me individually. I liked him a lot though. Possibly my favorite relative. In our family, kids were second-class citizens. It seemed like all the adults were always busy doing something important. I can't imagine any of them spending much time talking to a bunch of kids. I guess our family was really odd that way. In hindsight it was not a bad learning experience, for many reasons .
My childhood remembrances sound so much like what @Ken Anderson says his were like. We did not have a television until I was a teenager, either, and it was a black and white model, and my folks still had the same one long after I was grown up and married. I was outside after school and all day in the summer. We built snow forts in the winter, and played in nearby empty lots in the summer, and at night, I laid on my bed and read books. I never missed having a television, and still seldom watch one. Eventually, my mom and dad did buy a color console (those were popular at the time in the 1960’s), and that was the last television they ever bought. I remember shopping for it with her and my dad when my oldest son was just a couple of years old. It still sat in the house after they passed away, and it seems like it even worked still. We didn’t have a fireplace, we had one of those oil-burning stoves that looked like the brown wood stoves from that era. We had to keep it on low, or it smoked and belched and tried to explode. Then mom would rush me outside, while my dad tried to stop the oil and sop up the extra before the stove could be lit again. In the meantime, my mom and I were outside in the snow freezing ! Anyway, in the summertime, we often had a small bonfire at night, and we would sit around the fire and roast hot dogs and marshmallows. My school friends who were neighbors would come over and we would listen to music with my transistor radio, and it was a lot of fun. Not the same as sitting around the fireplace; but just as wonderful, only in a different way.