So that’s the antenna? I asked Daddy as we stared at the man on our roof. That’s it, Sheila Rae. Looks like something from outer space, doesn’t it? Rex, our lemon-spotted pointer puppy, was running circles around the house and barking at the men who were installing the antenna. The fellow on the ground holding the ladder glanced nervously between Rex and the man above.

Hurry up, Perry. I can’t hold this thing forever, Homer Bookman called to his brother. We’ve got to install another one before dark. And it’s all the way to Shiro. So get a move on.

Hey, Homer, Daddy said. What are all those wires hanging down from that contraption? Are you sure this thing’s gonna work?

You bet, Glenn, Homer said as he helped Perry climb down. Can’t say I really know what the wires are for. They somehow grab the pictures and sound out of the air, and then they go to the box with the little screen. Bingo! You’ve got yourself a genuine television set complete with all the bells and whistles. Yes sir, you’ve bought the airwaves of the future. When people gather round to watch a program, they’ll say Glenn Morris is more than a school man. He’s a man who marches to a different drummer and is a forward thinker. He gives his family the very best that money can buy. In this year of our Lord 1953 the Morris family leads the good people of Richards, Texas to experience the unknown. Don’t forget to say you made this important purchase at Bookman’s Appliances, he added.

Well, let’s give it a try, Perry said.

You’re certainly a salesman, Homer. No doubt about it, Daddy said, laughing. Daddy led me and Homer and Perry Bookman inside the house to our living room where the new brown box with the tiny screen sat. It was almost as tall as I was and had several knobs. Homer gave Daddy and me a lesson on their uses. We were definitely impressed.

Go ahead and turn it on, Homer instructed. It won’t bite. Daddy bent down and turned the first knob. We all stared expectantly. Magically, the small screen came to life with an unusual stationary design in the center: a black and white triangle in a circle with some black lines down the side.

That’s the test pattern, Perry offered. It’s what you see when there’s nothing on a channel. It’s pretty great, isn’t it? We all nodded as we gazed intently at the miracle before us. Television. Like radio with a picture. Like having a movie in your own home. We were surely blessed to have this wonder in our midst. Everyone beamed with happiness.

Well, Glenn, just sign here and it’s all yours, Homer said. Daddy signed the paper and shook their hands. I had no inkling at the time that my world was about to expand. The box with the screen would entertain, inform and inspire my own imagination. The only child had a new best friend.

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Dude, you better hurry up. It’s almost time for Groucho Marx, I called to my grandmother from the living room. I was in my favorite spot, sitting on the floor directly in front of the television. It was Thursday night and the quiz show “You Bet Your Life” was about to begin. Dude came in and took her customary place on the sofa in the back of the room. She had her Pond’s cleansing cream that she used every night to remove her makeup while we watched our shows.

Groucho! Dude and I shouted in unison with the TV audience as George Fenneman, the show’s announcer, began his introduction with “Now, here he is. The one, the only ________!” From our living room, we helped the audience fill in the blank. Groucho himself was nattily attired in a suit with a bow tie and professorial eyeglasses. The smoke from his omnipresent cigar filled the screen as he gave us the rules of the show. Maximum winning potential of $10,000, which was small potatoes for quiz shows even in the 1950s. Say the secret word and get another $100. The papier-mache duck dropped down to reveal tonight’s secret word: Turkey.

That’s a good one, Dude said. Groucha will have fun with that. She called Groucho “Groucha,” and I tried for a long time to correct her, but finally gave up. We loved the secret word jokes he played on his contestants. Tonight’s contender was going to become one of my favorites. She was a beautiful woman named Sylvia from Los Angeles. Groucho loved the attractive women and spent a longer time getting to know them than he did the men. Tonight’s interview revealed Sylvia had a husband named Jerry who worked nights for the utility company. You’d be amazed what you can do when your husband works nights, Sylvia said. She smiled at Groucho in a suggestive manner. You might be amazed, he quipped, but I wouldn’t. The audience roared with laughter, and so did Dude and me. Sylvia didn’t win or say the secret word, but she did give Groucho her phone number.

I wanted to be Groucho. Not handsome like George Fenneman, but so funny even the married women flirted shamelessly with him. I saw myself with the cigar and moustache. Not at all a bad look.

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Saturday mornings meant westerns for Daddy and me. The Lone Ranger rides again. The Cisco Kid and Pancho, the lovable sidekick, who made Cisco shake with laughter. Cisco seemed to be overly preoccupied with the angle of his sombrero, but he was crazy about Pancho. The Range Rider. The Adventures of Kit Carson. Sky King and his niece, Penny. What was that airplane about anyway? And why did Penny go everywhere with her uncle? Gene Autry the singing cowboy.

And of course our personal favorite Roy Rogers, King of the Cowboys. We loved Roy and Trigger, his golden palomino steed. We tolerated Dale Evans, Queen of the West, and her main ride Buttermilk because Roy obviously thought so highly of her. We wished for a dog like Bullet, his German Shepherd, who could have been a big help herding cows at our farm. We laughed at the antics of Pat Brady and his jeep Nellybelle, who were always in trouble, and at Gabby Hayes with his original bear look. We knew all the songs of the Sons of the Pioneers and loudly sang along with them in the theater of our own living room. I was Roy Rogers. I rescued damsels in distress. I thwarted cattle rustlers.

I captured bank robbers. I sang “Don’t Fence Me In” and meant it. I warbled“A Gay Ranchero” before gay was anything other than happy. When Roy and Dale were guest stars at the Houston Fat Stock Show and Rodeo, Daddy took me to see them in person. I wasn’t a fan of rodeos, but I endured the bronco riding, calf roping, barrel racing and unfunny rodeo clowns to see Roy and Dale. Then, in the darkness of the gigantic Houston coliseum, Daddy helped me make my way down the stairs from our seats to climb onto the arena railings as the spotlights searched the blackness for their entrance.

What a spectacle it was! Roy and Dale rode Trigger and Buttermilk into the center of the ring to the music of “The Yellow Rose of Texas” blaring across the Coliseum. Their outfits were dazzling. Diamond-studded. Large silver belt buckles gleamed as the lights reflected off them. They wore matching cowboy hats with amber beads and white leather fringe against black cotton shirts. Lots of fringe. Leather black-and-white cowboy boots with flowers down the side that glowed in their stirrups as they rode. It was breathtaking pageantry to this eight-year-old Roy Rogers wannabe. They sang and talked and roped and sang some more, and the grand finale was their signature “Happy Trails to You” as they rode around the arena railing, shaking hands with each tiny cowpoke who had made the trek from their seats to hang on through the show and wait for their personal touch. I was mesmerized. I saw myself riding Trigger around the country and wearing that glittering cowboy outfit. I could make the hat and boots work, too. Not at all a bad look. Little cowgirls everywhere would love me.

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“Say, kids, what time is it?” It’s Howdy Doody time!

Television after school evolved from Buffalo Bob and the Howdy Doody gang that admonished us to be good little boys and girls while we drank lots of chocolate Ovaltine, to Dick Clark and “American Bandstand” which encouraged us to “rock around the clock.” Somewhere in between, we became Mouseketeers with our very own roll call and special head gear. The Hardy Boys and Spin and Marty were my teenage heroes, and I fell hopelessly in love with Annette Funicello. I could hardly pronounce her last name, but what did it matter? She was Eye-talian and so exotic. She was perky, too – in all the right places. If I could find out where she lived, I thought, I would fly there in one of those Sky King airplanes. I would take Penny, too. Then if Annette declared her love for Tommy Kirk or Frankie Avalon was undying, I’d still have the effervescent Penny. Delicious. I ordered the Mickey Mouse ears from the Mickey Mouse Club, since that was the look Annette obviously liked. Not at all a bad look. Say goodbye to Tommy and Frankie, Annette.

Penny of Sky King

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Turn off that TV, Daddy finally said one afternoon in early autumn. Let’s go outside to play basketball. I put the goal up for you so we could spend some time working on your game. Guess what? One of the biggest mistakes I ever made was buying that television all those years ago. Things haven’t been the same since. He was right on target. My emotional attachment to television did stand the test of time. The first one I purchased for myself was a small color portable in 1967 when I got my first adult job in Houston after graduating from college. It was one of a very few possessions I took with me the following year when I drove to Seattle, Washington to get as far away from the piney woods of east Texas as I geographically could without crossing a major body of water, like an ocean. I wanted to see if I could live my own life without fear of running into one of my Houston relatives wherever I went. I was twenty-two years old.

In an unfortunate turn of events, I had to trade my beloved color portable RCA television for a month’s rent while there. I had spent the rent money on a marathon telephone conversation with a girlfriend from college who was in Hawaii training for the Peace Corps. I tried all night long to get her to abandon serving her country and come live with me. She declined. The telephone company contacted me at work the next day, told me I had exceeded my credit with them, and payment was due immediately. My landlady had coveted my color TV, and I learned a great life lesson in economics: the law of supply and demand plus lust equals no TV.

The loss of the television was as devastating as the loss of the girl.