TV, Earlybirds and Fireworks

After yesterday's discussion of dolls and toys on the way home from the theater in Woodinville, Kathy dug around a bit more in memory lane -- on the topic of TV. We watch little TV these days (for my part I may turn it on a couple of times a year for football games: New Year's, and the Superbowl if I'm home), but it was interesting to compare.

Because the European broadcast system (PAL) was different from the US (NTSC)* they did not get a TV until the moonshot. But she remarked that the state-run TV in Belgium and Sweden were different from each other, and both very different from the free-wheeling US. Their PAL set would not work in Iran (SECAM) so they did not have TV in Iran; this allowed her to devote all her time to becoming fluent in Farsi before she was to start school at the university.

For my part our reception in Midland was really poor until my father and I put up antennas; a huge yagi VHF array topped by a UHF array backed by a bowl-shaped reflector, all on a rotor on the roof. Although I gave up on TV news in 1981, just a year after I started watching it, as a boy I regularly watched a number of Saturday morning programs -- from Howdy Doodie and Captain Kangaroo to Beanie & Cecil and Supercar (with marionettes, remember that?). Later it was The Untouchables, and with family on Sunday evenings it was Bonanza, 60 Minutes and I forget what else. But I slowly drifted away until the early 2000s I was down to Star Trek:whichever and 60 Minutes, then... nothing.

But there was a curious point she dug up in the conversation. In our household I'm the early bird, the others are night owls. I'd thought it was a work habit: my Seattle commute was so bad until they widened the highway that I'd leave the house at 6:30 in order to get to work in 13 minutes rather than the 45 minutes it required an hour or so later.

But when I remembered getting up to watch the Saturday morning programs, turning on the TV and watching the test pattern followed by the national anthem to begin the day's broadcasts, she realized this was a lifelong thing.

I guess she's right. And perhaps this is one reason I don't watch fireworks much anymore. In Midland we all drove to some field just outside town (to the north if I recall) and watched them. I think they were sometime around 9 or 9:30 PM (can any Midlanders comment?). We live further north here in Seattle, with VERY long summer days, so they don't start fireworks until about 10:30 or so. And by then I just want to be in bed asleep. Kind of a pity because I have some high-speed flash-triggered capabilities (new firmware) on my camera I'd like to try out, but the cities have also been eliminating many of the old fireworks venues -- and who can blame them?

At least it's been raining a lot lately so I don't have to worry about somebody setting the giant cedar forest around us on fire tonight.


* There are/were three basic systems in use in the world, and a long time ago I ran across a rather funny description of the three. It went somethng like this: SECAM, invented by the French and used by the Soviets, gave you no control whatsoever over your set. PAL, used through most of Europe permitted you some control over your set's settings, but they were limited. NTSC (jokingly called "Never Twice the Same Color"), used in the U.S., gave you complete and total freedom, however you wanted to view it.