Day: September 15, 2017

Been There, Done That

Fandango6 Comments

If this post looks familiar, it’s because I originally posted it a couple of months ago in response to another WordPress one-word prompt, “spicy.” My post was titled “Moderation In All Things.”

Today’s one-word prompt is “flavorful.” Now you know that I’m a busy man. I have things to do, places to go, people to see. In fact, my wife and I are going to an art museum today.

So, given that I already wrote a post that contains the word “flavorful,” I thought I’d take advantage of that previously published post, since it meets today’s one-word prompt. It’s a “been there, done that” situation.

So here it is. If you read this post the last time I published it, I give you permission to skip it this time.

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People who know me describe me as a mild mannered man. I don’t know about my manners, but when it comes to food, mild is the operative word for me.

It’s not that I don’t add spices to my food. I do. I’ll add seasoned salt, garlic powder, onion powder, and a pinch of ground pepper. Just enough to add some flavor to what I ingest.

I enjoy eating, and I like my food to be flavorful. But I don’t enjoy eating food that burns going in and burns coming out. I don’t like eating food that makes me sweat. I don’t like eating food that causes me to hop up, jump around, fan my mouth, mop my brow, and gulp down large quantities of cooling liquids.

In other words, I don’t like spicy food.

And that’s a problem in my family, where everyone else likes their food extra spicy. Cayenne pepper spicy. Jalapeño peppers spicy. Sriracha sauce spicy. So when it comes to meal preparation, my wife prepares our meals in two ways. One for me, which is relatively mild, and the other for her and our kids, with all of the really spicy stuff.

I think that just proves that even a mild mannered man can be loved.

Day 15 — Color TV

Fandango6 Comments

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Suzanne McClendon’s September Challenge is comprised of 30 questions (one for each day of this month) regarding your background and history.

Day 15: When did your family get their first color television set? Do you remember the first show that you watched on it?

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Yep, I’m old enough to have been there when our color television set was delivered and set up in our living room. It was very excited and ours was one of the first houses on the block to have a color TV. I think it may have been in 1957 or 1958.

Back then there were only four channels to watch — the three major broadcast networks and one local, independent channel. No cable. No HBO or Showtime. No MTV. No VCRs or DVRs. No streaming channels. No Netflix and chill.

TVs back then didn’t come with remote control devices. I served as my household’s human remote device, since my role was to get up, walk over to the TV, turn it on and off, and change the channels as directed by my parents.

I was also responsible for moving the rabbit ears (antenna) that sat on top of the TV console in order to improve the picture reception. Additionally, because of inconsistencies in color between channels and sometimes between shows broadcast on the same channel, I often had to manually adjusting the color and contrast so that skin tones didn’t look too green, blue, or red.

So what did we watch on our color TV? There weren’t too many shows broadcast in color when we first got it, so our options were limited to a handful of shows in color. My father’s favorite show was “Bonanza,” which was one of the first westerns that was in color. My mother’s favorite was “The Perry Como Show,” a variety show and another early adopter to color TV. Oh how she adored Perry Como.

And it should come as no surprise that my favorite show in color was:

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