May 2005 The Megaphone Page 8
Momentous Occasions / Era / Aging
By Diane (Usfo) Peters
I
have never been a historian. I found history the most boring of subjects
when I was in school, and I am only now learning that much of history is simply
relating what I have lived for so many years. The things I lived and know, to
our grandchildren, are historical facts. We are living dinosaurs!
One grandchild said to me the other day when the conversation with them had
turned to the old days, "You mean there were televisions back when you were
a child!" much the same as I had been awed that my mother and father had
dated by automobile rather than horse and buggy.
It is little wonder, then, that the vision which greets me in the mirror daily
is wrinkled and saggy. As I was dragged kicking and screaming into my sixtieth
birthday party, I learned the beauty which lay in the mirror also.
There were many we knew and loved who hadn't the privilege to see wrinkles and
sags in their bodies, having lost themselves into the next world still vibrant
with youth, never getting the time to have grandchildren.
Since youth my habit has been to review my day, ask God's forgiveness for what I
did not do and for what I did do that wasn't my best, and only then to commence
sleep.
With my sixtieth year, having lived through the battle of age and accepting my
victory without crown, I find I have gained a new habit. When I awaken in the
morning to see the sun rise through our bedroom window, I now smile and thank
God that I have seen yet another of His glorious mornings on this earth and I
ask Him to make me useful in it.
So many mornings in my life I greeted the sun with the thought, "Oh, no,
Lord, not yet, not another day already. I'm not sure I can handle it, not
yet."
Age and I have found we have little time for regrets, or for people who don't
seem to have time for us, or who irritate us. Time is of the essence. Each new
day I accept as one of total grace from God, a miracle in itself, a gift.
From reading the most recent memories, it would seem 1953 was a very good year.
Our family, too, got our first television in 1953, along with my parents' first
ever brand new car, a Buick Special my dad owned until he gave it to Tom and me
when we went off to
Evidently industrialization had come into full swing and the unions of workers
had worked through problems with management so that people were employed with
high enough wages to not only feed and clothe their families, but to have a few
luxuries along the way, paving the road for more families to have better paying
jobs and their own luxuries.
The first television in our neighborhood was owned by the Waymire's across from
the street from us and down a door (isn't that a quaint saying?). I can remember
standing on my sidewalk to try getting a glimpse of the moving pictures on their
small black and white screen.
The right and left edges of their screen were curved like parentheses, but the
top and bottom of the screen were completely flat. It would seem it was
then called a 12" screen, but that may be stretching the number a bit,
perhaps it was a 7". Mr.
Waymire invited several of the men of the neighborhood, homeowners rather than
renters from the neighborhood, to come into their living room to get a glimpse
of the modern contraption which was to replace their radio one day soon, but not
yet. As is being said, there wasn't much programming at the beginning.
My maternal grandparents bought a television. Sunday was event day for me. After
The program I eagerly awaited was a dance school of youngsters from
I remember Melvin Moore, also across South J Street from us, but down yet
another door and directly next door to the Waymire's, having purchased a more
modern, larger screened television for his family, inviting Gene Mitchell,
George White, Mr. Waymire, Leroy Hostetter, and my dad over to both anticipate
and to watch the Kentucky Derby on their television.
All the men were quite excited to be able to experience the event together from
one man's living room. We called it a neighborhood then. Today, it is called a
Sports Bar. It was history in the making.
I wouldn't know the exact year, but Eddie Waymire came out of service to our
country with some technical knowledge, I believe, and became a television
repairman, years later opening a store. He and Betty operated that store
together downtown across from the newspaper office perhaps? It was Waymire Sales
and Service then, and maybe even before, but without a proper store front, just
from the front room of the elder Waymire's home.
In 1953 we did get our family's first television, a portable type model which
set on a mahogany swivel turn table next to our living room door. I don't
remember much except my sister having Arthur Godfrey and Art Linkletter shows on
during the day as she did our family ironing when Mother was working at the
Continental Can a few years, or at the canning factory in the fall.
Ed Sullivan and Milton Berle had programs my family watched regularly in the
evenings, as well as Beat the Clock. Yes, Loretta Young came swishing through a
door into a living room set each week on some type story hour.
We must remember her high cheek bones and the designer clothes she wore, but we
must also remember how the focus was softened too. She must have been aging by
then and wrinkling a bit too.
Being slightly out of focus is good for me today. One of my girlfriends bragged
in one Christmas letter how her husband had eye surgery that year and could once
again see as well as he had when he was sixteen.
I responded that was an option I would not try, because when I look into my
mirror without my glasses, with things slightly out of focus, I still look
sixteen.
With that blurry glimmer in my eye, I'll sign for now, thanking all the Den
members who have shared their own memories and helped jog a few of my own. I'm
glad you're all still here, another day older.
Diane (Usfo) Peters '62
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