Like most baby boomers, I remember when we got our first T.V. set. Ours was a black and white beauty, but the family through the block had a color one. There was no use going to their house, he had some many brothers and sisters and with their friends it was too hard to see anything. This is the same family whose mom came to pick me up for baseball practice one day and when I got in the car I couldn't believe it felt like a refrigerator. I know this is the first time I had ever felt air conditioning. Wow, that was nice. Like heck I'm getting out of this car when we get to practice! Then I thought it might be weird just sitting there when we arrived, plus nothing was more important than baseball, at least until football started.
Houses back then were smaller and didn't have T.V. or entertainment rooms. Our T.V. was put in the dinning room; you would have thought it was to watch during dinner, but that wasn't allowed. When you consider there was a table that sat eight people, the younger kids had to eat in the kitchen; there were a lot of places to sit but not much room for anything else.
In the corner of the same room there sat a large soft chair. It was more like a couch for two small people. You could sink down in that chair for a week. Once someone got in that chair it took an act of congress to get him or her out. When they did get out it was a free-for-all to see who sat there next - anything was fair game. I don't know when savvies, dibb's, calling it or reserving came into play but they didn't work at my house. Maybe because it was the only soft chair a lot of things happened to coax someone out of the chair.
It was easier to get the girls out than the boys. I don't know how someone found out or if it still works today, but there was a phone number you could call, then hang up and your own phone would ring. Now this was before cordless phones and it had a big dial on it that you would put your finger in and spin it like a roulette wheel. This worked like a charm for a while, we would answer the ringing phone and tell our sisters that it was a boy and out they would come. Then the mad dash would begin.
The biggest problem was if you needed to go to the bathroom, to bad Charlie. You would try to hold it as long as you could but sooner or later you're coming out of the chair. When someone gave up the chair it was usually accompanied with a comment that they really don't want to watch any more. Oh course everyone knew this was a lie. There was also another problem. This was before remote controls so if you had the chair and someone changed the channel, you could yell all you wanted, but instead of Saturday morning cartoons you ended up watching the Monkeys, Beetles or American Bandstand. It wasn't fair if a kid couldn't watch cartoons that only came on once a week.
Doorbell ditching, crying, telling someone there were treats in the kitchen - nothing was sacred when trying to obtain the chair. The older kids sometimes played by different rules, usually when dad wasn't home. My oldest brother threw me out of the chair once. I think he left for some important reason like getting a treat and when he returned he wanted it back. While flying out of the chair I went through a glass panel on the Victoria door going from the dinning room to the front room. All of the sudden the chair didn't mean so much. As I was going to pull my head out, he stopped me and more glass had to be broken before I could safely remove my head. Surprisingly I didn't get any stitches, just a few small cuts and if I recall I had first choice at the chair for a while. I'm sure he's not too happy I'm still telling the story. But most of the time if you received the chair somewhat fairly, you got to keep it. Even if you had to watch something that wasn't worth watching.
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