By John Matonich
When I was growing up, whether we knew it or not, there were a number of traditions in our house. Supper was at 4:30 p.m. Not dinner, that was at 11:30 a.m. We all sat at the kitchen table together. There weren’t any trays in front of the TV and while there was a small black and white TV in the kitchen. It wasn’t turned on until 
supper was over. The time was spent catching up on the activities of the day or making fun of a sibling until Dad gave you the eye. The table in the dining room was only used when relatives came over or if it were a major holiday. Since Dad had a plaque on the wall that said “Relatives and Fish STINK after Three Days,” we didn’t see many relatives. Even if some showed up, Dad would simply stand by his plaque while folks were visiting and polish it with his elbow. I guess I wouldn’t call him a politician.
Once our supper was over, we typically moved to the living room and turned on the news. My Dad was a news junkie. Whether it was the local AM radio station in the morning and at noon or the local paper that usually showed up by 3:30 or the news at 6 and 10 on TV, he was typically listening reading or watching. I guess it rubbed off on me as well. I remember watching Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. They would tell us about the Vietnam War or the economy or national politics. The one common thread then is that it was obvious they were reporting the news, not making the news. I can’t say that anymore and my taste for watching TV news is about gone.
I still enjoy reading the paper even if it may be online. If an article starts heading down the “let me tell you what you should think” path, I can simply stop reading and go on to the comics or some other far more intelligent writing. That is hard to do when the tube is on and some newscaster starts spewing their view of some news event. If their view was truly important, my guess is they wouldn’t be reading from a teleprompter but would be on staff of some think-tank sitting in a room with pitcher of spring water and a pad of paper solving the world’s problems. It almost appears that many (if not most) newscasters get bored reporting about the cat saved from the tree so they have to interject that even though all turned out well, the rescuer of the cat could have been an anti-cat person and it could have turned out much worse. Good grief, I will be sure to tune in tomorrow to see if any people could have been pushed off a pier.
I miss the days when news was reported and not made. We still bought the products advertised and didn’t need to be scared or worry about folks. There was a time for a newscaster to tell us his or her thoughts, but it was billed as their “opinion” not their reality.
I probably need to wrap this up as even though I don’t have a Samsung Galaxy S7, I do have an iPhone 6 and it certainly could possibly burst into flames and burn the keyboard it is next to and I would lose this could-be-award-winning-work.
And that’s the situation as I survey it …
After a 35-year career downstate amongst da trolls, during which he built a successful engineering and surveying business, John Matonich is back home in da U.P. His column will appear here occasionally, don’tcha know. His book “Surveyin’ Da Situation” is available on Amazon.com.
So, have you made any signs to sell about relatives and fish? I am sure people would buy them. I also agree with you about the news…or lack thereof.
That is a great idea… I will be adding those to the shop very soon…
You have that great picture of Chet Huntley and David Brinkley at the top. Is it true that the famous model Christy Brinkley (used to be Mrs. Billy Joel) is David Brinkley’s daughter?
Notice that Chet and David have dial telephones on their desk, and an ashtray. Have your kids ever even seen a dial telephone? Would they know how to use one? And, everybody used to smoke while they worked in the USA. Did Huntley and Brinkley smoke while they talked? Johnny Carson did. I did.
Apparently “Brinkley” was Christy’s adoptive dad’s name: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christie_Brinkley
I grew up in the late 1950’s , black and white TV, transistor radio’s, blonde furniture, Mom cleaned the house daily, hell hourly, in a dress, Dad wore a white shirt and suit to work everyday at GM, ( white socks to), his wing tip shoes always shined, matched the color of his black or brown suit.
In fact, we had the first remote controlled TV in the neighborhood…….that was me. Dad would dictate what Channel we would watch, 2, 4, 7, 9…UHF or UHV.
It was my job to get up and change the channel. Later we would also have the first remote garage door opener….Yes….that was me also……Those were the days.
Ron, it was VHF and UHF. (very high frequency and ultrahigh frequency). Just south of Flint we could pull in 2,4,5,6,7,9,12 and 20,25,50 with just rabbit ears. Of course 2/6/25 were all CBS, 7/12 were ABC and 4/5 were NBC so when they showed network programs our are only real choice was which one got the best reception. Those were the days,…. Yes they were the days of grainy B/W TV when you put aluminum foil on the antenna and/or had your little brother hold it in the right position for “one more minute”
Thanks for bringing back so many good memories–morning news on the radio while eating breakfast; supper at an actual table; Chet, David and Walter on the evening news. I know things weren’t perfect or even very good for some people back then, but times were simpler and more enjoyable. I’m glad I grew up when I did, and I’m glad my kids grew up when they did.
TV-trays made me laugh! We had those, used them for a sentence for sloppy eating habits. You’d be banished from the table to eat at a TV-tray then keep all of them clean until after we had our next family meal on TV-trays where spills would abound in unusual proportions.
Tipping over the flimsy TV-trays wasn’t a problem, we had hard wood floors and a dog!